Lingering Items--Where Every "If" Comes True Edition

The Cleveland Cavaliers got a bit of convenient redemption when they won the NBA’s draft lottery last week. It wasn’t even close to the top sports thought on the minds of Cleveland fans. The top thought, and spots 2 through 7 as well, was the Cleveland Indians.

I was talking with a friend on Sunday who theorized that the rapture did happen, perhaps earlier than planned, and that the town had collectively died and all entered the same room in heaven—a room that gets one channel, SportsTime Ohio, and the Indians play on a continuous loop and win each and every time.

It certainly seems that way at the moment. The Indians, a far less talented team, at least on paper, then probably half the league are more than 40 games into the season and still have the best record in baseball. More to the point, though, they’ve given no hint that they won’t be able to sustain this level of play for the rest of the season.

Which gets me back to my friend’s theory. This is kind of what heaven must feel like for an Indians’ fan. It’s a place where all your “ifs” come true, as in “if Justin Masterson can pick up where he left off at the end of last season…” or “if Asdrubal Cabrera can return to a higher level of play promised by his rookie season…” or “if Josh Tomlin can baffle hitters like few other young pitchers…” or “if Grady Sizemore can finally stay healthy….” Ok, not every “if” is falling the way it should, but you get the point.

The Indians are a fascinating team by any measure you want to take. The roster is a patchwork of young, old, has beens and never quites. It’s incredibly thin, which most rosters of teams with budgets like the Indians tend to be.

And yet, and yet, game after game, week after week this team keeps moving forward, playing with nearly unbridled confidence even as the usual bumps and grinds of every team’s season approach.

Fausto Carmona, perhaps the team’s best if not most mercurial pitcher, is having a mostly mediocre year and no one even notices. Carlos Santana, counted on for so much at such a young age, is barely hitting his weight. The Indians’ one free agent signee, Austin Kearns, is hitting about as well as Austin Powers.

Still, the Indians are tied with the Boston Red Sox for the American League’s best batting average and they trail only the Yankees in runs scored. All that could change if Sizemore and Travis Hafner, two players who have been key to both stats, don’t return soon. You have to think those results would show up somewhere.

But perhaps that won’t matter. This is the season where every “if” comes true and that means that Shin-Soo Choo is about due to go on a tear and even Santana and Matt LaPorta should soon climb back to respectability.

The Indians’ offense has been great thus far as important to its success has been pitching. For proof, consider that the Indians are second only to Oakland in ERA but Oakland is two games below .500 while the Indians are enjoying life in the clouds.

The two worst regular pitchers on this roster have been Carmona and Chad Durbin. The former is a bit of a surprise, the latter not so much. Every one else above them has basically been unhittable. As good as the starting pitching has been, the bullpen has been even better. Chris Perez has the worst ERA of the group but it’s still below 3.00 and he does have those 12 saves. His walks tend to shake the ghosts of Joe Borowski but they really aren’t getting him into much trouble.

When you see all these great statistics about the Indians in print, the fact that they have the best record in baseball is obvious. But it still takes a heavy case of eye wiping to actually believe what you’re reading. You’d be hard pressed to find a team less spectacularly constructed playing so spectacularly well, in any sport.

The Indians are still about 50-60 games away from having to make some tough decisions about the direction to take this club in the season’s latter stages. And it is still difficult to imagine this level of play being sustained through the mid-summer heat.

But this is the season where every “if” seems to be coming true so who can really say what comes next. Perhaps the Indians will falter as the thinness of its roster runs head long into a season that is, after all, 162 games long. At this point though it seems just as likely that the Indians will continue its steamrolling of the American League unabated because this seems to be the year when every “if” comes true.

And for once, the Indians marketing department got it right. What if indeed.

**

The Plain Dealer’s Tony Grossi drew an unintentional chuckle in his weekly “Ask Tony” segment this past Sunday. A reader asked Grossi why, in the face of the lockout, he was even bothering to write about potential free agent signees. Grossi said that he was struggling to find something to write about other than the labor dispute.

See, this is funny because rather than write about news, Grossi would rather right about conjecture. It’s a shame, really, when he along with Mary Kay Cabot, the Plain Dealer’s two main football writers, all but ignore the lockout as if it is higher level calculus that they’re never going to understand.

But on the other hand maybe it’s a good thing they know their limitations. They could be like Mike Freeman at CBS Sports who recently wrote that Peyton Manning’s silence on the whole thing was benefitting the owners and not the players.

Manning, along with Tom Brady and Drew Brees, are the most prominent plaintiffs on the NFLPA-sponsored lawsuit against the owners in which they allege that virtually every activity undertaken by that cartel (their words, not mine) is illegal.

Freeman says that “the only” explanation for Manning’s silence in this battle royale is to keep his image and his commercial earning ability in tact. Freeman essentially accuses Manning of being a shill for the owners and paying lip service at best to the players.

It’s an explanation, but hardly the only one. You could start with the idea that the lawsuit, indeed the entire strategy employed by the NFLPA, was ill conceived from the outset. That Manning would put his name on the pleadings is actually more of an act of courage in this light.

Brees, certainly, has been the most visible player during this dispute and certainly acts as if this is a cause in which he believes. Brady, like Manning, has mostly been hanging out at home.

But this isn’t about any particular players anyway and for Freeman to act as if any one of these three or any of the others for that matter are at the forefront of some groundbreaking struggle is ridiculous.

Like everything else that takes place on the business side of professional sports, this is an argument about money. The tactics employed in this case are extreme and incredibly polarizing but they’re just that, tactics. It’s about finding leverage in order to extract the best deal.

Brady, Manning and Brees are mere scenery to this operetta. They could be as overbearing as Chelsea Handler after a few drinks and no one would notice. They aren’t being counted on to lead the charge. That would be the lawyers and the other fools who concocted this slow march to Bolivia, as Mike Tyson might say.

