Inevitably

The only thing off was the timing. But even separated by about 45 minutes, the two events that defined Cleveland sports on Monday night were exquisite.

With just about one second left on the clock and his team down by one, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Devin Brown grabbed a rebound, tried the put back and was fouled in the process. As the ball was leaving his hand, the final horn sounded. But to those watching in real time, it looked as though the 76ers had escaped by the slimmest of fractions.

Philadelphia head coach Maurice Cheeks pulled a Brian Billick and hurried his team off the court even as the official reviewed the replay. It didn’t work for Billick any better than it did for Cheeks. When the 76ers reluctantly trudged back out of the locker room, it was with just enough time to watch Brown nail two free throws that gave the Cavaliers the victory 91-90 and the home court advantage in their upcoming playoff series against Washington.

The looks on the faces of the fans remaining in The Wachovia Center were not so much ones of disbelief as they were of resignation and inevitability. It was the same looks, frankly, that Indians fans were wearing about 45 minutes later. Once the replay confirmed that the foul call came with .2 left, 76ers fans just knew Brown would make the free throws and allow the Cavs to slip out of town with the improbable victory.

That same sense of dread permeated the sparse crowd at Progressive Field. When closer Joe Borowski entered the ninth inning with a one run lead, you’d have trouble finding anyone outside of manager Eric Wedge who thought Borowski would save that game. When Boston’s Julio Lugo led off with a double, it’s doubtful even Wedge had any faith in Borowski.

So when Manny Ramirez, of course, appeared in the batters box with David Ortiz, whose current weight far surpasses his batting average, standing on first, the only question was how deep in the count it would be before Ramirez sent a ball into the left field stands. Mercifully, Ramirez didn’t wait long, sending Borowski’s first pitch deep into the night to give the Red Sox the 6-4 lead and, ultimately, the win.

Borowski’s pitch to Ramirez was so slow and so fat, Katie Couric could have sent it to the warning track. Rachel Ray would have probably hit it out. And, just like the 76ers fans lamenting their team’s loss, Indians fans were hardly surprised by the Indians’ result. Borowski coming through would have been a far bigger surprise.

Of the two games, the Cavs victory was probably more important than the Indians’ loss, though it is few days too soon to tell. In the case of the Cavs, it wasn’t exactly a must win situation, but it was close. The victory gave this team that has struggled so mightily on the road this season a much needed home-court advantage against the Wizards. The way it ended may just turn out to be the event that helps this team gel in time for the playoffs.

Going into the 76ers game, it was Cavs fans that actually were feeling the sense of inevitability. To be charitable, the Cavs have struggled on the road. To be perfectly blunt, it would be a toss up whether the odds favored a Borowski save or a Cavs road victory. Throw in the fact that the Cavs were playing on the road the night following a tougher than it had to be home victory against the Miami Heat and the odds actually tip in Borowski’s favor.

But that’s really the point, isn’t it? Nothing has to be inevitable. The Cavs didn’t have to accept the fate their season-long trends dictate. Only they controlled how hard they would play, how deep they would dig and whether or not gaining home court advantage was meaningful. The end result may have been laced with luck, but it was surely the by-product of a larger effort earlier in the evening.

In the case of the Indians, the outcome was as much dictated by what transpired over the previous eight innings as it was by Borowski’s implosion, a fate they didn’t have to accept. The Indians left nine runners on base, four of which were in scoring position. Boston starter Jon Lester was hardly overpowering and was there for the taking. But at this point, the only thing keeping the heat off the Indians woeful offense is the far worse failures of the Detroit Tigers. As just an example, the Indians scored two runs in the fifth inning and then loaded the bases with only one out, chasing Lester from the game. But Julian Taverez came in and struck out both Ryan Garko and David Dellucci. Particularly fitting was that Dellucci was batting for Jason Michaels.

In other words, the game didn’t have to depend on Borowski, it just ended up working out that way. Which is why it ended up working out the way it did.

The real dilemma for the Indians now regarding Borowski is how to fix whatever it is that ails him. As expected, he’s now taking refuge on the disabled list with some sort of undefined arm trouble. But if/when he returns, working him back in won’t be easy. Though he saved 45 games last season, Borowski also proved that he basically can’t pitch in non-save situations. The bulk of his hefty ERA last season came as the result of his getting pushed around pretty hard when the game wasn’t on the line. But Wedge can ill afford to put Borowski back in to save a game, either. Look for Wedge and general manager to go into full stall mode by prescribing for Borowski lots of simulated games and lengthy rehab assignments. In the meantime, you’ll also see lots of bullpen by committee decisions until someone, anyone, emerges that can actually close out a game.

Beyond the outcomes of Monday’s games, the real difference between the Cavs and the Indians comes down to leadership. In LeBron James, the Cavs have one of the most definable leaders in the game. James’ presence, complemented mightily by his play, is uplifting to his teammates and allows them to not always accept the fate they’re handed.

