NEWSLETTER
In one of the more long-overdue moves in baseball, the Detroit Tigers have fired long-time GM Al Avila, according to a release by the team this afternoon. Avila has been with the Tigers for the last 22 years and in the GM/Executive Vice President role since August of 2015, when he replaced Dave Dombrowski.
Tigers CEO Christopher Illitch said that he will oversee the search process for the next baseball operations leader in Detroit along with “several members of [the] baseball and business operations executives teams.”
The Tigers haven’t made the Postseason since Avila replaced Dombrowski in 2015 and have finished dead last in the American League Central five times during that same span while finishing as high as second only once (2016).
The Tigers are currently 43-68 and 15 games behind the Twins in the mediocre AL Central. Tigers CEO Christopher Illitch will meet with the media this evening, according to the team’s press release.
(Michael: As a related aside, I do worry about the Cubs’ ability to keep Assistant GM and Director of Pitching Craig Breslow in Chicago. With Jed Hoyer (President) and Carter Hawkins (GM) brand new to their respective roles, there’s not much room for Breslow to rise higher in the organization for the foreseeable future. Given that fact and his apparent success, I won’t be surprised to see him taking some interviews soon.)