What Freeman and his ilk really need to see is that Manning is just being Manning. That he may be acting out of self-interest is hardly surprising. The first person on either side of this dispute that isn’t acting out of self-interest will be the first.

**

Right now, Josh Tomlin and Justin Masterson are a combined 11-3 and gave given up 35 runs collectively. CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee are a combined 7-7 and have given up 55 runs. This week’s question to ponder: Huh?

Lingering Items--Eye Opening Edition

Watching the Indians complete their sweep of the Baltimore Orioles on Sunday served, if nothing else, as a reminder of how easy baseball can seem at times.

In still another textbook example of the kind of baseball every team hopes to play, the Indians’ victory, indeed the entire series, was a clinic of good starting pitching, timely hitting, and an effective bullpen. When those elements click, any team is unbeatable.

For now all of this stands in stark contrast to how we’ve been conditioned by the Indians over the last few seasons. In most cases, the Indians have seen at least two of those three elements, and too often all three, shut down at the same time as they’ve slept walk to one indistinguishable loss after another.

The Indians would seemingly go weeks without getting a timely hit. All too often the scenario played out exactly the same: the first batter would make an out. The next batter would hit a single. The next player would get a single but not be able to advance the runner to third. The next batter would ground out into an inning-ending double play.

If you want a measure of how different things are for this team at the moment, just consider Grady Sizemore’s return to the lineup. First of all, he hasn’t even been off the requisite year it typically takes to recover from microfracture surgery. Then in his first game back his swing looks nearly perfect as he crushed a ball for a home run. Finally, he still had enough speed to turn a ball down the right field line that didn’t get all the way to the fence into a double.

It was enough to make me look twice to confirm that his uniform said “Cleveland.”

How exactly are Indians fans supposed to get used to that? We’re used to things like Travis Hafner coming down with a shoulder problem that lasts longer than the tenure of most Browns head coaches. We’re used to trading great players for projects. We definitely are not used to players coming back from a major injury sooner than they should and performing as if they had been healthy all along.

And then there’s the stellar starting pitching. Watching Fausto Carmona get lit up on opening day seemed to fit like a favorite pair of blue jeans. Watching him throw strikes and baffle hitters in every start since seems to fit like a necktie around a shirt collar that’s pinching you a little too tightly.

It’s not just Carmona, however, that’s causing this comforting discomfort. The relief pitching has been phenomenal. Is it just me or is every Indians pitcher getting ahead of every opposing hitter? By the time the 7th or 8th inning rolls around and the Indians are ahead, the bullpen comes in, throws more strikes and the outcome never much seems in doubt.

Even the obligatory standing ovation awaiting the third out has been going exactly as planned. It never crossed anyone's mind, for example, that closer Chris Perez wouldn't get that third out in the top of the 9th on Sunday, just as scheduled.

Now of course all anyone wants to know, including me, is whether or not there is any chance that the Indians can play this brand of interesting baseball for the rest of the season.

Fourteen games into a season is not a fair sample, certainly. Either is 24. But if the Indians are entering the month of June with 50 or so games under their belt and not much has changed, then it will be time to revise the forecasts.

**

The NBA playoffs started this past weekend and although the games were on seemingly every conceivable television network, just like the first few rounds of the NCAA tournament, it hardly didn’t generate nearly that level of excitement.

Maybe that’s because this was the first time in years that the Cavaliers were not part of the story or maybe it was because the NBA’s playoff season tends to last longer than the tenure of most Browns head coaches. It’s probably some of both.

Indeed, you can essentially put the NBA playoffs on autopilot for the next month and then come back to see where things stand. You won’t have missed much in the meantime.

But to those interested in such things, the NBA playoffs do offer some insight worth considering. First, they amply demonstrate why the regular season is such a waste of time. Whatever else one might think of NBA players, one thing about them is abundantly clear: they play in a different gear come playoff time.

Maybe that’s true in every sport, but it’s far more evident in the NBA. For example, I’m not exactly sure what it would look like for a major league baseball player to work harder in a playoff game the same way I’m not sure what it would look like for a pro football player to do likewise.

But in the NBA, there is no doubt. The players move with more intensity. Their steps are crisper, the plays make more sense, the picks and fouls are harder. It almost seems that in comparison, the regular season is a fraud, a mostly go-through-the-motions exercise to get to the next step.

Second, the NBA playoffs demonstrate exactly why it is so difficult to construct a championship-caliber team. There is no question that only two or three teams at most in the entire group of 486 playoff teams have any chance of winning the NBA title. All of the various first round victims may be getting that ubiquitous playoff experience but it will come at the expense of their drafting position later this summer. And as we know in the NBA, if you don’t have one of the top few picks in the draft you might as well draft the tall guy you met at the grocery store. His odds of playing in the NBA are only slightly less than the 23rd overall pick in the draft.

All of which brings us right back to the Cavs. By virtue of their inability to stink up the place at the end of the season as much as they did for the other 7/8ths of it, the Cavaliers will now have the second most ping pong balls in the upcoming lottery. They could still very well get the top pick but why were they even messing with the odds in the first place?

There’s no guarantee that the Cavs wouldn’t squander the top pick if they end up with it, but the chance of doing so isn’t nearly as great as with the 5th or 6th pick. And each time over the next few seasons that the Cavs end up picking 5th or 6th in the draft means another year in the NBA’s version of purgatory.

As I’ve documented before, once a team sinks to the depths of the league, it’s a long time, perhaps 10 years or more, before the cycle begins to turn once again in their favor. After the Chicago Bulls last won an NBA title and Michael Jordan retired, it was 6 years until they saw the playoffs again. In the 7 years thereafter, they’ve made the playoffs 6 times but only past the first round once.

The point is that while Cavs general manager Chris Grant can say the team isn't in a rebuild, every conceivable statistic says otherwise. You can't take lose the best player in the league and reconstruct the team that was built around him under a NBA system that simply won't allow it.

