As Cleveland Indians’ general manager Eric Wedge continues to twist in the wind, seemingly indefinitely, many fans have turned their attention now to general manager Mark Shapiro. As Clark Griswold would say, “now you’re talking, Eddie.”
The sins of a general manager can sometimes be harder to pin down than those of the manager. And when it comes to Shapiro he can be the most difficult of all to pin down. Through careful calculation, he’s created an aura of being an accessible, regular guy on the cutting edge of the modern method for running a franchise. Yet he never really says much and, when he does, it’s more to confirm something that’s already happened than it is to tell you what might come next. As for all the technological whiz-bang analysis that Shapiro and his cadre of front office MBAs have undertaken, it still hasn’t yielded a consistent winner. But he is an earnest guy, making it easy to give him a pass most of the time.
But as it is with general managers, they are the top day-to-day executives of any franchise (except the Cleveland Browns, apparently) and control most everything that takes place on the field and behind the scenes. Thus they rightly deserve to be the focal point when fan unhappiness shifts from individual losses to institutional bungling.
Shapiro’s track record is whatever you want it to be. You can pick out any discreet period of time over his tenure to prove your point, whatever it might be. The larger picture, though, and the one for which Shapiro must be held most accountable is that the Indians are slipping back ever so gently into their “sleeping giant” status of the early 1980s. It’s a potentially devastating malady where fan interest remains high but attendance does not.
Larry and Paul Dolan know that they own a valuable asset, even if they overpaid to get it. What they are now wrestling with is how to actually keep it from being a financial millstone around their collective necks. They simply cannot countenance owning a mere sleeping giant. Yet the crossroads they face is one in which they stay the course with Shapiro or go in another direction and hope for the best.
It’s not an easy choice, especially when they just know that fans see past and current performance as indicative of the future and thus aren’t likely to embrace a stay the course approach.
That has to scare the bejeezus out of the Dolans. When 2009 rolls into 2010, they will see that their goose of a franchise isn’t going to be laying any golden eggs for a good long time; that is unless something relatively dramatic happens.
That’s where Shapiro re-enters the picture. The question for the fans as proxy for the Dolans is whether or not Shapiro can work some of the black magic that has allowed him to retain his job into a reason why they would even bother to buy tickets for next season and beyond. For too many, Shapiro seems to be out of tricks. The trade of CC Sabathia last season still hasn’t yielded anything tangible and causes many to wonder how Shapiro can make something tangible happen out of the inevitable trade of Cliff Lee, either later this season or next.
If the Dolans are thinking bigger than certainly one thing that can dramatically alter the landscape is to take the risk on the alluring but mystical alternate path. A change of direction is always good for a temporary bump in fan interest and spending. It also takes the immediate heat off the team. Whether it ends up in the same destination is hard to say but it very well could.
There are certain core facts about this franchise that aren’t going to change no matter who is in charge. The economy in this region is deeply troubled and won’t recover any time soon. Even in boom times, Cleveland is a mid-market town with mid-market upside. Whoever sits in the general manager seat next is still going to have to rely on undervalued and underpriced talent, be it young players or flawed veterans, to make it work. To be more successful than Shapiro, they’ll just need to do a better job executing those fundamentals.
This is hardly to suggest that Shapiro should hold on to his job simply because it’s hard to predict whether the next guy will do any better. He is the devil we know and, frankly, the devil we don’t can hardly drag the franchise any further down the hole.
The reality though is that the path of this franchise isn’t going to change. The only thing that can make the journey better is someone more adept at navigation. Shapiro hasn’t been a complete disaster, certainly, but he’s sure finding far more pot holes these days than smooth road and it may very well be time for the Dolans to trust a new driver.
**
Both Sheldon Ocker at the Beacon Journal and Paul Hoynes at the Plain Dealer carried the item on Wednesday that former Indians outfielder David Dellucci is miffed that he was the subject of so much abuse at the hands of Indians fans. Hoynes added, somewhat gratuitously and somewhat pejoratively, that “bloggers” also made sport of Dellucci. Well, at least Hoynes is reading.
Dellucci’s point is that he tried his best and, gosh gee, can’t a guy get a break? He has a point, but only slightly. All a player can do is give it his best effort and if it isn’t good enough then so be it. But Dellucci wasn’t pilloried because of a lack of effort. In fact, it wasn’t even personal.
Dellucci served as a symbol of the Shapiro/Wedge regime, a limping, light hitting, average fielding, good in the clubhouse veteran presence keep your head down and don’t make waves symbol of why this team’s stock is dropping faster than General Motors. It wasn’t even so much that Dellucci was a bad acquisition on a purely statistical level. It’s just that Shapiro threw stupid money at him that ultimately greatly influenced how fans viewed him.
That’s not to blame Dellucci for Shapiro’s irrational exuberance. But on a mid-market team with a mid-market budget, a player making what Dellucci made is going to be saddled with higher expectations. He’s also going to have to play every day, his mediocre performance notwithstanding. At the same time, players further down on the development curve but with potentially higher upsides have to be content with less playing time. Can you say, Franklin Gutierrez?
The fact that Dellucci is miffed with Cleveland fans is typical of the view players get from the dugout. The view from the cheap seats, though, is a whole other matter. Indians fans in particular are tired of dealing with a frustrating boom and bust cycle in which players like Dellucci come in and out of their lives with maddening regularity. They are sold to fans as missing pieces but they turn out to be cheap and ill-fitting copies. The fact is that Dellucci was way overpaid and consequently way oversold to the fans. All he really was and will ever be is a higher priced Jamey Carroll.
**
It may be an age thing, but I’ll probably never get used to how comfortable this generation is with revealing the most intimate details about themselves so publicly. In an article that appeared in ESPN the Magazine this week, Kellen Winslow had no qualms talking about how doctors were draining fluid and all manner of bad goo from his junk sack.
It was well entrenched in the category of way too much information.
Actually, what was interesting about the story is how indifferent Winslow’s teammates were toward him. Winslow was and still is a loud-mouth braggart whose wants still far exceed his accomplishments. He felt, and apparently still feels, that he’s the best tight end in the league and wanted the respect and glory that goes along with that status. That’s probably a generational thing, too.
But the story Winslow related about how he spoke up at a team meeting concerning the problems with staph and none of the players jumped to his defense speaks volumes as does that part of the story where his teammates apparently felt uncomfortable around him because of, among other things, his overly active interest in porn.
He doesn’t see his inability to fit in as anything other than a problem for others but not himself. Introspection is not one of his strong suits. This is where, for once, Braylon Edwards could have been a help. Edwards, as complex a personality as the team has ever had, at least has a modicum of introspection about him. The problem is that, like Winslow, he has an overly active ego relative to his record.
All this is too bad, by the way. Winslow, for all his personality flaws, is everything that players typically like in other players. He works hard. He plays hurt. He has skills. But he’s probably doomed in Tampa. Too many injuries, too much baggage, and just plain too weird.
**
Watching a few of the Indians’ games this week always yields the inevitable dugout view of Wedge and his ever changing battle with facial hair. It also leads to this week’s question to ponder: Why is Carl Willis always sitting so uncomfortably close to Eric Wedge in the dugout?
Showing posts with label David Dellucci. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Dellucci. Show all posts
Friday, July 24, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Lingering Items--Wishful Thinking Edition
As the Cleveland Cavaliers continue to fight for their playoff lives, there are all sorts of theories about why they find themselves trailing the Orlando Magic and what it all means. They range from the sublime to the ridiculous, as expected. But for the truly bizarre, it would be hard to beat the column by the New York Post’s Marc Berman, a hack writer with enough pseudo New York arrogance to make his employer’s proud.
In Berman’s world, a Cavs loss to the Magic all but puts LeBron James in New York. The theory is that once James surveys the wreckage of a season shortened before its time, he’ll understand that he was let down by a poor supporting cast that can’t improve and turn his sights toward the Knicks and a supporting cast that can only improve with James in the lineup.
Apparently, the difference between the Knicks remaining the dregs of the NBA and being competitive in the NBA’s eastern conference is James. Berman writes it as if it is a revelation. Put James on any team and they suddenly become competitive in the eastern conference. Like the E Street Band, James demonstrates night after night after night after night that he’s the league’s best player. Since he was 10 years old, James has made every team he’s been on better.
Berman finishes it off by saying that the Cleveland/Orlando series and the Cavs’ shortcomings that are being exposed is exactly the reason James would come to New York in 2010. What Berman doesn’t answer, because he can’t, is why James would want to put his fate in the hands of a moribund franchise run by fools. Cavs general manager Danny Ferry has proven to be an adept general manager. There are far more reasons to believe that Ferry can continue to effectively tinker with the Cavs roster until he gets it perfect than there are to believe that the Knicks could do likewise.
The NBA playoffs prove that while it may not take 12 guys to win the championship, it takes more than 5. The Knicks may have a player or two who would be useful in Cleveland, they don’t have a roster full. If they did they’d already be competitive. They aren’t. That’s another way of saying that on a straight line basis, the Cavs current roster with James beats the Knicks current roster with James, night after night after night after night.
Column’s like Berman’s have become a fixture in the national media. The underlying premise is that for reasons not fully articulated, the city of New York provides a better launching pad for James’ global empire. It’s a theory that makes no sense.
James already is one of the richest and most recognizable athletes in the world. His latest exploits in the NBA will only add to those riches and recognition. He has an armful of national and international endorsements all from the humble environs of his Bath, Ohio home. He has more than enough celebrity friends already to last him a lifetime. In short, there is nothing about playing in New York that can possibly make him any richer. The Knicks can’t pay him as much as the Cavs. But more importantly, he hasn’t missed out on any endorsement opportunities by playing in Cleveland. Those inclined to throw money at athletes to endorse products can just as easily find James in Cleveland as they can on the upper west side of Manhattan.
I can understand and appreciate the arrogance of New Yorkers. They live in one of the great cities in the world. But it isn’t the only place that fame and fortune is made. Tiger Woods has done pretty well for himself while operating out of Orlando, Florida. Michael Jordan didn’t need New York. Peyton Manning is doing pretty well for himself in Indianapolis. I don’t recall Wayne Gretzky needing New York as his base.