The Indians simply lack that kind of leadership. C.C. Sabathia may be the closest thing to a unifying presence in the locker room as they’ll get by virtue of his tenure, but even the players know he has one foot out the door already. Victor Martinez and Travis Hafner are possibilities, but neither comes across as either imposing or passionate. The rest of the team lacks the requisite resume to be taken too seriously.

That doesn’t mean that the Cavs are headed to the championship this year and the Indians headed for an early fall. But as the results of each become more inevitable, it’s not hard to see why.

The Truth Squad

If you follow a team long enough, there are just some truths you know. They may not be things you can necessarily prove or even things that the team would readily admit. But you know them nonetheless. And most of the time, unfortunately, the truths are as harsh as they are bitter.

When Art Modell owned the Cleveland Browns, for example, you just knew that the team would find a way to fall short in big games. Maybe it was because Modell tried to hard to bring a winner to town and thus misallocated his dwindling resources or maybe because he was too impetuous or maybe it was a little of both, but Browns fans knew they were always going to be disappointed under Modell one way or another. His decision to move the team to Baltimore was just the crowning blow.

With the Cleveland Indians these days and under this management, the list seems to be growing ever longer. First up is closer Joe Borowski. Irrespective of the fact that he saved 45 games last season, Indians fans know it would be a mistake to rely on him. They literally cringe at the thought of his getting the ball in a crucial game seven.

USA Today on Wednesday ran a feature on Borowski and Todd Jones, the Detroit Tigers closer, both castoffs of the Tampa Bay Rays and somewhat twin sons of different mothers. The point is that neither is an elite closer by conventional standards, which is the key to the fans indifference to their accomplishments.

According to Indians pitching coach Carl Willis, Borowski apparently has lost some velocity on a fastball that wasn’t all that fast to begin with. Whether or not that is alarming is a matter of context. Borowski, like Jones, doesn’t rely on heat. He relies on location and disrupting a hitter’s timing in order to get outs. He’s been relatively successful in that regard, but with him until the final out is actually registered you’re never really it ever will.

The situation with Borowoski actually reveals another truth that Indians fans really know. No matter what manager Eric Wedge or general manager Mark Shapiro might say to the contrary, you just know they’ve never really had much confidence in Borowski either. In fact, you really get the sense that the worst thing about last season to Shapiro and Wedge was not losing to the Red Sox in the American League Championship Series but that Borowski led the league in saves. It kept them from looking elsewhere in the offseason. The USA Today story just highlights why they lack confidence in Borowski and in that, though, they’re not alone. As the USA Today story notes, both Borowski and Jones have been released twice.

The fact that Borowski wasn’t brought in the close out the Indians lone win in Anaheim earlier this week was chalked up by Wedge as more related to starting pitcher Jake Westbrook’s pitch count than the fact that Borowski had colossal meltdown the night before. Sure it was. Which brings up another truth, this one regarding Wedge.

Despite his age, Wedge is an old school by-the-book manager. The next time he goes with a gut instinct over what the Big Book of Managerial Strategy tells him to do will be the first time. That’s why his not using Borowski the other night was so significant in terms of underscoring his lack of confidence in his closer.

Any Indians fan can tick off at least a dozen instances off the top of their heads when a more instinctual manager than Wedge would have stuck with a pitcher with a hot hand over bringing in the next reliever in line simply because he was left handed as was the next batter. This isn’t a knock on Wedge necessarily so much as to highlight the disingenuous excuse he gave for not using Borowski. Fans aren’t that stupid, nor would they even necessarily disagree with Wedge or Shapiro about Borowski. So why sugarcoat it? It’s almost as if Wedge is afraid to reveal that there is more to him than the sum of his parts.

Just as Indians fan know that the support of Borowski inside the front office is shaky, they also know that Shapiro will continue to fall short in his quest for a more classic closer. It’s what he does. As important as that role is, Shapiro’s priorities have always trended more toward starting pitching and middle relief. When you’re wrestling with the kind of budget Shapiro has to work with each season, filling out the roster becomes a matter of priorities that all can’t get filled. Invariably, Shapiro will talk himself into spending money elsewhere even as he craves the next Goose Gossage.

Another thing that Indians fans just know is that Shapiro and Wedge have a preference for veteran role players rather over young players, almost irrespective of pedigree. To an outsider, this may seem like a ridiculous proposition and for proof they’ll point to center fielder Grady Sizemore and even second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera. You can argue this one all day with the guy on the barstool next to you if you want, but Indians fans would tell you and they’d be right that both Sizemore and Cabrera were reluctant additions that have worked out.