The Cavs are in for a long and slow trek back and so the fans in these parts will just have to get used to the NBA’s silly season from afar. But take comfort, by the time the Cavs are once again ready to make a real run, LeBron James will either be retired or on to his fourth or fifth team, like Shaquille O’Neal, as he seeks to hang on for one last shot at a ring. Here’s hoping it will also be for his first ring as well.

**

The NFL draft is only a week and a half away but until the owners and the trade association formerly known as the NFLPA come to some sort of agreement that ensures there will be football next season everything else that happens will be anti-climatic.

As the parties wind their way through court-ordered mediation it serves as a reminder of how truly complex the business of the NFL (and every other professional sport) really is. The fact that the NFL and its players have high-class problems doesn’t diminish the fact that they have problems nonetheless.

If you’ve ever taken the opportunity to even peruse the expired collective bargaining agreement, you’ll understand why it takes longer than the tenure of most Browns head coaches to understand the complexity of the NFL’s operations. It’s not just a matter of taking the dollars generated in various ways and splitting it up equally among every team. There are significant issues to work through, issues made all the more complicated by a salary cap that overlays an industry where individual players are still free to negotiate their own wages.

There’s no way to tell at the moment whether the current round of mediation will produce an agreement but when the parties are talking there is hope. Each round of new discussions gives each side added insight into what it will truly take to reach an agreement. Even if these talks aren’t successful, whenever a new deal is reached it will have been set up in part by this round of mediation, just as this round was set up by the mediation that took place before the contract expired.

After listening to Roger Goodell last week talk to Browns fans, I remain convinced that Goodell is a dealmaker who is just looking for common ground. He does want to get a deal done.

The problem Goodell has is the same problem any chief spokesman has. The most difficult negotiation isn’t always across the table but with your own people. The owners have a far greater understanding of the economics of the game and thus are harder to corral because of it.

But take heart. Just like the Cavs will eventually return to the playoffs, the NFL will get a new labor agreement and your Sundays (or Thursdays or Saturdays) in the fall and early winter will once again be filled with NFL football. Whether it's next fall and early winter, well, it's too early to say.

**

With the return to network television of one of the best shows ever made, Friday Night Lights, comes this week’s question to ponder: If Coach Eric Taylor can literally build a new program at East Dillon, win 2 games in his first season, and then beat one of last year’s state finalists in the season’s first game, why didn’t he get even a cursory interview when the Browns had an opening at the end of last season?

Optimistically Skeptical

When a team that was expected to start out 2-8 suddenly starts out 8-2 you’re obliged to take notice. The Cleveland Indians, a rag tag collection of projects and misfits, has played as solid of baseball thus far as any team outside of the Texas Rangers and the locals are doing just that, taking notice.

It’s how they’re taking notice that is probably more of the story than the fact that the Indians currently on pace to win 130 games and make a mockery of the American League Central.

But no true Indians fan dares to even think that way or even risk getting too excited by a quick start. There are a variety of reasons for this.

You can start with the history of the franchise if you want. The phrase “swoon in June and die in July” may not have been invented specifically to describe the Indians teams of the ‘60s and ‘70s, but it fit them like a glove nonetheless. Fans tend to know their history when it comes to this team.

If you want to focus just on recent history, then you could look to the Eric Wedge years. Under Wedge Indians fans got used to seeing even objectively good Indians’ teams start slowly and spend the rest of the season trying to make up ground. Conditioned more to records like 2-8 than 8-2, it follows that there will be some confusion, like the kind your dog gets when you move his dinner bowl.

If you want to get institutional about the whole thing, then you can blame the ownership of Larry and Paul Dolan, coupled with the management of Mark Shapiro, for conditioning the fans to hope for much but expect very little.

Larry Dolan, upon taking over the Indians, made the kind of unfortunate promise that tends to get made in Cleveland sports. It may not be as descriptive as “mad dog in a meat market” but Clevelanders still roll their eyes when they think about Dolan’s famously saying that he would spend money on this time “when the timing was right.” Perhaps the timing just has never been right.

While it is technically true that Dolan has had relatively high payrolls during his tenure, those were essentially players and contracts left over from the Jacobs/Hart years. As those players and their contracts peeled off the books, the payroll purposely has been kept small as a concession to the economic realities of the city they play in and the other teams they consort with.

The one year Dolan really had the chance to fulfill his promise, following the 2007 season, he and Shapiro instead went into a different direction. They dumped payroll, slightly, while failing to add any player more meaningful than 2008’s version of Austin Kearns in the form of utility player Jamey Carroll. There would be no run at the championship as the Indians ended up winning 15 less games than the season before.

If you want to look at a seminal event in the recent history of this franchise, that was it. More than anything else, that level of inaction sent a message to both the fans and the other players on the roster that ownership was never going to spend the money necessary to maintain a club at a high level.

Since then, of course, Shapiro has taken to trading any tradable player who could otherwise bust the budget. Shipping away CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez were important moments in Cleveland history certainly but all those transactions really did was give voice to the direction the Dolans and Shapiro had already set in motion.

All that is why an 8-game win streak at the top of the season generates smiles but not enthusiasm, except among that small group of eternal optimists.

In truth, I admire those eternal optimists and I say that without a shred of sarcasm. Their ability to look at Jack Hannahan and see Brooks Robinson in his prime is heartwarming.

Though my admiration is sincere, where I do draw the line however is the underlying notion that somehow this group in all its rose-colored glasses glory represent the only true fans in this town. They aren’t and not by a long shot.

I have just as much admiration, for example, for the complete cynics whose numbers overwhelm the Pollyanna set. They aren’t any less loyal to their team, just far more skeptical. They look at Orlando Cabrera and see not a savvy veteran but a cheap player well past his prime able to find work only because there are too many teams in baseball.