In terms of gaining access to international markets, New York isn’t the magic gateway. The billions to be made off the billions in China aren’t tied to James being in any particular location. The NBA does a pretty good job exploiting its top talents and for as long as James continues to play in Cleveland, the Cavs will be a feature game beamed to foreign markets.
While caught up in their own arrogance, the New York media hasn’t even bothered to consider James’ perspective. He is a Midwestern kid with Midwestern values. He’s notable for the incredible loyalty he shows to those with whom he’s close, and that includes his hometown. He gets more than his share of time in the spotlight venues but he still has the relative quiet of his compound that he can return to without it ever turning into the circus that would become his potential new home in New York. The New York media may not believe it, but being hassled by paparazzi 24/7, which is what James would be exposed to in New York, is not an advantage.
James could very well jump from Cleveland, but it will never be about the money. He’s got plenty of that. He wants to be the best to ever play the game and thus will put himself in the situation that best allows him to win championships. Whatever else New York may be, it will never be that.
**
Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner may come across as a disinterested and reluctant owner but maybe he’s just distracted. A story in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal shed some light on the England’s Premier Soccer league and the truckload of financial problems it’s having. Undoubtedly those troubles are having an impact on Lerner who owns the Aston Villa team in that league.
To American football fans who view team ownership through the prism of the NFL, the methods of the Premier League are an eye opener. For one, there are virtually no regulations on who can own a team nor are there any requirements that a new owner get the consent of the other owners in the league before acquiring his interest. That explains how Lerner acquired the Aston Villa team so easily and quickly. He bailed out the last owner that was swimming in debt.
But the far bigger problem for the league is the incredible debt undertaken by its teams. Unlike the NFL where owners can only leverage so much of their club through loans, English Premier League owners suffer under no such constraints. Not surprisingly, most of the playboy owners in that league are leveraged up to their eyeballs with other people’s money. Combine that with a lack of salary cap, the ability to trade freely without league intervention and the unfettered ability to sign free agents and suddenly teams have a capital structure that they can’t sustain during difficult economic times.
It’s not known how Lerner financed his multi-multi-million dollar purchase of Aston Villa but it probably wasn’t an all-cash deal. They rarely are. When he purchased the team in 2006, credit was easily obtainable. Whatever amount was financed it was done under the working assumption that revenues from the club would continue to climb and the economy would continue expand. As the Wall Street Journal details, that isn’t the case these days in the English Premier League any more than it is the case in the NFL.
None of this necessarily will have an impact on the Browns. But it is worth watching because of the whipsaw effect. If the economy doesn’t improve, both the Browns and Aston Villa can end up with a once well-heeled owner suddenly strapped for cash and taking on water. That won’t be good news for either franchise.
**
So Browns rookies and their agents are upset that head coach Eric Mangini gave them a voluntary opportunity to ride in a bus with him 10 hours to Hartford, Connecticut for his football camp/vanity project. Sure, it may have been voluntary in the same way your company picnic is voluntary, but hey, we all have to do what we have to do.
The only thing that struck me about the whole story, and maybe it has something to do with the tough economy and its impact on Lerner, was the fact that they have to truck this team up to New England in a Greyhound. If my recollection is correct, and I believe it is, the Browns have their own private aircraft, thanks to Mr. Lerner. They use it to take the team to away games. It’s kind of surprising it wasn’t made available to the rookies who “volunteered” to help a brother out. Maybe the price of jet fuel is prohibitively high these days. Hard to say.
Even if the company plane wasn’t available, Mangini surely is making enough to buy a few plane tickets for the help. He may be the head coach, but he apparently tosses around his own money like he’s still the ball boy.
**
The news that Josh Cribbs has essentially abandoned his holdout comes as no great surprise. Apparently Cribbs had a conversation with Mangini and whatever was said the message Cribbs received was that he’d be far better off getting his butt back on the field than in writing stream of conscious press releases about how he has to have a new contract now so that he’ll make enough money to last him the rest of his life.
It was an interesting little showdown between Cribbs and Mangini and Cribbs certainly blinked first and quickly. But that’s no reason to tweak Cribbs. As I said, it was an ill-conceived holdout orchestrated by a new agent who put his own interests ahead of the player he represented.
Cribbs doesn’t need to holdout to get a new contract. My guess is that Mangini told him to produce this year, in front of the new regime, and those sorts of things will take care of themselves sooner rather than later. That’s probably all Cribbs needed to hear anyway, especially since he is only two years into a multi-million dollar six-year contract.
Don’t get me wrong. I still think the Browns have at least an ethical and probably a legal obligation to live up to the promises that former general manager Phil Savage reportedly made to Cribbs. Just because Savage isn’t around now doesn’t mean he wasn’t authorized to make the promises then nor does it mean that the Browns can simply ignore them. But those kinds of battles are never good for the player to wage, even when he’s right. In the end, he’ll lose the war.
Still looming for Mangini is the continued holdout of kicker Phil Dawson. Unlike Cribbs, Dawson pretty much has said nothing about why he isn’t around. He’s letting his absence speak far more loudly. And while Dawson is certainly a valuable kicker, there are plenty of unemployed kickers available. None of them will be as good as Dawson, but the fact that they sit in the background is why a prolonged holdout by Dawson is unlikely. That situation will get resolved.
In all this, including the field trip to Hartford, you have to give Mangini some credit. None of the players have a shadow of doubt who’s in charge and they are snapping to accordingly. Of course, that goes for general manger George Kokinis as well, but that’s another subject for another day.
**
The Cleveland Indians finally parted ways with the most visible target of general manager Mark Shapiro’s bargain basement free agent signings, David Dellucci. He won’t be missed, but then again every team need’s a goat. Thus this week’s question to ponder: Who will fill that role for the Indians now that Dellucci is gone?
In Berman’s world, a Cavs loss to the Magic all but puts LeBron James in New York. The theory is that once James surveys the wreckage of a season shortened before its time, he’ll understand that he was let down by a poor supporting cast that can’t improve and turn his sights toward the Knicks and a supporting cast that can only improve with James in the lineup.
Apparently, the difference between the Knicks remaining the dregs of the NBA and being competitive in the NBA’s eastern conference is James. Berman writes it as if it is a revelation. Put James on any team and they suddenly become competitive in the eastern conference. Like the E Street Band, James demonstrates night after night after night after night that he’s the league’s best player. Since he was 10 years old, James has made every team he’s been on better.
Berman finishes it off by saying that the Cleveland/Orlando series and the Cavs’ shortcomings that are being exposed is exactly the reason James would come to New York in 2010. What Berman doesn’t answer, because he can’t, is why James would want to put his fate in the hands of a moribund franchise run by fools. Cavs general manager Danny Ferry has proven to be an adept general manager. There are far more reasons to believe that Ferry can continue to effectively tinker with the Cavs roster until he gets it perfect than there are to believe that the Knicks could do likewise.
The NBA playoffs prove that while it may not take 12 guys to win the championship, it takes more than 5. The Knicks may have a player or two who would be useful in Cleveland, they don’t have a roster full. If they did they’d already be competitive. They aren’t. That’s another way of saying that on a straight line basis, the Cavs current roster with James beats the Knicks current roster with James, night after night after night after night.
Column’s like Berman’s have become a fixture in the national media. The underlying premise is that for reasons not fully articulated, the city of New York provides a better launching pad for James’ global empire. It’s a theory that makes no sense.
James already is one of the richest and most recognizable athletes in the world. His latest exploits in the NBA will only add to those riches and recognition. He has an armful of national and international endorsements all from the humble environs of his Bath, Ohio home. He has more than enough celebrity friends already to last him a lifetime. In short, there is nothing about playing in New York that can possibly make him any richer. The Knicks can’t pay him as much as the Cavs. But more importantly, he hasn’t missed out on any endorsement opportunities by playing in Cleveland. Those inclined to throw money at athletes to endorse products can just as easily find James in Cleveland as they can on the upper west side of Manhattan.
I can understand and appreciate the arrogance of New Yorkers. They live in one of the great cities in the world. But it isn’t the only place that fame and fortune is made. Tiger Woods has done pretty well for himself while operating out of Orlando, Florida. Michael Jordan didn’t need New York. Peyton Manning is doing pretty well for himself in Indianapolis. I don’t recall Wayne Gretzky needing New York as his base.
In terms of gaining access to international markets, New York isn’t the magic gateway. The billions to be made off the billions in China aren’t tied to James being in any particular location. The NBA does a pretty good job exploiting its top talents and for as long as James continues to play in Cleveland, the Cavs will be a feature game beamed to foreign markets.
While caught up in their own arrogance, the New York media hasn’t even bothered to consider James’ perspective. He is a Midwestern kid with Midwestern values. He’s notable for the incredible loyalty he shows to those with whom he’s close, and that includes his hometown. He gets more than his share of time in the spotlight venues but he still has the relative quiet of his compound that he can return to without it ever turning into the circus that would become his potential new home in New York. The New York media may not believe it, but being hassled by paparazzi 24/7, which is what James would be exposed to in New York, is not an advantage.
James could very well jump from Cleveland, but it will never be about the money. He’s got plenty of that. He wants to be the best to ever play the game and thus will put himself in the situation that best allows him to win championships. Whatever else New York may be, it will never be that.
**
Cleveland Browns owner Randy Lerner may come across as a disinterested and reluctant owner but maybe he’s just distracted. A story in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal shed some light on the England’s Premier Soccer league and the truckload of financial problems it’s having. Undoubtedly those troubles are having an impact on Lerner who owns the Aston Villa team in that league.
To American football fans who view team ownership through the prism of the NFL, the methods of the Premier League are an eye opener. For one, there are virtually no regulations on who can own a team nor are there any requirements that a new owner get the consent of the other owners in the league before acquiring his interest. That explains how Lerner acquired the Aston Villa team so easily and quickly. He bailed out the last owner that was swimming in debt.