More typical of the kinds of players Shapiro and Wedge are more comfortable with are Jason Michaels, David Dellucci. At this point, most fans can no longer distinguish between Michaels and Dellucci. For the record, Michaels is the one with the lifetime .277 average, Dellucci is the one with the .260 average. Both are what might be termed “nice” players, but neither is anything special nor will they be capable of sporadic good play. Either is the kind of player that tends to fill out a major league roster, but having both of them isn’t exactly a luxury. It’s more an indictment.

Watching Wedge put both in the lineup recently is the quintessential Wedge being Wedge. Rather than watch a young player like Franklin Gutierrez struggle Wedge apparently much prefers watching established mediocrity do the same thing. Maybe they’re good in the clubhouse. At least that’s the excuse fans were fed when it came to Aaron Boone and Trot Nixon.

Another place this kind of veteran over youth thinking is playing itself out is in the Tribe’s fourth starter, Paul Byrd. Whether either Shapiro or Wedge want to admit it publicly, the fans know that Byrd is pretty much done. He can still get hitters out for the most part and will still give the team a bunch of innings, but what’s really the point?

Byrd was 15-8 last season, which is somewhat like Borowski getting 45 saves, so the case for not using Byrd isn’t easily made on the surface. But just as there are always those pitchers that never seem to get run support, Byrd was one of those pitchers that always seemed to throw on the days the Tribe’s offense came alive. His 4.38 ERA last season wasn’t particularly impressive so something else must have gone right.

What the fans really know about the Byrd situation, indeed the whole veteran presence thing that Shapiro likes to tout, is that this is a budget issue masquerading as a philosophical imperative. If there is one thing Shapiro has specialized in since he became general manager, it’s taking a flyer on some other team’s previously injured castoffs. They cost less than premier free agents and thus the risk/reward equation is tilted much more favorably toward the Indians. This is all well and good, for as far as it goes, but when the roster starts filling up with these kinds of players at the expense of developing the prospects the team otherwise highly touts, it gets a tad frustrating to the average fan.

But for all these truths that Indians fans believe are self-evident, there is only one question they’re really interested in having answered and that is when, if ever, the skies will clear, the seas will part, and they’ll get their World Series pennant. It’s never easily answered, of course, but a good start will certainly come when the Indians stop living up to the truths that aren’t so much setting them free as holding them back.

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.

Deja Vu Again

Demonstrating that they refuse to be one-upped by the Browns, the Cleveland Indians announced today that free agent signee Keith Foulke was retiring, even before the first pitch of spring training was thrown. All that’s needed now to make this mini-drama a complete re-rerun of the Browns pre-season is for Joe Borowski to blow out his arm on his first pitch and for Foulke to claim in Bob Hallen fashion that the reason he retired was due to a previously undisclosed mystery ailment.

While this all smacks of déjà vu all over again, only with Foulke playing the Bob Hallen role, remember that the “retirement” of Hallen was or should have been much more unexpected. Hallen didn’t appear to be injured, just unable to cope with the pressure of starting. Foulke, on the other hand, has been plagued by numerous injuries for the last few years and reportedly was now experiencing elbow pain. Whether and when he was going to retire or go on the disabled list were the only real questions. In fact, the same can be said for pretty much everyone Shapiro signed in the off season. It’s the kind of thing that’s going to happen when an underfinanced team forces your general manager to craft a strategy that rests on signing free agents with injury histories.

Mark Shapiro, the Indians general manager, has been getting good play nationally for the off-season he put together, mainly because he theoretically addressed the major holes on this team, particularly the infield and the bullpen. The Indians in many ways do appear to be stronger. But the way the bullpen was addressed was a perfect set up for what took place with Foulke. It’s just that the collapse happened much quicker than anticipated.

Frankly, it’s getting both tiring and boring writing and re-writing the same thing about the Indians. But unless and until ownership decides to fund this team properly, what happened in 2006 is just as likely to happen in any given year as what happened in 2005. And the way 2007 has now started can’t be the kind of encouragement Shapiro or Indians fans generally needed to help them rid the goblins of the disaster that was last season.

The argument has been made, with some validity, that given what was out there and coupled with the insane run-up in salaries during the off-season by teams more desperate than the Indians, Shapiro didn’t really have much of a choice in how he went about cobbling together this year’s bullpen. But the run up in salaries was just one factor that forced Shapiro to scour the injured list for his free agent signees. Bad decisions are at least as much a part of it as anything else. The decision to go hard after Trevor Hoffman at the expense of Bob Howry and the give away of Bob Wickman to the Atlanta Braves both figure prominently into the mix.

It’s probably not much of a stretch to suggest that Shapiro knew this was coming given the otherwise odd signing of Cliff Politte this week. But in the grand scheme, Politte was the perfect Shapiro signing. He has a decent track record and recent should surgery. With Foulke going down, Shapiro might want to consider adding Nolan Ryan as insurance. He’s barely older than Roberto Hernandez and he just got out of the hospital a few weeks ago.