Simply because this group wants something more tangible to believe in than an early season win streak is no reason to question their loyalty. They’re comfortable in their misery in the same way that the optimists are comfortable in their blissful ignorance.

The truth is that the fan base of this team is no different than that of any professional sports team. Since everything can be graphed into a bell curve, the same holds true for fans. There are the extremes at both ends and a large segment in the middle that float between optimism and a cynicism on a daily basis.

The other truth is that you never really know what kind of baseball season you’re going to get until it actually gets going. All evidence thus far to the contrary notwithstanding, the Indians aren’t a very talented team. Their starting pitching is suspect (or is supposed to be), their bullpen is a bit of a Rorschach ink blot and their hitting is average at best (or is supposed to be).

And yet as the season has gotten underway, outside of the first two games, every one of those suspect elements has performed beyond all expectations. Do Justin Masterson and Mitch Talbot really have 11 or 12 more of those same kinds of performances in them? Is Asdrubal Cabrera really going to hit 30 or so home runs? Has Chris Perez really turned into Dennis Eckersley?

Perhaps the best take away from those performances thus far is that each of those players actually has it within him to play at that level. That’s comforting until you remember that the fact that they are in the major leagues suggests that they should be able to perform like that.

The fact remains that Fausto Carmona along with Talbot and Masterson has demonstrated an ability to shut down an entire team’s offense. Perez can close out games and Cabrera can hit.

The real test comes in the ability to be able to perform at that level consistently. That’s not just the goal in baseball, it’s the goal in every professional sport. The golfing world is full of guys that can hit as good a shot as any player in the history of the game has ever hit. What distinguishes Jack Nicklaus from your brother-in-law is the ability to consistently hit those great shots.

The same is true in baseball. There’s a reason Ryan Garko is in Japan and Derek Jeter is still with the Yankees. Consistently producing is the difference and ultimately will determine if the cast of characters wearing Indians uniforms this season are the real deal or just another in a long line of pretenders.

The End of the Beginning or...

Cleveland Indians fans, having had a few days now to fully absorb their latest disappointment, have been left to wonder whether the loss to the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series was the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end.

The popular theory is that the 2007 Indians, particularly the version that stormed its way to the best record in the American League with a late season surge, is a young team on the come with even better days on the horizon. There certainly is enough young talent to justify the perception, which only suggests that the loss brought merely a sudden end to what looks to be a good two or three year run, at least.

But whether that ultimately turns out to be the case is far less certain than it might otherwise appear on the surface.

The problem with baseball economics as practiced in markets like Cleveland is that every season is ultimately a crapshoot. You enter with a hundred questions that only money, properly allocated, can solve. The problem, of course, that major league baseball is not played on a level field. A lack of revenue sharing and a salary cap ensures that’s the case. Consequently the Indians are not ever going to be funded in the same way that George Steinbrenner funds the Yankees. In the first place, the Dolans don’t have that kind of money. In the second place, they don’t have the same inclination toward deficit spending.

Given this double whammy, which is experienced in other cities as well, fans can never be quite sure what kind of team they’ll have entering a given season. Whereas the Yankees or the Red Sox, for example, can keep an already good team intact by simply spending, they can also go out and acquire whatever else they need, unconstrained are they by such pedestrian concepts as budgets or prudence. The Red Sox paid over $50 million just for the right to then pay Daisuke Matsuzaka another $50+ million in salary and didn’t give up any player in the process. It may be an insane way to run a business, especially when you consider the Red Sox were already deficit spending to the tune of $18.5 million a year before that deal, but it’s the reality in which major league baseball operates.

Of course not every investment turns out particularly well, but a bad decision in Cleveland can have tragic consequences. In Boston or New York, it’s often a rounding error. That’s why teams like the Indians, the Colorado Rockies, the Oakland As, and several others, are forced to rely on young talent far enough from free agency to play for minimal salaries to fill out the bulk of the roster and then spend what limited funds they have left on a few veteran pieces to round out the team.

The problem with this formula is that it can be very volatile for reasons almost completely out of anyone’s control. For example, the progression of a young player is not always a straight line. Sometimes there are setbacks, long stretches lasting weeks or months when the player looks overmatched. It takes time and experience to understand and then execute the adjustments that must be made in order to deliver on potential. As for the kinds of free agents that economically-challenged teams end up signing, mostly it’s based on hope. In Cleveland, for example, we’ve seen an endless parade of free agents over the last few years who might as well been inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys, banished there by their former clubs for ineffectiveness, injury histories or both. Some of these signings work, many do not. For every Joe Borowski or Kevin Millwood, there’s an Aaron Boone or a Roberto Hernandez.

If you’re unconvinced how truly volatile the formula is as practiced in Cleveland, just look at the last three seasons. The 2005 Indians finished 93-69. A final week collapse is all that stood between then and the playoffs. A team on the come? Well, it didn’t quite work that way in 2006 when the Indians were worse by a full 14 games! A team on the decline? Well, it didn’t work that way either as the Indians of 2007 improved by 18 games!

The pattern that emerges, really, is that which is dictated by the economics of the times, seasons defined by how well the homegrown talent progressed and the fractured free agents performed.

In truth, offensively the 2006 team was far better than the 2007 team. It had a much higher average (.280 to .268), a better on-base percentage (.349 to .343), scored more runs (870 to 811) and had more home runs (196 to 178). The difference, as everyone knows, was pitching and particularly the bullpen and particularly the middle relievers. The 2005 team, on the other hand, was similar offensively as this year’s team. Again, where they succeeded and the 2006 failed was pitching and particularly the bullpen and particularly the middle relievers.

When GM Mark Shapiro decided, for example, not to sign Bobby Howry going into the 2006 season, he cut the legs out of the bullpen. The young talent did not perform as hoped and the free agents were a disaster.