But the far bigger problem for the league is the incredible debt undertaken by its teams. Unlike the NFL where owners can only leverage so much of their club through loans, English Premier League owners suffer under no such constraints. Not surprisingly, most of the playboy owners in that league are leveraged up to their eyeballs with other people’s money. Combine that with a lack of salary cap, the ability to trade freely without league intervention and the unfettered ability to sign free agents and suddenly teams have a capital structure that they can’t sustain during difficult economic times.
It’s not known how Lerner financed his multi-multi-million dollar purchase of Aston Villa but it probably wasn’t an all-cash deal. They rarely are. When he purchased the team in 2006, credit was easily obtainable. Whatever amount was financed it was done under the working assumption that revenues from the club would continue to climb and the economy would continue expand. As the Wall Street Journal details, that isn’t the case these days in the English Premier League any more than it is the case in the NFL.
None of this necessarily will have an impact on the Browns. But it is worth watching because of the whipsaw effect. If the economy doesn’t improve, both the Browns and Aston Villa can end up with a once well-heeled owner suddenly strapped for cash and taking on water. That won’t be good news for either franchise.
**
So Browns rookies and their agents are upset that head coach Eric Mangini gave them a voluntary opportunity to ride in a bus with him 10 hours to Hartford, Connecticut for his football camp/vanity project. Sure, it may have been voluntary in the same way your company picnic is voluntary, but hey, we all have to do what we have to do.
The only thing that struck me about the whole story, and maybe it has something to do with the tough economy and its impact on Lerner, was the fact that they have to truck this team up to New England in a Greyhound. If my recollection is correct, and I believe it is, the Browns have their own private aircraft, thanks to Mr. Lerner. They use it to take the team to away games. It’s kind of surprising it wasn’t made available to the rookies who “volunteered” to help a brother out. Maybe the price of jet fuel is prohibitively high these days. Hard to say.
Even if the company plane wasn’t available, Mangini surely is making enough to buy a few plane tickets for the help. He may be the head coach, but he apparently tosses around his own money like he’s still the ball boy.
**
The news that Josh Cribbs has essentially abandoned his holdout comes as no great surprise. Apparently Cribbs had a conversation with Mangini and whatever was said the message Cribbs received was that he’d be far better off getting his butt back on the field than in writing stream of conscious press releases about how he has to have a new contract now so that he’ll make enough money to last him the rest of his life.
It was an interesting little showdown between Cribbs and Mangini and Cribbs certainly blinked first and quickly. But that’s no reason to tweak Cribbs. As I said, it was an ill-conceived holdout orchestrated by a new agent who put his own interests ahead of the player he represented.
Cribbs doesn’t need to holdout to get a new contract. My guess is that Mangini told him to produce this year, in front of the new regime, and those sorts of things will take care of themselves sooner rather than later. That’s probably all Cribbs needed to hear anyway, especially since he is only two years into a multi-million dollar six-year contract.
Don’t get me wrong. I still think the Browns have at least an ethical and probably a legal obligation to live up to the promises that former general manager Phil Savage reportedly made to Cribbs. Just because Savage isn’t around now doesn’t mean he wasn’t authorized to make the promises then nor does it mean that the Browns can simply ignore them. But those kinds of battles are never good for the player to wage, even when he’s right. In the end, he’ll lose the war.
Still looming for Mangini is the continued holdout of kicker Phil Dawson. Unlike Cribbs, Dawson pretty much has said nothing about why he isn’t around. He’s letting his absence speak far more loudly. And while Dawson is certainly a valuable kicker, there are plenty of unemployed kickers available. None of them will be as good as Dawson, but the fact that they sit in the background is why a prolonged holdout by Dawson is unlikely. That situation will get resolved.
In all this, including the field trip to Hartford, you have to give Mangini some credit. None of the players have a shadow of doubt who’s in charge and they are snapping to accordingly. Of course, that goes for general manger George Kokinis as well, but that’s another subject for another day.
**
The Cleveland Indians finally parted ways with the most visible target of general manager Mark Shapiro’s bargain basement free agent signings, David Dellucci. He won’t be missed, but then again every team need’s a goat. Thus this week’s question to ponder: Who will fill that role for the Indians now that Dellucci is gone?
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Stuck in the Mud
As the Cleveland Indians continue their initial tour of the American League like a piece of wood adrift in Lake Erie, manager Eric Wedge claims he’s starting to see a gleam. Ok, he didn’t quite invoke the spirit of Marty Schottenheimer, but he is in his full Pollyanna mode when he recently said, essentially, that but for the games his team lost, they were really close to winning.
Maybe it’s just a matter of perspective. The Indians’ 9-7 victory against Toronto on Tuesday was notable not for the rare win but for laying out publicly why Wedge, ever the optimist, is going to be challenged the rest of the way as he searches for the bright spots that others can’t see.
Optimistically, Tuesday’s game demonstrated that the Indians can be a good team, or at least a team that can be good occasionally. But like that car in the neighbor’s garage that is perpetually being worked on, to this point it runs only long enough to be shown off around the neighborhood. It clearly isn’t highway-ready, at least without some additional tuning.
Realistically, Tuesday’s game demonstrated that this team needs more than a new clutch plate and a new set of shocks. It is a team not just lacking leaders but an identity. If it’s true, and it is, that a team takes on the personality of its manager, then that adequately explains its rather bland approach to the game. Playing at times just well enough to not embarrass, the team seems too bogged down with underachievers seemingly going through the motions, which is as apt a description as exits for its poster child, shortstop Jhonny Peralta. When you couple this with the occasional managerial blunders you get a team playing as if they’re stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey.
The usual disclaimers aside about this being a long season and all, the most telling thing about this team is the fact that it’s longest win streak thus far is 2-games.
Giving due respect for the game’s difficulty, undoubtedly no player can avoid the low tides in a season. There will be times when a hitter will be lost at the plate and others when the ball looks as big as a beach ball. Pitchers go through similar rhythms. One day every pitch is at a batter’s knees and painting the inside corner. The next, every curve hangs there as if suspended by a string just waiting to be hit 500 feet, usually with two runners on. Sometimes there are group slumps and sometimes every batter turns into Manny Ramierez.
In that sense, placing emphasis on any game probably is a bit unfair. Still, there are always a few games each year that serve as a microcosm and Tuesday’s game was this season’s first. The win notwithstanding, it will be seen as a far bigger success if it convinces general manager Mark Shapiro that there are fundamental ingredients missing from this team.
In no particular order, the Indians spent most of the game being fooled by Brian Tallet, a former top prospect with the Indians whose career has mostly been sidetracked by injuries. He now pitches long relief and even then he hasn’t been all that effective. Yet there he was, pressed into a start, mystifying Cleveland hitters as if they were facing Syd Finch for the first time.
If you weren’t watching the game and just saw the box score, it may have looked like Tallet was throwing a decent game. If you watched, you had no such allusions. Somewhere around the 5th or 6th inning, when Tallet was still flirting with a no hitter, announcer Rick Manning was spot on when he said that Justin Verlander may have had no-hit stuff on Sunday against the Indians, but Tallet certainly did not. Tallet was walking batters and hit another. He wasn’t dominating hitters and his control was just average. All he really was doing was putting hittable pitches past a team that did everything but yawn as they approached home plate like so many others already this season.
Until Tallet tired in the 7th inning, you would have trouble finding a team less connected to that game than the guys wearing Cleveland jerseys. Even Grady Sizemore, the one player who almost always seems to be playing full out, looked like he wanted to be anywhere other than at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.
Meanwhile, Indians pitcher Fausto Carmona was doing his part, just barely, to keep his team in the game. He was pitching well early but demonstrated again late that he has difficulty pitching with the lead. More broadly, while the Carmona of this season is an improvement over last season, he hardly looks like the pitcher of two seasons ago. At the moment, he seems so mechanical in his approach that you can almost see the thought balloons above his head before he pitches. “Keep ball down and away.” “Get ahead of hitter.” “Don’t make another mistake.” Either pitching coach Carl Willis has Carmona’s head filled with too much information or Carmona is having trouble adjusting to a league that has adjusted to him. Whatever it is, Carmona hardly looks fluid or natural. It’s why he hasn’t been effective.
But despite these two circumstances, the real markers for this game and this team were the two signature moments of the game: Peralta’s at bat in the 7th inning and 9th inning at bat by the Blue Jays’ Jose Bautista.
Peralta, hitting barely above .200 before the game, was called out on strikes to lead off the 7th inning, sinking his average even lower. He ended the evening 0-5. What was most notable though was his complete indifference at the plate, as if making an effort wasn’t in his job description. When Tallet’s final pitch to Peralta in the 7th hit the inside of the plate, Peralta looked bored by the whole thing. He gave a perfunctory glance back to the home plate umpire as if to say “is it time for Wapner?” Clearly he was in no position or mood to argue. It’s a moment that deserved to get him benched for a week. Instead Wedge trotted him right back out there secure in the belief that doing the same thing in the same way eventually would lead to a different result.
If Peralta really is trying, despite all evidence to the contrary, then what he needs more than anything else is a body language coach. Right now he’s telling everyone watching that he’d rather be in the clubhouse playing ping-pong. Move Asdrubal Cabrera to short for a few weeks, put Josh Barfield at second and let Peralta spend some time on the bench next to Jamey Carroll learning what it means to feel lucky you’re in the major leagues.
The second signature moment came with two and two out in the bottom of the 9th and the Indians with what turned out to be a precarious 6-4 lead. Reliever Kerry Wood was on the mound and actually had Bautista at 0-2. But Bautista got the count back to 2-2 and then deposited the ball in front of Barfield who, in the ninth inning of a game, had been put into left field by Wedge. Did I mention that it was Barfield’s first time ever playing the outfield? Did I have to?
In that moment, all that has gone wrong for the Indians this season did go wrong. You can fault Barfield for not catching the ball or fault the guy who put him in a position to fail in the first place. Through a series of questionable strategic calls Wedge overworked the roster in that way he usually does. While a case could be made for each move he made, that’s inherently the problem. After seven years, fans are still left to make sense of the individual moves being made while the overall effect ends up being the same.
