Dave Dombrowski was fired from his position as president/CEO/general manager of the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday after leading a major overhaul prior to the trade deadline. While many believed it was over a contract dispute, Dombrowski said otherwise on Wednesday.
Unless team owner Mike Ilitch were to come out and say something, it appears the speculation as to why the two sides split can be laid to rest.
"It's pretty simple," Dombrowski told Jason Beck of MLB.com. "Mike Ilitch let me know yesterday, they were going with a different leadership direction."
The 59-year-old's contract was set to expire after this season and it was assumed he would be returning to the Tigers after what had happened last week. Dombrowski orchestrated three significant trades before the deadline that sent David Price, Yoenis Cespedes and Joakim Soria elsewhere and better prepared the team for 2016 and beyond.
Instead, Dombrowski will be a free agent and Al Avila, the Tigers' longtime assistant general manager, will take over in Detroit.
And it was Avila who apparently spilled the beans. Dombrowski felt his time in Detroit could be coming to an end when he saw Avila at Comerica Park on Tuesday afternoon.
"I could tell something wasn't right," he told Anthony Fenech of the Detroit Free Press. "I know him pretty well."
Dombrowski was earning $3 million per season under his current contract, according to Cot's Baseball Contracts, and the initial belief was that either Ilitch was waiting to offer his president/GM a new deal or that Dombrowski wanted a raise considering he's one of the best front office executives in the MLB. Other execs, namely Andrew Friedman of the Los Angeles Dodgers, make more than that.
Perhaps it's no surprise. Early in July FOX Sports' Jon Morosi reported that there had been "no recent progress toward an extension for Dombrowski," which is pretty late in the year for not having framework for a new deal established.
And there apparently was no reason behind it other than the Tigers wanted to move in a new direction beyond 2015.