On the other hand, the 2007 team was aided immeasurably by relatively homegrown talent such as Rafael Betancourt, Rafael Perez, and later Tom Mastny and Jensen Lewis, performing beyond expectations at the same time that the free agent acquisitions of Joe Borowski and Aaron Fultz were doing likewise.

But in the larger sense, the story of these teams was simply a case of one year the formula working another year, not so much. That’s why it’s so difficult to project where the Indians really stand on the heels of this past season. All this year’s stability does is ensure that the Indians are likely to go into next season relatively intact in the bullpen and hope it works out just as well. The flaky nature of relief pitching, particularly when dominated by such young talent, makes that far from a sure thing.

It’s why, ultimately, Shapiro will find himself tinkering. Despite his 45 saves, would anyone be surprised if Shapiro decided he could do without the rollercoaster ride that is Borowski and instead went with Betancourt, particularly when Betancourt seems to be developing into the same kind of lockdown reliever as the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera, a pitcher who, when he has to, can come in the game in the eighth inning and still get the save in the ninth. But if Betancourt finds himself in the closer role, can Lewis or Mastny pitch as effectively over an entire season as Betancourt did this year? Will that force Shapiro to sign another middle reliever or hope someone else also emerges from the minors?

The questions, though, are hardly confined to the bullpen. Is Fausto Carmona the real deal or a one-year wonder? Who is the real Cliff Lee anyway? Can Paul Byrd really be counted on for 15 wins next season? Will Jake Westbrook return to the kind of form that earned him that huge contract? And what about C.C. Sabathia? He is entering his free agent year and decisions need to be made. No player has yet given Cleveland the “hometown discount” whatever that means and there’s no reason to believe that Sabathia will be the first. Besides, do the Indians even want to keep Sabathia beyond next season? There is talent just waiting its turn in the minors that works much more cheaply. But will they be as effective? What’s the right trade-off, 13 wins at minimum wage vs. 20 wins at $1 million per win?

You could spin yourself into knots just thinking of all the questions that are dictated by the Indians economics, despite how relatively tranquil and stable things otherwise seem with this team. And you can be sure, too, that’s just what Shapiro’s doing. How these turn out, however, are the key to whether or not the Indians are entering into another golden age for the difference between right and wrong is the difference between the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

Heart

Baseball, as Indians manager Eric Wedge likes to remind us, is a very difficult game. It’s why he tends to resist the opportunity to upbraid his players, at least publicly, when they fail to perform. Indeed it’s why Wedge steadfastly stood by his team during this middle of the season when they otherwise looked like they were on vacation, at least from hitting.

The tendency, of course, is to dismiss Wedge’s assessment of the game as an excuse to cover for the mistakes that get made. If that’s true, that’s fine. Part of a manager’s job is to have the backs of his players during the lean times. But Wedge issues that reminder as often as necessary predominately for one reason: it’s true.

Of all the professional sports, baseball seems to be the easiest to play to the causal fan. Unlike football, there are few if any instances of all nine players ever having to move in concert at one time to accomplish a singular goal. Unlike basketball or hockey, most of the time the players seem to be just standing around waiting for something to happen. Americans, in general, like their entertainment like they like their people—direct and with as little subtlety as possible. In that respect baseball will always suffer in comparison. You have a round bat, a round ball and you have to hit it square.

But every once in awhile, a baseball game comes along that is so transcendental that it makes every other sport look lame by comparison. Saturday night’s game ALCS game between the Indians and the Red Sox was just that game. It set the table for Monday night’s victory and for all that will follow as the Indians continue their march toward the World Series.

Unfortunately, those who know that game only by its final score will never appreciate its beauty, drama and suspense. They’ll also never fully appreciate why this Cleveland Indians team deserves a special place in their hearts and minds.

By now, of course, everyone knows the story line. After about five hours of play, the Indians broke a 6-6 tie, scoring seven runs in the 11th inning and completely letting out whatever air remained in Boston’s Fenway Park. While this was dramatic enough, it pales well in comparison to all that took place before it.

This Cleveland-Boston series features all manner of intrigue all of which was on display this past Saturday. The starting pitchers, so feared because of their reputations, were not able to contain the bats of their opposition. There was hand-wringing, of course, every other inning or so when David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez came to the plate. Not only couldn’t they be stopped, they couldn’t be contained. And who knew how important a seemingly innocent ground out in the top of the 6th inning that scored Jhonny Peralta would be?

But once Peralta scored, the game was locked into an endless loop of near misses and as Saturday night turned into Sunday morning, it was hard to imagine it would ever end. The fact that it did end and in such grand style for the Indians had nothing to do with luck, karma or any other such cosmic phenomena. It came down to heart.

Start, for example, with the very first inning. After the beat down of the night before, the easiest thing for the Indians to have done, knowing they were facing Curt Schilling, was lay down. Not intentionally, to be sure, but it would have had the same effect. Instead, Grady Sizemore, who took the collar the night before, started it off with a hustle double and came home on Victor Martinez’s double. It sent a message to the Red Sox that what happened on Friday night stayed on Friday night.

Boston, of course, is nobody’s weak sister. With Fausto Carmona struggling with his control, the three runs the Red Sox scored in the bottom of the third was no more of a surprise than how they scored them, mostly at the hands of Ortiz and Ramirez.

Ramirez, the displaced Clevelander by way of Washington Hts. in New York City, is quite a study. He is a testament to all that can be accomplished with a spotless mind. He could stand in the middle of a hurricane and eat a sandwich. Completely unfazed by the circumstances or enormity of any situation, all he does is hit, with his bat, your bat or a waffle bat. And if he’s not hitting, he’s still scaring the bejeezus out of opposing pitchers anyway. Whereas Alex Rodriguez has a sensitivity meter with a hair trigger, Ramirez suffers no such burdens. It’s why Ramirez will always perform whatever the setting and why Rodriguez will always struggle particularly when the stage gets bigger.