First, Wedge decided that putting Matt LaPorta in a position to fail in the 9th inning of a game so early in his major league career was too much to handle. Maybe that’s right, but on the other hand, if that’s really the case then LaPorta needs to be sent back to Columbus. True, LaPorta has only one hit since he was called up, thereby justifying to some extent Wedge’s concern, but it just happened to be a 2-run homer earlier in the game. Moreover, it’s not as if he looks overmatched at the plate, or, more accurately, any more over matched than anyone else on the roster.
What made the decision to pinch hit Dellucci for LaPorta in that circumstance is that it carried an implied second move. Once Dellucci got on base, Wedge almost had to pinch run for him, given Dellucci’s recovery from a calf injury. That’s how Barfield ended up playing the outfield for the first time in his career.
As it happened, Barfield ended up helping the team mount another comeback in a game that featured plenty. That comeback fortunately culminated with the 3-run 12th inning and, ultimately, the victory. But the victory is almost beside the point. It wasn’t a gritty victory gutted out. It was a stroke of luck and an escape. Over time, it’s a formula that will result in far more defeats than victories.
The sad truth of the moment is that a team that went into the season with such high hopes looks as if it’s playing out the string and it’s not even Memorial Day. Substitute the words “first day of fall” for “Memorial Day” in the previous sentence and it also describes the Browns of last season. In other words, the Indians season is giving beleaguered Browns fans a real sense of déjà vu.
If Shapiro thinks that there’s enough talent on this team to really compete, then the finger of blame is rightly pointed at the manager for not wringing the talent out of the roster he was given. If Wedge thinks that the talent isn’t as good as advertised, then the finger of blame is rightly pointed at the general manager for again misreading the players he acquired. But as those two go about trying to figure out which way is which, the fans already know that both things are true. This team needs players who can actually achieve at their potential and a manager who can make that happen.
Maybe it’s just a matter of perspective. The Indians’ 9-7 victory against Toronto on Tuesday was notable not for the rare win but for laying out publicly why Wedge, ever the optimist, is going to be challenged the rest of the way as he searches for the bright spots that others can’t see.
Optimistically, Tuesday’s game demonstrated that the Indians can be a good team, or at least a team that can be good occasionally. But like that car in the neighbor’s garage that is perpetually being worked on, to this point it runs only long enough to be shown off around the neighborhood. It clearly isn’t highway-ready, at least without some additional tuning.
Realistically, Tuesday’s game demonstrated that this team needs more than a new clutch plate and a new set of shocks. It is a team not just lacking leaders but an identity. If it’s true, and it is, that a team takes on the personality of its manager, then that adequately explains its rather bland approach to the game. Playing at times just well enough to not embarrass, the team seems too bogged down with underachievers seemingly going through the motions, which is as apt a description as exits for its poster child, shortstop Jhonny Peralta. When you couple this with the occasional managerial blunders you get a team playing as if they’re stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey.
The usual disclaimers aside about this being a long season and all, the most telling thing about this team is the fact that it’s longest win streak thus far is 2-games.
Giving due respect for the game’s difficulty, undoubtedly no player can avoid the low tides in a season. There will be times when a hitter will be lost at the plate and others when the ball looks as big as a beach ball. Pitchers go through similar rhythms. One day every pitch is at a batter’s knees and painting the inside corner. The next, every curve hangs there as if suspended by a string just waiting to be hit 500 feet, usually with two runners on. Sometimes there are group slumps and sometimes every batter turns into Manny Ramierez.
In that sense, placing emphasis on any game probably is a bit unfair. Still, there are always a few games each year that serve as a microcosm and Tuesday’s game was this season’s first. The win notwithstanding, it will be seen as a far bigger success if it convinces general manager Mark Shapiro that there are fundamental ingredients missing from this team.
In no particular order, the Indians spent most of the game being fooled by Brian Tallet, a former top prospect with the Indians whose career has mostly been sidetracked by injuries. He now pitches long relief and even then he hasn’t been all that effective. Yet there he was, pressed into a start, mystifying Cleveland hitters as if they were facing Syd Finch for the first time.
If you weren’t watching the game and just saw the box score, it may have looked like Tallet was throwing a decent game. If you watched, you had no such allusions. Somewhere around the 5th or 6th inning, when Tallet was still flirting with a no hitter, announcer Rick Manning was spot on when he said that Justin Verlander may have had no-hit stuff on Sunday against the Indians, but Tallet certainly did not. Tallet was walking batters and hit another. He wasn’t dominating hitters and his control was just average. All he really was doing was putting hittable pitches past a team that did everything but yawn as they approached home plate like so many others already this season.
Until Tallet tired in the 7th inning, you would have trouble finding a team less connected to that game than the guys wearing Cleveland jerseys. Even Grady Sizemore, the one player who almost always seems to be playing full out, looked like he wanted to be anywhere other than at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.
Meanwhile, Indians pitcher Fausto Carmona was doing his part, just barely, to keep his team in the game. He was pitching well early but demonstrated again late that he has difficulty pitching with the lead. More broadly, while the Carmona of this season is an improvement over last season, he hardly looks like the pitcher of two seasons ago. At the moment, he seems so mechanical in his approach that you can almost see the thought balloons above his head before he pitches. “Keep ball down and away.” “Get ahead of hitter.” “Don’t make another mistake.” Either pitching coach Carl Willis has Carmona’s head filled with too much information or Carmona is having trouble adjusting to a league that has adjusted to him. Whatever it is, Carmona hardly looks fluid or natural. It’s why he hasn’t been effective.
But despite these two circumstances, the real markers for this game and this team were the two signature moments of the game: Peralta’s at bat in the 7th inning and 9th inning at bat by the Blue Jays’ Jose Bautista.
Peralta, hitting barely above .200 before the game, was called out on strikes to lead off the 7th inning, sinking his average even lower. He ended the evening 0-5. What was most notable though was his complete indifference at the plate, as if making an effort wasn’t in his job description. When Tallet’s final pitch to Peralta in the 7th hit the inside of the plate, Peralta looked bored by the whole thing. He gave a perfunctory glance back to the home plate umpire as if to say “is it time for Wapner?” Clearly he was in no position or mood to argue. It’s a moment that deserved to get him benched for a week. Instead Wedge trotted him right back out there secure in the belief that doing the same thing in the same way eventually would lead to a different result.
If Peralta really is trying, despite all evidence to the contrary, then what he needs more than anything else is a body language coach. Right now he’s telling everyone watching that he’d rather be in the clubhouse playing ping-pong. Move Asdrubal Cabrera to short for a few weeks, put Josh Barfield at second and let Peralta spend some time on the bench next to Jamey Carroll learning what it means to feel lucky you’re in the major leagues.
The second signature moment came with two and two out in the bottom of the 9th and the Indians with what turned out to be a precarious 6-4 lead. Reliever Kerry Wood was on the mound and actually had Bautista at 0-2. But Bautista got the count back to 2-2 and then deposited the ball in front of Barfield who, in the ninth inning of a game, had been put into left field by Wedge. Did I mention that it was Barfield’s first time ever playing the outfield? Did I have to?
In that moment, all that has gone wrong for the Indians this season did go wrong. You can fault Barfield for not catching the ball or fault the guy who put him in a position to fail in the first place. Through a series of questionable strategic calls Wedge overworked the roster in that way he usually does. While a case could be made for each move he made, that’s inherently the problem. After seven years, fans are still left to make sense of the individual moves being made while the overall effect ends up being the same.
First, Wedge decided that putting Matt LaPorta in a position to fail in the 9th inning of a game so early in his major league career was too much to handle. Maybe that’s right, but on the other hand, if that’s really the case then LaPorta needs to be sent back to Columbus. True, LaPorta has only one hit since he was called up, thereby justifying to some extent Wedge’s concern, but it just happened to be a 2-run homer earlier in the game. Moreover, it’s not as if he looks overmatched at the plate, or, more accurately, any more over matched than anyone else on the roster.
What made the decision to pinch hit Dellucci for LaPorta in that circumstance is that it carried an implied second move. Once Dellucci got on base, Wedge almost had to pinch run for him, given Dellucci’s recovery from a calf injury. That’s how Barfield ended up playing the outfield for the first time in his career.
As it happened, Barfield ended up helping the team mount another comeback in a game that featured plenty. That comeback fortunately culminated with the 3-run 12th inning and, ultimately, the victory. But the victory is almost beside the point. It wasn’t a gritty victory gutted out. It was a stroke of luck and an escape. Over time, it’s a formula that will result in far more defeats than victories.
The sad truth of the moment is that a team that went into the season with such high hopes looks as if it’s playing out the string and it’s not even Memorial Day. Substitute the words “first day of fall” for “Memorial Day” in the previous sentence and it also describes the Browns of last season. In other words, the Indians season is giving beleaguered Browns fans a real sense of déjà vu.
If Shapiro thinks that there’s enough talent on this team to really compete, then the finger of blame is rightly pointed at the manager for not wringing the talent out of the roster he was given. If Wedge thinks that the talent isn’t as good as advertised, then the finger of blame is rightly pointed at the general manager for again misreading the players he acquired. But as those two go about trying to figure out which way is which, the fans already know that both things are true. This team needs players who can actually achieve at their potential and a manager who can make that happen.
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Carl logic
There was an interesting letter to Sheldon Ocker, Indians beat writer for the Akron Beacon Journal, published on Sunday. Given how cranky and dismissive Ocker usually is, it’s a wonder why anyone bothers writing to him in the first place. But write on they do and this one asked:
After the news of Roberto Hernandez's release, I realized, ``Wow, Mark Shapiro is terrible at signing free agents.'' This past year, Mark brought in David Dellucci, Trot Nixon, Hernandez, Aaron Fultz, Joe Borowski and Keith Foulke.
