Sixteen years ago, Dave Dombrowski stood at the podium at baseball’s Winter Meetings and had to explain the Curtis Granderson trade . The Tigers, with Dombrowski as team president and general manager, had just sent their All-Star center fielder and one of the most popular athletes in Detroit -- drafted and developed by the Tigers -- to the defending World Series champion Yankees in a three-team trade that also sent Edwin Jackson to Arizona.

The return package was a quartet of young players with 151 career MLB appearances combined, nine fewer games than Granderson played for the Tigers in 2009 alone.

It was a deeply unpopular deal in Detroit. Dombrowski not only anticipated the reaction, he understood it. But he didn’t dodge it, either. After three years out of the postseason, including

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