The third inning should have and could have buried the Indians, particularly with Schilling on the mound. But Schilling was not able to perform one of the most important tasks a pitcher faces: shut down the opposing team after your guys have just put a crooked number on the scoreboard. Following singles by Martinez and Ryan Garko, Peralta hammered a 3-run home run to temporarily give the Indians the lead, 4-3.

Though Carmona did struggle, his ability to hold Boston in the bottom of the fourth inning after the Indians had just taken the lead was bigger than most even recall at this point. It didn’t work out so well in the fifth for Carmona, but getting out of the fourth was critical.

Like a boxer temporarily staggered, the Red Sox were able to regain the lead in the fifth, thanks in no small measure again to Ramirez. But by the time Franklin Gutierrez’s chop grounder allowed Peralta to tie the score in the top of the sixth, it was obvious to all that this was a team that wouldn’t die. No matter where the Red Sox pounded the wooden stake, either they were missing the heart or, more likely, the heart of this team was just too big to be stilled.

If the Red Sox had any doubts about that at all, they were silenced in the bottom of the 10th. With Ortiz, Ramirez and Mike Lowell coming to the plate and reliever Tom Mastny on the mound, there were few fans in either city that gave the game much of a chance to make it to the 11th inning. Even when Ortiz grounded out to Peralta, that still seemed the most likely outcome.

But all Mastny did was retire Ramirez and Lowell on harmless fly balls to right field. That momentum shift turned into the onslaught by the Indians in the top of the 11th and is what, ultimately, tied this series at one game apiece.

Every game is ultimately the sum of its separate parts and often the mini-dramas that brought about that final result get lost in the mix. And even if they do in this case, there is a major takeaway not to be missed. This team has heart and it has it in spades. The strength, character and will, all sports synonyms for heart, that it takes to prevail in such circumstances is widely talked about it but rarely witnessed. But when it’s there, it’s awesome in its power.

It directly led to Monday night’s victory, not by momentum but by shear force of will. It propelled Jake Westbrook to reach down to find something that had been missing for most of the season. It pushed Kenny Lofton’s hit over the right field wall. It’s the reason Rafael Betancourt was able to squeeze still another magic inning out of his tired arm. It’s why the Indians will win this series.

It’s one thing not to be favored in a series or being forced to play in an unfriendly environment. It happens to every team. Simply overcoming those odds is not, in and of itself, much of a deal. But overcoming adversity whatever the circumstances and with limited experience in dealing it is a much different issue. Not only did the Indians not let Friday’s demoralizing loss carry over to Saturday’s game, neither did they let the gut punches within the two games derail them from the mission at hand.

The Indians have had more talented teams in their existence that have accomplished much less. By winning on Saturday and again on Monday this team already has gone beyond expectations that were reasonable to make in the first place. The only thing that’s left is to finish the job. Don’t bet against them.

A Mystery Wrapped in a Riddle

As mysteries go, it’s hardly the most compelling. But with major league baseball at the halfway point, it’s a question worth both asking and answering: why are the first-place Cleveland Indians one of the best kept secrets in Cleveland?

Over the weekend, the Indians finally surpassed one million fans for the season, the last division leader to do so. There was a time, of course, when the Indians front office handed out key chains in gratitude for having a million fans for the entire season and there were many seasons in which the Indians didn’t come close to drawing a million fans at all, so everything is relative. But the thought then was that if the team is ever a winner, the fans will show.

That was certainly true in the ‘90s. Now, not so much. The team is a winning and the fans aren’t showing, at least as much as a first place team deserves. And it’s not as if they aren’t a good home team. As of July 3rd, they have, at 31-12, the best home record in the entire major leagues. And it’s not as if they lack for promotions. The Indians front office runs so many fan promotions to this point the only things left are a cow-milking contest and bring your dog to the park night.

There are all sorts of theories as to why the Indians aren’t drawing. Some have suggested that the bad taste of last year’s disaster, particularly given the promise of the previous season, is mostly responsible. There’s probably something to that.

There is no question that generally many fans feel let down by the Dolans. The team has one of the lowest payrolls in the league still and despite owner Larry Dolan’s often-quoted promise to spend when the team was competitive it’s a promise that still remains mostly unfulfilled. The fans felt betrayed by the decision not to spend going into last season when the Indians seemed on the precipice of greatness and felt further betrayed when the Indians dumped salary last year. Those feelings were hardly assuaged by the lackluster free agents signed going into this season.

But whatever the ramifications of such fan mistreatment, the point remains that right now the Indians are 50-31 and only one team, the Angels, have a better record, and only then by one-half game.

Another popular theory is that the yearly roster turnover has created a team without an identity, making it more difficult for fans to embrace. There’s probably something to that theory as well.

Given the way the Dolans choose to fund this team, every off-season involves a fairly healthy amount of turnover. GM Mark Shapiro spends nearly every moment of his life with a cell phone glued to his ear for a reason. There are always 5-7 roster spots that he needs to fill. And it’s not as if those roster spots are being filled by identifiable, marquee-type players. Jason Michaels? David Dellucci? Joe Borowski? If anyone has their baseball cards, it’s by accident.

But on the other hand, the Indians have their share of stars. C.C. Sabathia, Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore. These are guys that could and would start for any team in either league. They’re all young with incredibly promising careers.

Which leads to a corollary of the “lack of identity” theory: even if they have identifiable players, the Indians won’t re-sign them when their contracts come due, thus investing the time now is mostly time and money poorly wasted.

There is something to this, too. Despite the Indians record, one of the most popular topics among fans is whether or not the Indians will re-sign Sabathia and Hafner. Though neither is a free agent at the end of this season, there is an abject fear, rightfully obtained, that the Dolans will not spend to sign either player. It’s difficult to know exactly how much this fear plays in the overall calculus of fan disinterest, but it would be foolish for either the Dolans or Shapiro to ignore it completely.

