Tigers’ CEO Finds On-Field Success With Off-Field Deals
From Bill Shea at Crain’s Detroit Business on September 18, 2011, with mention of SABR members Dave Dombrowski and Gary Gillette:
Dave Dombrowski read the bestselling baseball economics book Moneyball after it was published in 2003, but he doesn’t know whether he’ll have time to see the Hollywood film adaptation that comes out this month.
That’s because the Detroit Tigers’ CEO, president and general manager will be too busy over the next several weeks trying getting his team back to the World Series.
Going into Friday’s game at Oakland, the Tigers were expected to wrap up their first American League Central Division title and would begin the best-of-five division series playoff Sept. 30.
Detroit’s return to the postseason is largely credited to personnel moves made by Dombrowski, who also slashed $27 million from the team’s player payroll by Opening Day to get it to about $107 million.
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Dombrowski’s personnel moves this year have obviously worked out very well,” said Gary Gillette, a Detroit-based author, co-editor of the ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia and board member of the Society for American Baseball Research.
“Taking Brandon Inge, Magglio Ordoñez, and the second baseman-du-jour out of the everyday lineup and replacing them with Wilson Betemit, Delmon Young, and Ramon Santiago has been a major factor in the club’s late-season surge.”
Read the full article here: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20110918/FREE/309189954/tiger-deals-deliver-ceos-off-field-plays-are-big-part-of-teams-on#
Originally published: September 19, 2011. Last Updated: September 19, 2011.