I just saw your comment so sorry for the "one week later..." response but I just wanted to say thatI agree with you. I mean, I knew Al Avila had an impressive resume and spent time with the Marlins but in terms of it being his "time to shine," I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head.
Warning: obnoxiously long 6am free flow comment below. Ignore if you're busy, impatient, or just a general hater of rhetorical questions. :)
I'm not saying Dombrowski didn't pull off some really amazing deals in his tenure (so don't mistake what I'm about to suggest as saying otherwise!) but... given how much time DD and AA worked together for various organizations, I can't help but wonder if/how much of those ingenious negotiations were the product of DD's mind v. AA's mind. I mean, Mr. I evidently saw something in AA because he included (and almost certainly paid for) that provision in his contract that prohibited him from accepting a full fledged GM job outside of Detroit. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to lock up your #2 guy like that when you have a solid relationship and confidence with your #1 guy... unless you know something beyond what the public is seeing that would make #2 worth the amount of money you'd have to pay him to forego the spotlight in another city as #1 and stick around Detroit as #2... ya know what I mean?
LOL. You might not because it was kind of difficult to write that last paragraph in a hypothetical context... but basically: - lots of teams have been interested in AA over the years - AA has family ties to MLB - AA has many years of experience (kinda old for a rookie GM it seems) - AA was undoubtedly a key player in bringing Miggy to the MLB - AA has said DD gave him authority to negotiate deals with other teams, so long as DD and ownership signed off on the proposal at the end of the day (he made the Soria deal a couple wks ago) so obviously competent enough to have trust backing of DD and Mr. I - agreed to waive his right to talk to other teams about a promotion in any capacity whatsoever for at least the past 5 years (which is a long time to surrender your right to find a better job in another city... much more significant than a Jeff Blashill type of scenario) - means Mr. I must have paid him very well to surrender that right for so long, at least 5+ yrs ago... which was also before Mr. I was sick and likely before he had foreseen handing over the reigns to his family - etc
= major questions I'm curious about: Did AA have more to do with things behind the scenes than we know? Why did Mr. I have that much trust in him 5-6 years ago? Why does Mr. I have that much trust in him now to ink him to a 5 year deal as GM? As great as he is, it seemingly would need to add up to something a bit more significant than discovering Miggy alone. He was key in getting JD here but not until last season, so that is after the initial point of that non-compete clause... What other major aspects of the team's success is directly attributable to AA that we've been giving DD sole credit for in the recent few years? Did he make some suggestions that got shot downed in like 2012, for example, that Mr. I feels could have made a difference? Did Mr. I believe DD was going to hold him over a barrel in contract negotiations the last two times DD extended his deal and feel the need to lock AA in so that if DD tried to force his hand, he'd have a viable bail out GM? If so, was that one of the factors in play this year re: not giving DD a new deal? Was he trying to exploit Mr. I'd desperation + pocketbook to get that metaphorical "extra $50m" a la Max Scherzer or something?
I don't know the answers to any of those questions and assume anyone on Reddit who does is unable to share due to confidentiality concerns BUT OH MAN!! The term of AA's new deal and how long he operated under a no compete when he was a legitimate candidate for a promotion in MULTIPLE other markets reallllllllly tends to suggest that he is responsible for a lot more [successful -- since Mr. I has horseback to keep him around for a whole] deals in Detroit than his Wikipedia page would lead us to believe... and that, in turn, makes me verrryyy curious about all the deals DD's wiki page credits him with masterminding over the years. Ugh! I hope we don't have to wait 20+ years for an autobiography to fill is in on all the juicy (yes, that's totally a Canseco pun) details!!
I went to college -- I know what it's like to have to put 3 other names on a group project nobody else actually helped complete. That's what this whole mess sorta reminds me of, except we're dealing with millions of dollars and a guy who is consistently called "one of the best GMs in professional sports."
Guess we'll see what he can do soon enough, eh?