While each one of these theories likely plays some role in the number of empty seats at Jacobs Field each night, there is also a more obvious reason you don’t hear much about: the 2007 Major League baseball season simply isn’t very interesting.

Consider the American League East. Right now, exactly one team is over .500, the Boston Red Sox. Whatever your feelings may be about the New York Yankees, they are a flagship franchise and when they struggle there is a ripple effect throughout the league. In the AL West, the Angels remain a top-tier team and while Seattle is playing well and Oakland is a few games over .500, none of those teams capture the imagination, at least here in Cleveland. Unlike the Yankees, the quintessential team that fans love to hate, every team in the AL West garners, at best, a shrug.

In the AL Central, the White Sox this year are like the Indians last year, a major disappointment. But other than that, the division is playing out pretty much as expected, meaning that there is no compelling story to capture the imagination.

The National League is every bit as uninteresting. Whereas every division leader in the American League has at least 50 wins, the closest in the National League is Milwaukee with 48. Milwaukee! Most fans couldn’t name more than two players on the Brewers. The National League East, on July 2nd, had the dubious distinction of going 0-5. That pretty much captures what that division is all about. As for the NL West, it is highly competitive, but given its geographical distance and the fact that most of its games start at about the time most people go to bed around here, it remains an afterthought.

Contrast all of this with just last season. At this point last year, the AL East was the strength of the league, with Boston, New York and Toronto all at least 10 games over .500. In the AL Central, the Tigers had re-emerged after a lengthy slumber and were dominating the division, which makes for a very interesting storyline for Cleveland fans given how many times the teams play each other. Moreover, three teams in the division were at least 10 games over .500 with the Tigers having won 56 games by this point. The National League was still a mess, but the Mets were dominating their division and even the Reds were fighting it out for first place in the NL Central.

Moving beyond the league in general and to the Indians in particular, despite their record there is the lingering feeling that this team really isn’t all that interesting or all that good. That may be true if your benchmark is the 1920 Yankees or even the 1995 Indians, but in context to the rest of the league it’s untrue.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this team revolves around how it is that it finds itself with 50 wins already. At times, it seems held together by paper and paste. The defense is average, they aren’t hitting as well as anticipated and the middle relief remains a source of frustration.

But yet they are one of the best teams in the league. It’s this paradox that begs for further analysis not indifference. For example, the starting pitching has been nearly as good as advertised. In fact, with the emergence of Fausto Carmona, in some ways it’s better. That’s a story worth following, in and of itself. If that isn’t good enough, consider that Borowski has 24 saves despite the fact that nearly everyone of them was a struggle and is probably the team’s MVP to this point.

If that still isn’t good enough, look at some of the others. Sabathia is easily having the best season of his career and is well on track for a 20-win season. For anyone watching closely, this is the season that Sabathia has officially gone from a potential number one starter to an actual number one starter. When he takes the mound, good things generally follow.

It would be hard for any player, let alone a catcher, to play any better than Victor Martinez is playing to this point. His offense, always solid anyway, has been spectacular. Defensively, his improvement has been dramatic. Currently, he is ninth in the major leagues (third in the American League) in the percentage of would-be base stealers thrown out. For comparisons sake, consider that Ivan Rodriguez is 14th overall. His selection to the All Star team was every bit the no-brainer that was Sabathia’s selection.

Sizemore may not be a superstar yet, but he continues to play like a superstar in the making. Offensively, only Torii Hunter of the Twins is enjoying a better year than Sizemore among American League center fielders. Defensively, there are few better right now. Casey Blake has been, perhaps, the biggest surprise, particularly defensively. He is playing so well at third base, it will be tough, barring an injury, for Andy Marte to get back to Cleveland before September 1.

But rather than see these positives, too many fans seem to waiting for the other shoe to drop and are doing that waiting anywhere but at Jacobs Field, which is a shame.

It may be that the Dolans, once again, fail the fans by not investing in what it might take come trading deadline. It may very well be that Joe Borowski may wake up and realize that he is Joe Borowski or, maybe even more likely, that Casey Blake wakes up and realizes he is Casey Blake. Travis Hafner may stay in a slump all season. But for right now and for half the season already, that isn’t the reality.

Considering how few winners this town has known in any sport, one would think that whatever its warts, this is current Indians team should be embraced, not ignored.

Is It That Simple?

If nothing else, you have to give Indians General Manager Mark Shapiro credit for one thing, he certainly knows his team. Going into the season, Shapiro told anyone who would listen that as shortstop Jhonny Peralta goes, so goes the team. Nearly one-quarter into the season, Shapiro couldn’t possibly be more dead-on.

It hardly seems a coincidence that Sunday, Peralta hit his 10th home run of the season and the Indians won their 10th series of the season. In each case, both Peralta and the Indians are months ahead of where they were last season. Peralta didn’t hit his 10th home run until the 88th game last year while the Indians didn’t win their 10th season until mid-August. Can it really be that simple?

Perhaps it is that simple, but if you scratch below the surface, the resurgence of Peralta may be the most visible sign of the turnaround but it is hardly the only reason or even the most critical.

Start with Paul Byrd. Last season, his first with the Tribe, Byrd was the sort of fringe free agent whose signing hardly raised an eyebrow among the fans. Perhaps it was due to circumstances beyond his control. Remember, the Indians had diverted most everyone’s attention by pursuing higher visibility free agents to anchor the back of the bullpen while alienating the reliable but scary closer, Bob Wickman, leaving him to hang in the balance. In the meantime, the Indians couldn’t quite find enough room in the budget for Bob Howry, a key set-up man, showed virtually no interest in re-signing Kevin Millwood after he stabilized the starting rotation the year before, and let Scott Elarton, an iffy fourth or fifth starter, at best, to leave for the pastures of Kansas City. This allowed Byrd to fly a bit under the radar.