In years past, his free agent signings were Aaron Boone, Todd Hollandsworth, Brady Anderson, Ramon Vazquez, Eduardo Perez, Jason Johnson, Brian Sikorski, Lou Merloni, Alex Cora, Jose Hernandez, Chris Magruder, Bill Selby, Chad Paronto, Shane Spencer, Jeff D'Amico, Jose Jimenez, Chad Durbin, Rick White, Scott Stewart, Ricky Gutierrez, Matt Lawton, Jason Bere (twice!), Jeff Liefer and finally Scott Sauerbeck.
Outside of Millwood, Borowski and probably Fultz and Scott Elarton, Shapiro has done awful at signing free agents.
I am not completely bashing the guy because I do realize that he has pulled off some great trades involving minor-leaguers, but that is not enough. This team has a very limited budget and, basically, money is getting thrown away to a collection of stiffs.
In answering the question, Ocker made the legitimate point that the writer was mixing in major league free agents, minor league free agents and trades. But he also pointed out what is also more or less obvious: when you’re only shopping for bargains don’t be surprised when it doesn’t work out.
What Ocker should have done but didn’t was expand on this answer by addressing the writer’s real point: that Shapiro repeatedly throws money away with little or nothing to show for it.
This raises a more interesting question, which is the flip side of that same proposition: can a team be successful shopping only in the cut-out bin or does in need to buy from the designer racks once in awhile?
This kind of debate reminds me of a guy named Carl that I used to work with at a local factory. I was earning money for college and Carl was earning money for, I guess, booze. Carl used to tell me that he’d rather buy 10 cars for $100 each than one car for $1000. His logic was that occasionally one of those 10 cars would run just as well as $1000 car and he’d still have nine other cars to tinker with. Of course, Carl had trouble showing up for work on time due mostly to the unreliability of his fleet of vehicles and eventually he got fired for it but he was passionate about his theory nonetheless.
As theories go, it’s fine for Shapiro to essentially utilize Carl logic in stocking the Indians every off-season, but at some point someone in the Dolan household is going to wake up to all the money that’s been frittered away and realize that maybe, just maybe, Shapiro might have been better off buying one or two quality free agents instead.
There is no dispute over why Shapiro is forced to employ Carl logic, year after year. He simply hasn’t been given the budget space within which to do anything else. But the flameouts of most of the free agent crop that Shapiro bought this last off-season just emphasizes that the Indians success to date is at least as much smoke and mirrors as anything else.
Right now, the Tribe is blessed with strong starting pitching with enough depth to withstand a fair amount of ineffectiveness at the bottom of the rotation. This is a tribute to Shapiro’s ability to find quality arms through the draft and trades and a farm system geared toward developing them. The concern though, once again, is in the bullpen. Two of Shapiro’s 2007 crew of free agents, Roberto Hernandez and Keith Foulke, aren’t with the club anymore, Foulke having given up the ghost before the first nerve was pinched in spring training. Joe Borowski, another free agent pickup, has been a pleasant surprise to date with 21 saves. But he’s basically Bob Wickman, albeit at a lower salary. The only thing Shapiro really accomplished in foolishly trading Wickman last season is that in Borowksi he saved some money to get similar results. This isn’t necessarily a bad formula for success, but the few million saved in this arbitrage just got wasted anyway, along with an extra million, with the signing and release of Hernandez. One step forward, two steps back.
What’s truly puzzling about all of this in terms of the bullpen is given how critical it is to a team’s success, why do the Indians constantly take such risks? It’s not as if their history just this decade hasn’t demonstrated two or three times now that good starting pitching, good hitting and a weak bullpen is a recipe for mediocrity not the playoffs.
The other truly puzzling aspect of Shapiro’s approach to free agency is the over reliance on the so-called “veteran presence.” Trot Nixon certainly embodies that approach. Nixon is a really decent guy who had a great career in Boston. You can’t always measure someone like Nixon’s effectiveness by pointing at the statistics. But on the other hand, he is taking up $3 million in salary on a team that simply cannot afford that luxury. Put it this way, if Boston couldn’t afford that luxury, and their payroll is about $82 million more than the Indians, how can Cleveland?
All Nixon does is take up salary space and retard the growth of what look to be legitimate prospects just hankering for a legitimate chance: Shin-Soo Choo, Ben Francisco, and Franklin Gutierrez for instance. Thus, if you’re keeping track, utilizing Carl logic, Shapiro bought two agents for over $6 million, which is nearly 10% of the payroll of the Indians 40-man roster, instead of one quality free agent for $6.3 million. Of course, Shapiro would say that spending that much on a middle reliever is foolish and perhaps he is right. But a reliable closer that would have allowed Borowski to assume the set-up role would have been a decent alternative, too. In short, there is any number of ways that Shapiro could have done better than simply giving away such a substantial portion of his limited budget.
This really highlights another flaw in the thinking of both Shapiro and manager Eric Wedge. Despite the chances that both of them were given at relatively young ages, they are extremely reluctant to take similar chances on young players. It’s exactly why this team has Dellucci, Nixon and Jason Michaels on the roster.
But combined, those three make over $8 million. Maybe having one of the three was necessary, but all three seem excessive, particularly since that is money that easily could have been better spent on the bullpen.
One can play this game all day with the Indians roster and salary data for this year or, really, any year of the Shapiro regime, but the overarching point is that Shapiro keeps doing the same things in the same way each year hoping for a different result. Whether that makes him insane or simply stubborn is of little consequence given the fine line between the two.
But what it does do is highlight perhaps the major flaw in Shapiro’s continued quest to build a team that consistently contends: his dogged adherence to Carl logic isn’t working any better for him than it did for Carl. Not only does it makes it a guessing game from season to season and within each season what kind of team the Indians ultimately might have, it is also robbing this team of a fair amount of what little money the Dolans are actually willing to spend in the first place.
After the news of Roberto Hernandez's release, I realized, ``Wow, Mark Shapiro is terrible at signing free agents.'' This past year, Mark brought in David Dellucci, Trot Nixon, Hernandez, Aaron Fultz, Joe Borowski and Keith Foulke.
In years past, his free agent signings were Aaron Boone, Todd Hollandsworth, Brady Anderson, Ramon Vazquez, Eduardo Perez, Jason Johnson, Brian Sikorski, Lou Merloni, Alex Cora, Jose Hernandez, Chris Magruder, Bill Selby, Chad Paronto, Shane Spencer, Jeff D'Amico, Jose Jimenez, Chad Durbin, Rick White, Scott Stewart, Ricky Gutierrez, Matt Lawton, Jason Bere (twice!), Jeff Liefer and finally Scott Sauerbeck.
Outside of Millwood, Borowski and probably Fultz and Scott Elarton, Shapiro has done awful at signing free agents.
I am not completely bashing the guy because I do realize that he has pulled off some great trades involving minor-leaguers, but that is not enough. This team has a very limited budget and, basically, money is getting thrown away to a collection of stiffs.
In answering the question, Ocker made the legitimate point that the writer was mixing in major league free agents, minor league free agents and trades. But he also pointed out what is also more or less obvious: when you’re only shopping for bargains don’t be surprised when it doesn’t work out.
What Ocker should have done but didn’t was expand on this answer by addressing the writer’s real point: that Shapiro repeatedly throws money away with little or nothing to show for it.
This raises a more interesting question, which is the flip side of that same proposition: can a team be successful shopping only in the cut-out bin or does in need to buy from the designer racks once in awhile?
This kind of debate reminds me of a guy named Carl that I used to work with at a local factory. I was earning money for college and Carl was earning money for, I guess, booze. Carl used to tell me that he’d rather buy 10 cars for $100 each than one car for $1000. His logic was that occasionally one of those 10 cars would run just as well as $1000 car and he’d still have nine other cars to tinker with. Of course, Carl had trouble showing up for work on time due mostly to the unreliability of his fleet of vehicles and eventually he got fired for it but he was passionate about his theory nonetheless.
As theories go, it’s fine for Shapiro to essentially utilize Carl logic in stocking the Indians every off-season, but at some point someone in the Dolan household is going to wake up to all the money that’s been frittered away and realize that maybe, just maybe, Shapiro might have been better off buying one or two quality free agents instead.
There is no dispute over why Shapiro is forced to employ Carl logic, year after year. He simply hasn’t been given the budget space within which to do anything else. But the flameouts of most of the free agent crop that Shapiro bought this last off-season just emphasizes that the Indians success to date is at least as much smoke and mirrors as anything else.
Right now, the Tribe is blessed with strong starting pitching with enough depth to withstand a fair amount of ineffectiveness at the bottom of the rotation. This is a tribute to Shapiro’s ability to find quality arms through the draft and trades and a farm system geared toward developing them. The concern though, once again, is in the bullpen. Two of Shapiro’s 2007 crew of free agents, Roberto Hernandez and Keith Foulke, aren’t with the club anymore, Foulke having given up the ghost before the first nerve was pinched in spring training. Joe Borowski, another free agent pickup, has been a pleasant surprise to date with 21 saves. But he’s basically Bob Wickman, albeit at a lower salary. The only thing Shapiro really accomplished in foolishly trading Wickman last season is that in Borowksi he saved some money to get similar results. This isn’t necessarily a bad formula for success, but the few million saved in this arbitrage just got wasted anyway, along with an extra million, with the signing and release of Hernandez. One step forward, two steps back.
What’s truly puzzling about all of this in terms of the bullpen is given how critical it is to a team’s success, why do the Indians constantly take such risks? It’s not as if their history just this decade hasn’t demonstrated two or three times now that good starting pitching, good hitting and a weak bullpen is a recipe for mediocrity not the playoffs.
The other truly puzzling aspect of Shapiro’s approach to free agency is the over reliance on the so-called “veteran presence.” Trot Nixon certainly embodies that approach. Nixon is a really decent guy who had a great career in Boston. You can’t always measure someone like Nixon’s effectiveness by pointing at the statistics. But on the other hand, he is taking up $3 million in salary on a team that simply cannot afford that luxury. Put it this way, if Boston couldn’t afford that luxury, and their payroll is about $82 million more than the Indians, how can Cleveland?
