BOSTON -- A few minutes before the start of the Red Sox game at Fenway Park on Sunday night, Dave Dombrowski stood along the first-base line as part of a ceremony to honor club employees. When introduced by the public-address announcer, Dombrowski waved his right arm slightly. There was barely any acknowledgment from a crowd still filing in and made up of more Yankees fans than usual near the end of a lost Red Sox season.
But by the end of the night, Dombrowski's standing was the dominant issue in the building, after the Red Sox abruptly fired him with a year remaining on the contract of one of baseball's most accomplished executives.
There had been an undercurrent of conversation inside and outside the building dating back to August and September of 2018 about whether Dombrowski was in jeopardy of losing his job as president of baseball operations, an ownership decision that might have been deferred by the club's World Series victory last fall. It is not immediately known why the firing went down in this manner, at midnight of the third game of a wraparound series in mid-September.
Perhaps Dombrowski had sought clarity about where he stood with ownership in recent days and the final decision was accelerated by a conversation during Sunday's game. Maybe Red Sox owner John Henry was simply ready to move on, going into what will be an extremely busy and potentially pivotal winter of work for the franchise, and wanted to give himself the best chance to identify a permanent replacement as soon as possible.
For now, the Red Sox's baseball operations department will be run by senior vice president Raquel Ferreira, who is highly trusted by players in the organization, to the degree that she played an integral role in the negotiation of Xander Bogaerts' contract extension last spring, and assistant general managers Eddie Romero, Brian O'Halloran and Zack Scott.
But the club might explore the possibility of hiring someone outside the organization, including some familiar faces. Mike Hazen, Arizona's executive vice president and general manager, left the Red Sox a year after Dombrowski was hired by Boston in 2015, and it's possible the team could reach out and ask about his availability.
Jared Porter, Hazen's assistant general manager, also worked for the Red Sox and is highly respected but has never led a baseball operations department. Henry does have a history of promoting younger executives, from Theo Epstein to Jed Hoyer to Ben Cherington -- but the hiring of any of the internal options or Porter would be a departure from Henry's thinking when he grabbed Dombrowski.
If he wants someone more experienced, he could make inquiries about Hoyer, who is the No. 2 baseball executive in the Cubs organization under Epstein.
But no matter whom Henry settles on as the new leader of baseball operations, whether it be Romero or Ferreira or an outside hire, that person will have a series of significant decisions -- perhaps with benefit of the counsel of manager Alex Cora, who seems to have more influence in the organization than managers of the current generation typically have.
The most important business ahead: The Red Sox must decide what they will do with their best player and most prominent star, Mookie Betts. He will be eligible for free agency after the 2020 season, having deflected the team's past efforts to work out a contract extension. Boston will presumably try again to negotiate a big deal -- perhaps in the record-setting range of Mike Trout or Bryce Harper -- and if Betts doesn't agree, then the Red Sox will have to decide whether to put Betts on the trade market this winter, or next summer, in an effort to get value in return for a coveted asset.
The next Red Sox honcho must also address the pending decision by designated hitter J.D. Martinez -- who can opt out of the last three years of his contract and return to free agency -- to either leverage a new deal with Boston or perhaps find another team willing to pay a DH more than the $66 million remaining on his current deal.
There are major concerns about a starting rotation that has been at the root of Boston's disappointing season this year. The Red Sox have about $80 million invested in three veteran starting pitchers: Chris Sale, who will visit Dr. James Andrews again in the weeks ahead, with some uncertainty about whether he'll eventually require a major elbow operation; David Price, who has dealt with various ailments this year and is on the downslope of his career; and Nathan Eovaldi, who has made only eight starts.
The Red Sox have enormous resources but not much immediate financial flexibility, and they do have the core of what should be a strong offense again in 2020 and beyond, with Bogaerts and Rafael Devers under team control for years to come.
But whoever takes over from Dombrowski will walk into a job in which volatility is inherent. In Epstein's time as GM, he effectively walked away twice, once to return and then to move on to the Cubs. Cherington was at the front of a World Series parade in 2013 and fostered the collection of an incredible group of young talent, from Bogaerts to Betts -- and was removed from power less than two years later.
Now it's Dombrowski who goes, having done exactly what he was initially charged with doing -- to win a World Series, at great cost, just 11 months before that one final Fenway wave.