But not completely. Tribe fans were told that Byrd was the kind of player, like Millwood, whose steady presence, if lesser pedigree, would too bring stability to a young starting staff. In particular, Byrd was a control pitcher who kept his teams in the game by consistently throwing strikes. But things didn’t quite work out that way for either Byrd or the team. Byrd was up and down from opening day on. Had he not been the recipient of great offensive support, his record would have been far worse than the mediocre 10-9 it was. Byrd was hit hard and often, particularly early in the season. His vaunted control simply wasn’t there.

But as the season wore on, Byrd slowly got better, just not decidedly so. His ERA, which started off in the 10+ range ended at 4.88. Still even with this improvement this was second highest ERA in his career, the highest he had in his last 10 years, and by almost a full run! Peralta, as an everyday player, may have been a more visible target of fan wrath last season but Byrd was no less ineffective.

This year, Byrd has completely turned it around and is the pitcher Shapiro originally envisioned. After Sunday’s win, in which Byrd went eight innings, he is now 4-1. His ERA is 3.55 and he has pitched at least six innings in every start. His control has been phenomenal. He has walked only three batters all season and two of those came in his first official start against Chicago on April 14, a game the Indians won 4-0. In his two no-decisions, he’s given up only three earned runs. Peralta, as an everyday player, may be a more visible reason for the resurgence of the Indians this year, but Byrd has been no less effective.

Next is Casey Blake. At times this season, Blake has reminded fans of Aaron Boone last year, which isn’t a good thing. Early in the season, Blake simply wasn’t hitting. On April 10, following the fourth game of the year, his average was .312. Eleven days later, he was hitting .188. By May 2nd, his average had climbed to .202. But since then, he’s been on a virtual tear (for him). Following yesterday’s game he’s hitting .255, which is essentially equal to his career total of .260.

Though Blake will never be much of an offensive force for the club, what is interesting is that he is hitting .282 batting in the second slot in the order this year. He’s also hitting .267 since being reinserted as the regular third baseman. In the field, Blake’s defense at third base has been terrific, particularly for a defensively-challenged team. Marte, in 13 games, had committed 4 errors. Blake has appeared at third base in more than twice as many games—32--this year and only has four errors. His fielding average is .945, a significant improvement over Marte’s .857. These statistics are the reason the Indians waited until the last possible minute to bring Marte back from his rehabilitation assignment. Simply, Blake, for all his shortcomings, has stabilized the lineup thus far in a way that Marte, whose upside far exceeds Blake, couldn’t.

Next up is Fausto Carmona. His pitching thus far has been the biggest, most pleasant surprise for Indians fans in years, particularly after the way he imploded in such a spectacular fashion last year when he was used in the closer role following the trade of Wickman. This truly is where luck comes in and is why, for all the statistics Shapiro and his staff may want to crunch, success is so difficult to predict. If not for the early season injury to Cliff Lee, followed closely by the eerily similar injury to Jake Westbrook, Carmona would be toiling at Triple A. But since losing his first start on April 13, in which he didn’t make it out of the fifth inning of a game against the White Sox, Carmona has given up only eight earned runs in six starts, culminating in last week’s brilliant shutout of the Twins. When Westbrook returns, the guess is that Jeremy Sowers, who has been ineffective all season, will find his way back to Buffalo while Carmona finds himself pitching in the All Star game.

And if Carmona doesn’t find his way to the All Star game, C.C. Sabathia certainly will. He’s already 6-1 and has pitched at least six innings in every start. His ERA is 3.65. Though he has two no-decisions, the Indians ultimately prevailed in both of those games, meaning that the Tribe has won eight of the nine games he’s pitched. By almost any pitching measure, Sabathia is among the elite in the league this year. When it’s Sabathia’s turn in the rotation, opposing teams go into the game knowing that they are at a disadvantage. In fact, the only thing Sabathia has yet to solve is how to pitch in Oakland, which isn’t much of a problem given the unbalanced major league schedule, unless the Indians face Oakland in the playoffs. But most importantly, this season, more so than in any other, Sabathia has stepped up his performance and established a presence on the mound that the Indians simply haven’t had in years.

Finally, there is the bullpen which, along with defense, was last season’s Achilles’ heel. Last year, the Indians scored almost 90 more runs than they surrendered. Using the Pythagorean Won/Loss statistic as developed by Bill James and published on Baseball-Reference.com, that should have yielded a recorded of 89-73. As we know, the Tribe instead finished at 78-84 and it wasn’t because of the starting pitching, either. But this season the bullpen has made a remarkable turnaround, although the exploits of Fernando Cabrera of late are a source of some concern. Closer Joe Borowski has performed as good as Shapiro hoped and better than most fans have expected. He has 13 saves in 15 opportunities, even if his few meltdowns have been particularly ugly.

But the closer role wasn’t really the problem when it mattered last year as much as it was middle relief. Recall that early in the season the Wickman simply didn’t see many save opportunities. And when he left, well, the season was effectively over anyway and whatever save opportunities came the Indians way were an adventure, to say the least. But one of the more telling statistics about the relief pitching last year is that its earned run average was .4 more than the starting pitching, which isn’t where you want your relief pitching to be. This year, the bullpen’s ERA is now .4 of a run less, which is nearly a run per game difference over the course of a season. That may not seem like much until you consider two things. First, the Indians starting pitching is even better than last year and second, last season the Indians were 18-26 in one-run games while this season they are 8-4.

The remarkable thing about baseball though is that for all the sum of its parts that it really is, sometimes it really is as simple as one player. Maybe Jhonny Peralta is the bellweather for this franchise for this season as Shapiro suggests. Maybe. But the suspicion is that Shapiro knows better, which is why so much time was spent in the off season reconstructing the bullpen. But however Shapiro wants to sell it, the truth is that for Indians fans, they can take at least take decent comfort in knowing that should Peralta regress to the indifferent player on display last season, the Indians, with even better starting pitching and greatly improved middle relief, are much better positioned than last year to withstand such occurrence.