All Nixon does is take up salary space and retard the growth of what look to be legitimate prospects just hankering for a legitimate chance: Shin-Soo Choo, Ben Francisco, and Franklin Gutierrez for instance. Thus, if you’re keeping track, utilizing Carl logic, Shapiro bought two agents for over $6 million, which is nearly 10% of the payroll of the Indians 40-man roster, instead of one quality free agent for $6.3 million. Of course, Shapiro would say that spending that much on a middle reliever is foolish and perhaps he is right. But a reliable closer that would have allowed Borowski to assume the set-up role would have been a decent alternative, too. In short, there is any number of ways that Shapiro could have done better than simply giving away such a substantial portion of his limited budget.
This really highlights another flaw in the thinking of both Shapiro and manager Eric Wedge. Despite the chances that both of them were given at relatively young ages, they are extremely reluctant to take similar chances on young players. It’s exactly why this team has Dellucci, Nixon and Jason Michaels on the roster.
But combined, those three make over $8 million. Maybe having one of the three was necessary, but all three seem excessive, particularly since that is money that easily could have been better spent on the bullpen.
One can play this game all day with the Indians roster and salary data for this year or, really, any year of the Shapiro regime, but the overarching point is that Shapiro keeps doing the same things in the same way each year hoping for a different result. Whether that makes him insane or simply stubborn is of little consequence given the fine line between the two.
But what it does do is highlight perhaps the major flaw in Shapiro’s continued quest to build a team that consistently contends: his dogged adherence to Carl logic isn’t working any better for him than it did for Carl. Not only does it makes it a guessing game from season to season and within each season what kind of team the Indians ultimately might have, it is also robbing this team of a fair amount of what little money the Dolans are actually willing to spend in the first place.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Pain Infliction
Is there anything more painful in sports than watching a team in an offensive slump? As Cleveland sports fans, you can take your pick: the Indians or the Cavs. Whichever you chose, though, is mostly irrelevant. The local teams lately have been an assault on the eyes and the senses.
While it may be difficult for the moment to forget about the results of the Cavaliers-San Antonio Spurs snore-fest in Game three of the NBA Finals, try. While you’re at it, dispense with the notion that the game was some sort of sublime defensive struggle. Focus instead on what you were forced to endure: 48 minutes of really bad basketball by two teams playing in their sport’s premier event.
One team had to win that game and one team did, the better one. But if San Antonio is truly the elite team of the league, a dynasty in the making, then the league needs to do some serious soul searching and figure out how to re-introduce offense to the game. The level of play by both teams has been remarkable only in its ability to sap the enthusiasm of even the most die hard fan, let alone the casual fan whom the league needs to really reach.
A good game need not result in a 122-118 score, but neither should it ever devolve into a 78-72 grind. The supposedly top two teams in the league played 48 minutes of basketball, collectively took 185 shots (38 of which were 3-pointers) and made only 70, for a rousing shooting percentage of 37.8%. If you want to get picky, the Cavs 3-19 from the three-point line was a major contributor to that figure, but looked at from the other angle, the Spurs 10-19 shooting on their three-pointers helped raise the two teams overall shooting percentage .8%. From inside the line, the teams were a collective 57-147, or 37.0%. When professional basketball players can’t even make four out of every 10 shots with the championship on the line, something is wrong.
There is always a certain amount of defensive pressure that results in forced shots. But anyone witnessing Tuesday nights’ game knows that defense was hardly the reason. The Cavs had so many open looks at the basket from nearly everywhere on the court, they could have been playing the Knicks. Players were missing all manner of layups and 10-footers. Time after time, player after player bounced shots off the back of the rim. Maybe it was defensive pressure or maybe it was the pressure of the moment, but when players are missing long, it tends to mean they are having trouble controlling their emotions. Besides, if defensive pressure was really the culprit, then why were the teams a collective 10-31 from the free throw line?
If you dig deeper into the statistics of this series you’ll see that in each game the Cavs have had two quarters in which they’ve failed to score even 20 points. In game one, it was quarters one and three. In game two, it was the first and second quarter. In game three, it was quarters one and three again. That accounts for half of all the quarters played in the entire series. More to the point, the Cavs simple inability to put the ball in the basket in the first quarter has set an offensive tone that has carried on throughout each game. Thus, if the Cavs are to be successful in game four, and they have to be, a good place to start would be a way to score at least 20 points in the first quarter. It hasn’t happened yet.
You could point to the second half of game two to counter the argument that the Cavs haven’t scored all series, but you can’t consider the second half without taking into account how deep of a hole they dug for themselves in the first half. The Spurs had a whopping 25-point lead going into the second half of that game which obviously changed the nature of how the rest of that game would be played. Moreover, it’s hardly as if the Cavs carried over that momentum in game three. They scored only 38 points in the first half and 34 points in the second half. At best, the second half of game two was the anomaly. Game three was the standard.
While the Cavs and their offensive woes are partially responsible for a series that is devoid of any real drama, the Spurs shouldn’t be given a pass. They have failed to score 20 or more points in three quarters and have scored only 20 points in three others, which accounts for exactly half of the entire series as well. No wonder you’re left with a sense that this series is being played in monotone. Maybe the grind of the playoffs has taken its toll on both teams, but if that’s the case then the NBA needs to find a better system quickly or they’ll find themselves splitting time on the Versus network with the NHL begging people to watch their playoffs.
And as if the Cavs offensive ineptitude hasn’t been enough to cut the legs out from most Cleveland fans, then the Indians are doing their level best to complete the job these days. In the month of June, they are 5-7. While two of those losses were against the Detroit Tigers, five have been against the relative dregs of the league: Kansas City, Cincinnati, Seattle and Florida. The formula for success in baseball hasn’t changed in a hundred years: beat up the bums and play .500 against the rest. That’s certainly not the formula the Tribe has used lately, but if they plan to return to post season, they simply can’t keep playing down to their level of competition, something they seem to do all too frequently.
Where the Indians have really suffered of late, though, is on offense, much like the Cavs. They’ve been shut out twice in their last four games. Against Florida on Wednesday and on the heels of just being shut out the night before (and two nights before that), the Indians remained in a coma until the 6th inning, when they scored six runs. But that “explosion” was aided greatly by some really bad baseball on the part of the Marlins as five of those runs were unearned.
The one really bright spot of that inning was David Dellucci’s three-run home run. Prior to that and even going back over the previous three games, the Indians hitters were having trouble getting themselves into good hitting counts and even when they did they either popped out or grounded out. You’d search in vain for a hard hit ball. Even more difficult was finding a way to take advantage of a pitcher in trouble, exemplified by their ineptness on Sunday against the Reds with the bases loaded and the game on the line.
When Dellucci came to bat against the Marlins in the sixth inning, it was just after relative chaos had ensued. Byung-Hyun Kim, as most will recall, is a converted closer after having been run out of Arizona following his post-season Jose Mesa impressions while with the Diamondbacks. As a starter, he’s been the kind of pitcher that would make a team long for Scott Elarton. In other words, his appearance on a major league roster wouldn’t be possible without expansion. Still, there he was shutting out the Indians until his defense took on the character of a Sunday morning beer league and booted the ball around.
Taylor Tankersley, who is hardly Dennis Eckersly, came in for relief, an appearance notable only because he was summarily tossed by home plate umpire Brian Knight for drilling Grady Sizemore in the shoulder on a 0-2 pitch. By that point, all manner of argument had broken out and Aaron Boone (yes, that Aaron Boone) another beneficiary of baseball expansion, found himself with an early shower as well. By the time order had been restored, Lee Gardner was suddenly on the mound for the Marlins and four pitches later Dellucci put the game out of reach.
It’s hard to know when a team’s offensive slump might end, but an at-bat like Dellucci’s is often a good start. Not only had it been awhile since any Indian had gone deep, but it also was the first time in awhile that the Indians had actually taken advantage of a gift-wrapped situation. While this may not be the most critical point in the season, it is pretty clear that the Tigers aren’t going away. As such, the Indians can ill afford a prolonged offensive slump, particularly with the Atlanta Braves making their way to Jacobs Field this weekend.
As for the Cavs, they really have no choice but to end their offensive slump. No team has ever come back from an 0-3 deficit and nothing the Cavs have done thus in thus far in the series foretells any change in that precedent. All that says is that it’s unlikely that the Cavs will win the championship. What it doesn’t say is that they shouldn’t at least use every opportunity they still have in the waning days of this season to find their stroke, if only to make watching the game a bit less painful.
While it may be difficult for the moment to forget about the results of the Cavaliers-San Antonio Spurs snore-fest in Game three of the NBA Finals, try. While you’re at it, dispense with the notion that the game was some sort of sublime defensive struggle. Focus instead on what you were forced to endure: 48 minutes of really bad basketball by two teams playing in their sport’s premier event.
One team had to win that game and one team did, the better one. But if San Antonio is truly the elite team of the league, a dynasty in the making, then the league needs to do some serious soul searching and figure out how to re-introduce offense to the game. The level of play by both teams has been remarkable only in its ability to sap the enthusiasm of even the most die hard fan, let alone the casual fan whom the league needs to really reach.
A good game need not result in a 122-118 score, but neither should it ever devolve into a 78-72 grind. The supposedly top two teams in the league played 48 minutes of basketball, collectively took 185 shots (38 of which were 3-pointers) and made only 70, for a rousing shooting percentage of 37.8%. If you want to get picky, the Cavs 3-19 from the three-point line was a major contributor to that figure, but looked at from the other angle, the Spurs 10-19 shooting on their three-pointers helped raise the two teams overall shooting percentage .8%. From inside the line, the teams were a collective 57-147, or 37.0%. When professional basketball players can’t even make four out of every 10 shots with the championship on the line, something is wrong.
