Dembrowski, Leyland Back For 2011. Is Illitch Going Soft?

Tigers Owner and Little Caesar's Extraordinaire, Mike Illitch is one of the most respected men in Detroit. He does a lot for the community, he creates lots of jobs, he owns the two most beloved sports teams in the city, and when rumors fly that our basketball team could possibly leave town, he offers to buy them just to keep them in Detroit.

He can also make one heck of a cheap pizza. 

But with all that he has going on, is it possible that he is too busy to care about his teams?

The Illitch family recently announced that they will be bringing GM Dave Dombrowski and Manager Jim Leyland back for the 2011 season.

Why?

In the last 4 seasons, what have they accomplished in regards to the tigers success?

For one, Dave Dombrowski has gained a reputation for not knowing how much he should be paying players. After 2006, Illitch gave him freedom to do what he wanted with the payroll. His first move: Signing a washed-up Dontrelle Willis to a 3 year, $10 million contract. The large majority of that contract was spent with a class-A Minor League team, thus making him one of the highest paid minor league players in history.

Then he started throwing money like he was at a strip club. Giving A-Rod caliber deals to players like Nate Robertson, Magglio Ordonez, and Curtis Granderson. All decent players, but not worth that money at all.

Then Came the odd pickups. In 2009, with a legit chance of making the playoffs, The Tigers lacking only a big, left-handed bat, Dombrowski goes out and gets: Pitcher Jarrod Washburn? Well Jarrod had a terrible second half and so did The Tigers.

Now to Jim Leyland. Jimmy Lee came to detroit in 2006 and did something that tigers fans had not seen in long time: Coached a winning team. His off the wall antics and strange decisions brought us all the way to the world series, where we promptly embarrassed ourselves in front of the whole country. Since then he has made the same off the wall choices, but they haven't exactly played out well. The Tigers went right back to last place in 2007 and haven't returned to glory since. 

He takes players that make way more than they should be and gives them plenty of days off, instead of making them work for that check. Sure, maybe he's trying to keep his good players rested but while they're sitting on the bench, we're losing games. Is it really worth it.

He regularly takes pitchers who are on fire out of games in the 5th or 6th inning, and the next day will leave a guy getting blown up in until the 8th. It almost looks like he wants to sabotage the team. 

If a football coach calls stupid plays and loses alot, he will be fired right? So how come Leyland can have bases loaded, down by 1 run in extra innings in a one game playoff, have a catcher who's batting 0-7 on the day, and NOT pinch-hit the catcher on the bench who, by the way, just happens to be one of the hottest hitters on the team at the time? 

As we all know, in that previous example, the 0-7 catcher was allowed to hit, and promptly struck out, thus ending The Tigers' playoff dreams.

So yeah Dombrowski came in in 2003 and found some unknown talent that Jim Leyland was able to take to the World Series in 2006, but that was it, it was our fluke glory year. Since then they have both proved to be incompetent and unable to perform their jobs well.

Why are they coming back?

Come on Mr. Illitch, I like you, please don't turn into William Clay Ford Sr.

We can't Keep living in 2006, that was a long time ago.