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For years, Kaline had listened to excuses. Not enough revenue this, bad luck in scouting that. This new guy, Dave Dombrowski, he was different. Said the new Tigers would have to be better than the other teams, work harder than division rivals, make fewer mistakes. No excuses, Dombrowski stressed.
Those days are history.
“I knew from there,” Kaline says, “that this was the guy to have his hands on everything. I knew then we’d be back; I just didn’t know how quickly.”
The Tigers have already been in one World Series, in 2006, just three years after losing 119 games. They missed the playoffs last year and reacted by trading prospects for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis.
Those moves and others push the payroll toward $134 million — $20 million or so more than anybody else in the AL Central. While the Twins are forced to trade Johan Santana, and the Indians will most likely lose C.C. Sabathia, Detroit recently locked up Cabrera with an eight-year deal — underscoring the reality that the Tigers are in a different tax bracket than the rest of the division.
It’s part of the reason that all 81 Detroit home games may be sold out before opening day, despite a dreadful local economy.
“The Tigers are playing by a different set of rules than the rest of that division right now,” says an NL executive. “Their people are making good decisions and using their resources well, and that part of it should never be overlooked.
“But if you’re Kansas City, you’re doing everything you can, getting better, and then you look up and see the Tigers add Cabrera and Willis? Come on.”
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It’s funny, though. If you look at how the Tigers went from 119 losses to World Series contender, and squint your eyes a little while you’re doing it, it might look like what the Royals are doing now.
It started with the hiring of a new general manager (Dombrowski), who brought in people he’d been successful with in the past (in Florida). They beefed up scouting and player development, focusing on consistently producing major-league players from within (like Curtis Granderson and Justin Verlander).
They were mostly ridiculed for their first major free-agent signing (Ivan Rodriguez) and then told they overpaid for a risky outfielder (Magglio Ordoñez).
In order, change the parentheses to Dayton Moore, Atlanta, Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, Gil Meche and Jose Guillen and it’s at least similar in practice, if not results.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do here, and it’s a lot of fun work,” Royals general manager Dayton Moore says. “We’re building something we’re going to be proud of at some point in time. I don’t know when that’s going to happen. But we’re confident.”
No matter how well the Royals do in scouting and player development, the difference in payroll remains.
Then again, the Royals invested a total of $91 million into Meche and Guillen and offered a reported $80 million more to Torii Hunter.
Nobody can be sure how much money Moore’s leadership can spend in signing and developing new talent. But one thought is that the Royals can contend for the playoffs with a lesser payroll, and then more resources could become available.
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