There is always a certain amount of defensive pressure that results in forced shots. But anyone witnessing Tuesday nights’ game knows that defense was hardly the reason. The Cavs had so many open looks at the basket from nearly everywhere on the court, they could have been playing the Knicks. Players were missing all manner of layups and 10-footers. Time after time, player after player bounced shots off the back of the rim. Maybe it was defensive pressure or maybe it was the pressure of the moment, but when players are missing long, it tends to mean they are having trouble controlling their emotions. Besides, if defensive pressure was really the culprit, then why were the teams a collective 10-31 from the free throw line?
If you dig deeper into the statistics of this series you’ll see that in each game the Cavs have had two quarters in which they’ve failed to score even 20 points. In game one, it was quarters one and three. In game two, it was the first and second quarter. In game three, it was quarters one and three again. That accounts for half of all the quarters played in the entire series. More to the point, the Cavs simple inability to put the ball in the basket in the first quarter has set an offensive tone that has carried on throughout each game. Thus, if the Cavs are to be successful in game four, and they have to be, a good place to start would be a way to score at least 20 points in the first quarter. It hasn’t happened yet.
You could point to the second half of game two to counter the argument that the Cavs haven’t scored all series, but you can’t consider the second half without taking into account how deep of a hole they dug for themselves in the first half. The Spurs had a whopping 25-point lead going into the second half of that game which obviously changed the nature of how the rest of that game would be played. Moreover, it’s hardly as if the Cavs carried over that momentum in game three. They scored only 38 points in the first half and 34 points in the second half. At best, the second half of game two was the anomaly. Game three was the standard.
While the Cavs and their offensive woes are partially responsible for a series that is devoid of any real drama, the Spurs shouldn’t be given a pass. They have failed to score 20 or more points in three quarters and have scored only 20 points in three others, which accounts for exactly half of the entire series as well. No wonder you’re left with a sense that this series is being played in monotone. Maybe the grind of the playoffs has taken its toll on both teams, but if that’s the case then the NBA needs to find a better system quickly or they’ll find themselves splitting time on the Versus network with the NHL begging people to watch their playoffs.
And as if the Cavs offensive ineptitude hasn’t been enough to cut the legs out from most Cleveland fans, then the Indians are doing their level best to complete the job these days. In the month of June, they are 5-7. While two of those losses were against the Detroit Tigers, five have been against the relative dregs of the league: Kansas City, Cincinnati, Seattle and Florida. The formula for success in baseball hasn’t changed in a hundred years: beat up the bums and play .500 against the rest. That’s certainly not the formula the Tribe has used lately, but if they plan to return to post season, they simply can’t keep playing down to their level of competition, something they seem to do all too frequently.
Where the Indians have really suffered of late, though, is on offense, much like the Cavs. They’ve been shut out twice in their last four games. Against Florida on Wednesday and on the heels of just being shut out the night before (and two nights before that), the Indians remained in a coma until the 6th inning, when they scored six runs. But that “explosion” was aided greatly by some really bad baseball on the part of the Marlins as five of those runs were unearned.
The one really bright spot of that inning was David Dellucci’s three-run home run. Prior to that and even going back over the previous three games, the Indians hitters were having trouble getting themselves into good hitting counts and even when they did they either popped out or grounded out. You’d search in vain for a hard hit ball. Even more difficult was finding a way to take advantage of a pitcher in trouble, exemplified by their ineptness on Sunday against the Reds with the bases loaded and the game on the line.
When Dellucci came to bat against the Marlins in the sixth inning, it was just after relative chaos had ensued. Byung-Hyun Kim, as most will recall, is a converted closer after having been run out of Arizona following his post-season Jose Mesa impressions while with the Diamondbacks. As a starter, he’s been the kind of pitcher that would make a team long for Scott Elarton. In other words, his appearance on a major league roster wouldn’t be possible without expansion. Still, there he was shutting out the Indians until his defense took on the character of a Sunday morning beer league and booted the ball around.
Taylor Tankersley, who is hardly Dennis Eckersly, came in for relief, an appearance notable only because he was summarily tossed by home plate umpire Brian Knight for drilling Grady Sizemore in the shoulder on a 0-2 pitch. By that point, all manner of argument had broken out and Aaron Boone (yes, that Aaron Boone) another beneficiary of baseball expansion, found himself with an early shower as well. By the time order had been restored, Lee Gardner was suddenly on the mound for the Marlins and four pitches later Dellucci put the game out of reach.
It’s hard to know when a team’s offensive slump might end, but an at-bat like Dellucci’s is often a good start. Not only had it been awhile since any Indian had gone deep, but it also was the first time in awhile that the Indians had actually taken advantage of a gift-wrapped situation. While this may not be the most critical point in the season, it is pretty clear that the Tigers aren’t going away. As such, the Indians can ill afford a prolonged offensive slump, particularly with the Atlanta Braves making their way to Jacobs Field this weekend.
As for the Cavs, they really have no choice but to end their offensive slump. No team has ever come back from an 0-3 deficit and nothing the Cavs have done thus in thus far in the series foretells any change in that precedent. All that says is that it’s unlikely that the Cavs will win the championship. What it doesn’t say is that they shouldn’t at least use every opportunity they still have in the waning days of this season to find their stroke, if only to make watching the game a bit less painful.
Friday, May 04, 2007
The Edge
It all started with a cold snap.
The miserable early season weather, which included an unprecedented snow-out of an entire week of games in Cleveland and has caused the Dolans all manner of financial losses at the box office and concession stands, may actually turn out to be the best thing that has happened to the Indians in a long, long time. It seems to have fostered an us vs. them attitude that has allowed the Indians to develop a competitive edge not typically seen under manager Eric Wedge and has pushed the Indians to a hot streak that started two weeks ago and has continued into early May.
But it wasn’t just the presence of snow and cold that did it. Breaking it down to a much finer point, the first person to get under this team’s skin was, ironically, one of the better-liked individuals in recent Indians history, Mike Hargrove. Hargrove, as manager of the Seattle mariners, became the human snow delay by essentially preventing Paul Byrd from pitching an abbreviated no-hitter on a truly miserable opening day. In retrospect, it may have been better for Hargrove and the rest of baseball if Byrd could have at least finished pitching to Jose Lopez.
Most recall, of course, that Byrd had a 1-2 count on Lopez when Hargrove sauntered out on the field to discuss the snow that was flying, again. Hargrove’s sublimely-timed visit and the ensuing heated discussion allowed the intensity of the snow to pick up just enough that home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez and crew chief Rick Reed were forced to call for another delay. Ultimately this led to the game being called when the weather didn’t much improve. The game, which was to start at 4 p.m. was officially called at 8:41 p.m. The Indians lost a sure victory and Byrd lost a probable, though severely truncated, no hitter. But in the process, an attitude began to develop.
The way the rest of that weekend played out only allowed this attitude to further percolate. There were endless questions from the media, locally and nationally, to Byrd and Wedge and others about what took place, particularly given the perception that Hargrove was responsible for what took place. While Wedge and GM Mark Shapiro were appropriately politically correct in addressing Hargrove’s antics, Byrd was less gracious. In one of his milder statements he said, “the snow was coming for five minutes. If the count's 3-0, nobody is saying anything. They [Seattle] tried to get away with something, and it worked. Nobody was saying anything when I wasn't throwing strikes. I thought it was handled poorly.”
As the snow continued to fly that weekend, the front office, the players and the fans began watching the Weather Channel as if it were CNN, trying to figure out what would happen next. As prospects dimmed for any real improvement in the weather with the Los Angeles-by-way-of-Anaheim Angels coming to town, major league baseball did what it does best and muddied the situation further by telling Cleveland, in effect, that this next home series would be played in Commissioner Bud Selig’s hometown of Milwaukee. While not complaining publicly, you could almost hear the teeth grinding of Shapiro, Wedge and the players who now had to pack their bags. It would be hard for an attitude not to develop under this set of bizarre circumstances. Fortunately the Indians used this new found lack of respect for good and not evil by taking two of three from the Angels.
With a touch of swagger, the Indians were permitted to return home to play the White Sox, a key divisional rival made all the more hateful by a mouthy manager in Ozzie Guillen and an arrogant Chicago media breathing down their necks that is constantly compensating for the fact that they are not in New York. The Indians proceeded to take two of three from the Sox, just a week after taking two of three from them in Chicago.
Often the kind of edge that a team gets from such slights, perceived or real, is as easily lost as gained without something intervening to remind them why they were mad in the first place. As they embarked on their trip to New York, they knew they were facing a team decimated by injuries, particularly to their pitching staff. The Yankees were hardly barking, about the Indians or much else. Whatever edge existed seemed to be temporarily replaced by arrogance as the Indians laid a colossal egg, losing three straight. In fact, they really weren’t competitive in any of those games. And it wasn’t as if the Yankees were on a roll. In fact, that series has been the only high spot in an otherwise miserable early season for New York. Following those wins, the Yankees went on to lose 8 of their next 9 games.
Thankfully, though, baseball continued to pick on the Indians. First, major league baseball, under the skittish and indecisive leadership of the aforementioned Selig, continued to dilly dally around with the conundrum of how to reschedule four lost Indians home games against a team that is not scheduled to return this season. While major league baseball continued to fiddle with what was now apparently the hardest problem they ever faced, it wasn’t lost on the Indians front office or the players that responsibility for this situation rested solely with major league baseball and its schedule makers who made sure that two west coast teams, one that plays in a dome and another who plays in near perfect weather, were making their only trips to Cleveland at a time when the weather is always iffy.
Although baseball still hasn’t announced how the games will be rescheduled, word has leaked over the last several days out that at least one of those “home” games will be played in Seattle, bringing the total to four the number of games the Indians will not get to host this season. While that may be the best alternative among a set of really bad options, the fact remains that the major league front office created this mess and, in the process, gave the Indians another reason to believe that they weren’t being respected.
On the heels of this came the bizarre happenings in the game against Baltimore last Saturday night. Unquestionably, the home plate umpire made a mistake in waving off the run that had scored prior to centerfielder Grady Sizemore doubling up Miguel Tejada who, resembling one of the Indians, forgot how many outs there were and ran on contact and failed to return to first base after Sizemore’s catch. But it also is unquestioned that neither Baltimore nor the umpiring crew realized the blunder for several innings. When it was finally brought to their attention, the umps didn’t claim “rub of the green” as is usually the case. They put the run back on the board and Baltimore now had a 3-2 lead. You wouldn’t be alone if you were left with the feeling that this was something you’ve never seen before.
