Just four seasons after helping to build a World Series winner for the Boston Red Sox, Dave Dombrowski is back on the sport's highest stage as the president of baseball operations for the Philadelphia Phillies.
But in an in-depth profile on Dombrowski, USA Today's Bob Nightengale reminds us that managing partner John Middleton and the Phillies needed to make multiple attempts to land the future Hall of Fame executive before getting him to sign on the dotted line in December of 2020.
One of the reasons that Dombrowski initially rebuffed the Phillies is because he had recently moved to Nashville, joining Music City Baseball LLC in July of 2020 as a consultant and advisor in their attempt to bring an MLB team to the city.
The two sides eventually compromised. Dombrowski agreed to join the Phillies as their top baseball executive, but his contract does include a clause that would allow him to leave his post with the Phillies if he got an offer to lead the front office of an MLB team beginning play in Nashville, per Nightengale.
Nashville has been speculated upon as a landing spot if the Tampa Bay Rays eventually relocate, but there's no evidence anything like that is in the works. Rob Manfred said over the summer MLB would like to get to 32 teams, but that seems more like a long-term goal and there's no guarantee Nashville would be one of the two expansion cities if the league added new franchises for the first time since the 1998 campaign.
Nashville may very well get an MLB franchise one day, but it may not be on a timeline that makes sense for Dombrowski, who is 66. As things stand currently, Dombrowski has two years left on a four-year/$20 million contract, and Nightengale writes "there are already plans to lock him up to an extension."
And if you don't believe the reporting, take the word of the owner directly.
"There’s not a chance that we'll let him get away," Middleton said to Nightengale.
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