Tigers GM 'doesn't buy' that their window to win a World Series has closed

For the fourth time in as many seasons, Detroit Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski was forced to conduct an exit interview following a postseason that ended short of a World Series title. 

The Tigers were swept by the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Division Series - a disappointing end for the team that won the division for a fourth straight season and boasted each of the last three AL Cy Young winners. Despite an aging core and the potential loss of soon-to-be free agents Victor Martinez and Max Scherzer, Dombrowski doesn't believe the Tigers' window to win a championship has closed. 

“I don’t buy that, and I think there’s a couple of reasons. First of all, we have a good team and we have a good foundation coming back for sure,” Dombrowski told Matthew Mowery of the Oakland Press. “I don’t think there’s many clubs in baseball that would take their starting four going into their offseason over our starting four, that we know we have.”

The Tigers' Achilles' heel and eventual undoing for the second straight season was their ineffective bullpen, something the GM plans to address over the offseason. 

"It’ll be up to us to improve the bullpen. We were second in the league in runs scored. A lot of those guys are going to still be back with us. And then we can look at helping ourself in other ways,” Dombrowski  said.

“We’re all frustrated. Whenever you don’t win a World Championship, everybody is frustrated. I’m not blaming anyone else. I’m blaming myself just as much as anybody else. You all shoulder those things together."