This eventually led to the protest that the Indians lost. While acknowledging that the umpires made a mistake, the essence of the Indians protest was that Baltimore didn’t lodge a timely complaint, which was true. This was a legitimate argument that has decent support within the rule book. Perhaps it didn’t help their protest that the Indians buttressed their argument by claiming that by putting the run on the board it caused Wedge to manage differently. Anyone with a set of eyes and the patience to watch this team through Wedge’s tenure knows that this may be theoretically true but realistically impossible.
Though denying the protest, Selig and crew did the Indians a favor by failing to discuss the basis for the denial, as if the protest was so frivolous that it didn’t warrant a two-sentence explanation. This only led to the perception that baseball either didn’t want to uphold the Indians argument on a technicality (the failure of Baltimore to timely complain) or simply didn’t want to have to reschedule still another Indians game, which seems more likely. Whichever, this gave the Tribe still another reason to believe they were being disrespected and allowed an edge that may have been dulling to once again sharpen.
If you witnessed either Wednesday’s or Thursday night’s game, that sharp edge was on full display. On Wednesday night, shortly after the protest was denied, newly-rich Jake Westbrook had to leave the game early due to an abdominal strain and the Indians trailing The bullpen kept the game close and the Indians ultimately prevailed in extra innings on a bloop single by Travis Hafner. Thursday night marked Cliff Lee’s return to the rotation and he promptly put the Indians in a 4-0 hole, although a shaky defense helped that cause. But a close play at the plate in which Toronto catcher Jason Phillips blocked the plate from Josh Barfield led to a few choice words from Phillips to Barfield and the intercession of David Dellucci, who was coming to bat. Dellucci took offense at Phillips irrational exuberance and a bench-clearing nearly ensued.
Following that exchange, Dellucci promptly made a stunning catch in left field and followed that up in the bottom half of the inning with a double. In the process, he personally took a whetstone to the edge that has now clearly developed on this team and that led to another victory, a 7-1 homestand and a streak that has seen the Indians win 10 of their last 11.
It’s hard to know whether these series of early season slights will continue to occur as timely as they have thus far. But even if they don’t it may just be enough for this team to at least develop a personality, something it has never done under Wedge. And that, just as much as anything else, is necessary if this team is going to be a serious contender this season.
The miserable early season weather, which included an unprecedented snow-out of an entire week of games in Cleveland and has caused the Dolans all manner of financial losses at the box office and concession stands, may actually turn out to be the best thing that has happened to the Indians in a long, long time. It seems to have fostered an us vs. them attitude that has allowed the Indians to develop a competitive edge not typically seen under manager Eric Wedge and has pushed the Indians to a hot streak that started two weeks ago and has continued into early May.
But it wasn’t just the presence of snow and cold that did it. Breaking it down to a much finer point, the first person to get under this team’s skin was, ironically, one of the better-liked individuals in recent Indians history, Mike Hargrove. Hargrove, as manager of the Seattle mariners, became the human snow delay by essentially preventing Paul Byrd from pitching an abbreviated no-hitter on a truly miserable opening day. In retrospect, it may have been better for Hargrove and the rest of baseball if Byrd could have at least finished pitching to Jose Lopez.
Most recall, of course, that Byrd had a 1-2 count on Lopez when Hargrove sauntered out on the field to discuss the snow that was flying, again. Hargrove’s sublimely-timed visit and the ensuing heated discussion allowed the intensity of the snow to pick up just enough that home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez and crew chief Rick Reed were forced to call for another delay. Ultimately this led to the game being called when the weather didn’t much improve. The game, which was to start at 4 p.m. was officially called at 8:41 p.m. The Indians lost a sure victory and Byrd lost a probable, though severely truncated, no hitter. But in the process, an attitude began to develop.
The way the rest of that weekend played out only allowed this attitude to further percolate. There were endless questions from the media, locally and nationally, to Byrd and Wedge and others about what took place, particularly given the perception that Hargrove was responsible for what took place. While Wedge and GM Mark Shapiro were appropriately politically correct in addressing Hargrove’s antics, Byrd was less gracious. In one of his milder statements he said, “the snow was coming for five minutes. If the count's 3-0, nobody is saying anything. They [Seattle] tried to get away with something, and it worked. Nobody was saying anything when I wasn't throwing strikes. I thought it was handled poorly.”
As the snow continued to fly that weekend, the front office, the players and the fans began watching the Weather Channel as if it were CNN, trying to figure out what would happen next. As prospects dimmed for any real improvement in the weather with the Los Angeles-by-way-of-Anaheim Angels coming to town, major league baseball did what it does best and muddied the situation further by telling Cleveland, in effect, that this next home series would be played in Commissioner Bud Selig’s hometown of Milwaukee. While not complaining publicly, you could almost hear the teeth grinding of Shapiro, Wedge and the players who now had to pack their bags. It would be hard for an attitude not to develop under this set of bizarre circumstances. Fortunately the Indians used this new found lack of respect for good and not evil by taking two of three from the Angels.
With a touch of swagger, the Indians were permitted to return home to play the White Sox, a key divisional rival made all the more hateful by a mouthy manager in Ozzie Guillen and an arrogant Chicago media breathing down their necks that is constantly compensating for the fact that they are not in New York. The Indians proceeded to take two of three from the Sox, just a week after taking two of three from them in Chicago.
Often the kind of edge that a team gets from such slights, perceived or real, is as easily lost as gained without something intervening to remind them why they were mad in the first place. As they embarked on their trip to New York, they knew they were facing a team decimated by injuries, particularly to their pitching staff. The Yankees were hardly barking, about the Indians or much else. Whatever edge existed seemed to be temporarily replaced by arrogance as the Indians laid a colossal egg, losing three straight. In fact, they really weren’t competitive in any of those games. And it wasn’t as if the Yankees were on a roll. In fact, that series has been the only high spot in an otherwise miserable early season for New York. Following those wins, the Yankees went on to lose 8 of their next 9 games.
Thankfully, though, baseball continued to pick on the Indians. First, major league baseball, under the skittish and indecisive leadership of the aforementioned Selig, continued to dilly dally around with the conundrum of how to reschedule four lost Indians home games against a team that is not scheduled to return this season. While major league baseball continued to fiddle with what was now apparently the hardest problem they ever faced, it wasn’t lost on the Indians front office or the players that responsibility for this situation rested solely with major league baseball and its schedule makers who made sure that two west coast teams, one that plays in a dome and another who plays in near perfect weather, were making their only trips to Cleveland at a time when the weather is always iffy.
Although baseball still hasn’t announced how the games will be rescheduled, word has leaked over the last several days out that at least one of those “home” games will be played in Seattle, bringing the total to four the number of games the Indians will not get to host this season. While that may be the best alternative among a set of really bad options, the fact remains that the major league front office created this mess and, in the process, gave the Indians another reason to believe that they weren’t being respected.
On the heels of this came the bizarre happenings in the game against Baltimore last Saturday night. Unquestionably, the home plate umpire made a mistake in waving off the run that had scored prior to centerfielder Grady Sizemore doubling up Miguel Tejada who, resembling one of the Indians, forgot how many outs there were and ran on contact and failed to return to first base after Sizemore’s catch. But it also is unquestioned that neither Baltimore nor the umpiring crew realized the blunder for several innings. When it was finally brought to their attention, the umps didn’t claim “rub of the green” as is usually the case. They put the run back on the board and Baltimore now had a 3-2 lead. You wouldn’t be alone if you were left with the feeling that this was something you’ve never seen before.
This eventually led to the protest that the Indians lost. While acknowledging that the umpires made a mistake, the essence of the Indians protest was that Baltimore didn’t lodge a timely complaint, which was true. This was a legitimate argument that has decent support within the rule book. Perhaps it didn’t help their protest that the Indians buttressed their argument by claiming that by putting the run on the board it caused Wedge to manage differently. Anyone with a set of eyes and the patience to watch this team through Wedge’s tenure knows that this may be theoretically true but realistically impossible.
Though denying the protest, Selig and crew did the Indians a favor by failing to discuss the basis for the denial, as if the protest was so frivolous that it didn’t warrant a two-sentence explanation. This only led to the perception that baseball either didn’t want to uphold the Indians argument on a technicality (the failure of Baltimore to timely complain) or simply didn’t want to have to reschedule still another Indians game, which seems more likely. Whichever, this gave the Tribe still another reason to believe they were being disrespected and allowed an edge that may have been dulling to once again sharpen.
If you witnessed either Wednesday’s or Thursday night’s game, that sharp edge was on full display. On Wednesday night, shortly after the protest was denied, newly-rich Jake Westbrook had to leave the game early due to an abdominal strain and the Indians trailing The bullpen kept the game close and the Indians ultimately prevailed in extra innings on a bloop single by Travis Hafner. Thursday night marked Cliff Lee’s return to the rotation and he promptly put the Indians in a 4-0 hole, although a shaky defense helped that cause. But a close play at the plate in which Toronto catcher Jason Phillips blocked the plate from Josh Barfield led to a few choice words from Phillips to Barfield and the intercession of David Dellucci, who was coming to bat. Dellucci took offense at Phillips irrational exuberance and a bench-clearing nearly ensued.
Following that exchange, Dellucci promptly made a stunning catch in left field and followed that up in the bottom half of the inning with a double. In the process, he personally took a whetstone to the edge that has now clearly developed on this team and that led to another victory, a 7-1 homestand and a streak that has seen the Indians win 10 of their last 11.
It’s hard to know whether these series of early season slights will continue to occur as timely as they have thus far. But even if they don’t it may just be enough for this team to at least develop a personality, something it has never done under Wedge. And that, just as much as anything else, is necessary if this team is going to be a serious contender this season.
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