Lansing Regional Chamber Economic Club Meeting
David Dombrowski
CEO and General Manager of the Detroit Tigers
January 22, 2015
by Chuck Krafft
Even though it is still
winter, Detroit Tiger fans are eagerly looking forward to following the 2015
Tigers through their season. Will this
be the year the Tigers bring home the World Series?
At this month’s Economic Club
Event, the Lansing Regional Chamber helped to give us the answer to this question
from the most knowledgeable person possible.
That’s right!! Tiger General
Manager Dave Dombrowski is here to tell us about the process of making the
downtrodden Tigers of twelve years ago into the annual title contender they are
today!
I really enjoy the Regional
Chamber events and attend whenever I can.
These events are just one of the many benefits afforded to Lansing
business people through their chamber membership!
The event opened when Chamber
President Tim Daman greeted the 450 attendees. Lunch was served; Mr. Daman then introduced
Jim Robinson, the Chief Executive Officer of Farm Bureau Insurance, who spoke
on behalf of the Mid-Michigan Business Travel Coalition.
The Travel Coalition’s goal
is to support the providing of the best possible air travel service to the
Lansing Area. He let us know of some
specials and new services that would be provided. He focused on service to Cancun, Puerto
Vallarta and Washington, D.C. You can go to their website for more
information about their support of the Capital Region International Airport!
Mr. Robinson introduced Ken
Theis, the President and CEO of Dewpoint, the Speaker Sponsor. Mr. Theis reported that Dewpoint has
recently moved to the downtown area and has expanded so much that they needed
to hire 150 IT people in the last three years.
Thanks to Dewpoint for providing these high quality positions to our
area!
They work with business
leaders to help IT be more efficient.
This is accomplished by reviewing the IT function as it interacts with a
client’s business operations and employees as opposed to simply building and
maintaining an IT system. They don’t
want their clients to spend more money; they want them to spend it more wisely.
Mr. Theis introduced Dave
Dombrowski at this point. Mr. Dombrowski
first played a promotional video that showed snippets of Tiger history as well
as featuring some of the current players.
The final view was a announcing that the Tigers were the Central
Division Champions of 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. (Loyal Tiger Fans are of course, hoping to
see the Tigers add a fifth year to that run!)
Mr. Dombrowski broke the ice
by asking if anyone in the room wanted to attend Spring Training and joking
about extending his talk so that there would not be time for the audience to
ask questions about Star Pitcher Max Scherzer, who recently left the Tigers to
sign with the Washington Nationals.
He spoke of one his recent
important decisions, the hiring of Tiger Manager Brad Ausmus to replace
long-time manager Jim Leyland for the 2014 season. Apparently, in addition to Mr. Ausmus’s
skills at understanding baseball and leading people, women find him attractive;
Mr. Dombrowski says he frequently fields questions from female fans about Brad
Ausmus!
He came to the Tigers in 2002
after the Tigers had experienced eight consecutive losing seasons. In a lesson that many business leaders could
learn from, he told us that the first need was to evaluate what was happening
in the organization. While there was a
losing atmosphere, there were also some employees who did their jobs well. He needed to avoid making snap judgments so
that he did not remove the positive pieces that were already in place. He knew he needed to be patient and organize
the transition.
He asked his staff how many
players in the minor leagues would be projected to be among the top five
players in baseball at their position.
In 2002, there was only one. He
decided to trade their best players to get more talent into the organization.
There is an old baseball
adage. (Actually, if you read baseball
at all, it’s a hundred-fifty year old game and there are hundreds of old
adages; Mr. Dombrowski chose this one!)
In baseball, it is said that you will win one third of your games. You will lose one third of your games. How well your team does in the remaining
third of the games will determine the quality of your team’s season.
In 2003, the Tigers won only
43 of 162 games, losing 119. This shows
how little talent there was on the team as they actually won 11 less than one
third of their games.
Mr. Dombrowski said that
because of the long period of suffering through losing teams, there was an
attitude of acceptance of the losing that pervaded the organization. He needed to change that attitude. It was important to overcome problems like
injuries or unexpected poor performances by players instead of using them for
excuses.
He did so by letting the
staff see how hard he worked and how much he cared. He also made a point of showing pride and
confidence at all times when he dealt with people.
He used the example from
1997, when the Marlin’s Owner asked him to reduce payroll to an absolute
minimum so the team could be sold. The
Marlins had just won the World Series three days before Mr. Dombrowski was
instructed to do this. While it was
heartbreaking to break up this championship team, he decided that it was
pointless to sulk. He made the smartest
trades he could and got back enough talent so that the Marlins won the World
Series again in 2003.
He applied the lessons he
learned from his unpleasant tasks of 1997 to building the Tigers. He knew he had to get new, quality talent
into the Tigers’ organization.
He also had to turn Detroit
into a place where players would want to play.
He told of contacting player agents in 2003 and not being able to get
them to return calls. He finally was
able to convince Pudge Rodriguez to note the great history of the Tiger
franchise, as well as the fans, Comerica Park, an owner who really wanted to
win and the Spring Training Facility.
The next important thing was
to hire a good manager. He was able to
hire Jim Leyland, who had previously worked with him and led the Marlins to the
1997 World Series Championship. He
related a story from 2006, when he felt the Tigers had not fought hard enough
to win the third game of a series after they had won the first two games. Mr. Leyland made it clear that he would never
accept subpar effort and it was not to happen again.
After that, he talked about his
current players and the 2015 Tiger Team.
He is excited about having a lineup that will include Miguel Cabrera,
the best hitter in baseball, J.D. Martinez, Victor Martinez and Yoenis Cespedes,
who has arrived in a trade this year.
These are four fine hitters that will anchor a strong offense.
He related this story to let
us know about Miguel Cabrera’s will to win and leadership skills. He hit well enough to be named the Player of
the Month for September, 2014.
After the end of the season,
he had to have surgery to remove bone chips and a bone spur from the
ankle. When they did the surgery, the
doctors found a break in the navicular ankle bone. Cabrera was so determined to help his team
win that he broke the bone while trying to hit off an ankle that could not
twist properly. Winning the Player of
the month with that kind of an injury showed really special determination and
courage.
He then took questions from
the audience. We learned the Mr.
Dombrowski is confident that the bullpen will be better in 2015. He mentioned that Joakim Soria and Bruce
Rondon will be recovered from injuries after not being able to contribute at
their usual levels in 2014. (Rondon did
not pitch at all last year.)
Mr. Dombrowski told us that
he expects Steven Moya to perform so well in the minor leagues that he will
eventually force his way onto the major league team and be a star performer for
the Tigers.
He addressed some of the
construction near Comerica Park. He
cited a new hockey arena being built and a new rail system going in. He also mentioned the Little Caesar’s is
considering moving their corporate headquarters into the area.
We learned that Catcher Alex
Avila will try a new mask to make it less likely that he will endure
concussions in the future. No one knows
why, but Avila seems to take more abuse from foul tips than other catchers;
this was a factor in Avila’s concussions last year.
He declined to discuss
Pitcher David Price’s contract negotiations because he feels it is best to
respect the player and leave those discussions behind the scenes.
He finished up by letting us
know that he is optimistic that David Price, Justin Verlander and Anibal
Sanchez will be the cornerstones of one of the top pitching rotations in
baseball in 2015.
Thank you to the Lansing
Regional Chamber and to Dave Dombrowski for treating us to this wonderful event
and great presentation. Your blogger is
a Toastmaster and noticed how composed, confident and organized Mr. Dombrowski
was during his presentation. He is a
fantastic communicator in addition to his obvious skills at running the Tiger
Organization!
