Dave Dombrowski continues to live up to his reputation.
Less than two years after taking over as the Phillies' president of baseball operations, Dombrowski has Philadelphia four wins away from a World Series title, as the Phillies defeated the San Diego Padres 4-3 in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series on Sunday to advance to their first World Series since 2009.
Tomase: We can now saw that Bloom got the Vazquez trade right
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Boston sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Dombrowski now has led four different organizations to a World Series berth, the most of any executive in MLB history. Here's the list:
- Florida Marlins (1997)
- Detroit Tigers (2006, 2012)
- Boston Red Sox (2018)
- Philadelphia Phillies (2022)
Dombrowski won championships in both Florida and Boston, where he took over a last-place Red Sox team in 2015 and rebuilt it into a 108-win juggernaut that went 11-3 in the 2018 postseason to steamroll to a title.
The flip side of Dombrowski's remarkable success is that he focuses heavily on the short term, often prioritizing high-profile big-league signings over keeping the farm system stocked. Red Sox fans learned this the hard way after Dombrowski was fired in 2019; Boston has finished last in the American League East in two of the last three seasons as Chaim Bloom tries to replenish a barren prospect pool.
Dombrowski's model clearly produces results at the MLB level, however, and former Red Sox vice president of pitching development Brian Bannister posted an illuminating Twitter thread on Sunday night highlighting why his former boss is so good at his job. (Click on the tweet to read the full thread.)
It has to pain Red Sox fans watching Dombrowski and former Boston slugger Kyle Schwarber compete in a World Series after their team's disappointing season -- but at least the New York Yankees have been eliminated, as Philly will face the Houston Astros starting Friday night.