Letting the Kids Play

You’re welcome, Cleveland.

When Indians’ general manager and president-in-waiting Mark Shapiro re-re-signed Russell Branyan this past off season, it never made sense and I wasn’t shy about saying so. Maybe he cost “only” $2 million, but he had a bad back and about one good half-season in an otherwise strangely long but predictably mediocre career. On a team perpetually rebuilding Branyan wasn’t a fit for about as many reasons as there are stars in the night time sky.

No question that most people following the Indians scratched their head at Shapiro’s latest experiment as well. But few went after it hammer and tong as I did. In late June it paid dividends as Shapiro was able to trade Branyan back to Seattle for living, breathing players of very minor importance.

Which gets me back to why you’re welcome, Cleveland. Since the Branyan trade (and as you say those words, put air quotes around the word “trade”) the Indians are 14-7 and are riding a season high 6-game win streak. Do the math yourself but just know that if you win twice as many games as you lose, in any league, you’ll be clearing space for some post-season hardware, unless you’re the Cavs.

Call it a coincidence if you want but in the same time frame Seattle has gone 5-14, which is roughly the torrid pace the Indians were setting with Branyan.

What all this proves, of course, is that Branyan is that gigantic sucking sound emanating from any franchise that employs him. His one skill is to seduce general managers into thinking that his occasional home runs more than compensate for truly, deeply, madly bad defense and more strike outs than the kid on your pony league team whose dad forced him to play. They never do.

One dimensional players like Branyan fill one niche in baseball. They serve as a spare part in a pennant race for a contender. That’s why it made no sense for the Indians to sign him and it made even less sense for Seattle to trade for him.

Now that he’s gone from Cleveland, it’s as if the Indians suddenly have a sense of purpose about them. No one expects them to much win but instead to develop, like the crop of new hires in accounting, so that one day they will be in a position to lead, to win.

It’s a great theory and in some major league cities it may actually play out that way. But for all the talk of Moneyball and new-found statistics that are supposed to help teams find those diamonds in the rough, it still takes money and plenty of it to compete year in and year out for championships. It’s as true in baseball as any other sport and it’s as true in Cleveland as any other city.

Unfortunately, as much as the Branyan trade freed this team, there isn’t more excitement because in Cleveland, the fans are completely clued in to how this all turns out.

At some point one or two of these young players will develop into very viable major leaguers that will be coveted by other teams with more brash and more cash than the Indians. Like vultures over a dead raccoon on the highway, they’ll just hover around the Indians until said players reach the final 18 months before they can be free agents then they’ll try to pick the Indians’ bones clean.

In the meantime, hands will wring and teeth will gnash. In that run up to their free agent year the naïve among us will hold out hope that the Indians will find a way to sign them. The realists will talk about trading them so that the team can get something for them. The team will comply and they’ll be gone. And the circle will begin. Again

That’s the full back story of why the Branyan signing didn’t make sense. It disrupted, however briefly, the narrative. But with Branyan gone, the Indians and Shapiro have finally, thankfully, stripped any pretense away from this team.

If you buy a ticket these days, you know exactly what you’re getting into. There are some veterans scattered about but mostly you’re going to see players who are still in the “prospect” category trying to play up to their potential. It can be an interesting ride if you’re a baseball purist.

The problem for the Indians, though, is that these days there are less and less purists. Most of those willing to plunk down their money to support this team are willing to go to one or two games a year just out of habit but to get them to more games the team will have to offer something more compelling than an all you can eat buffet and a very occasional win streak. Even fireworks aren’t the draw they used to be.

As much as fans talk about “letting the kids play” it’s a myth, at least here. Fans really just want a winning team and they know in a perverse way that the end result of letting the kids play is heartbreak anew. In this operating paradigm, winning will always dangle just out of reach.

I doubt that the Indians owners and management are in denial about their troubles because they know the basic facts better than anyone. The Indians have been bleeding fans for years as a result of their operating mode.

They are dead last in the major leagues in attendance with an average of 16,636 fans per game. For comparison purposes the Houston Astros are 15th in the league and they’re averaging a little more than 11,000 more fans per game. Before you start rationalizing this as a big market/small market thing, just know that the Milwaukee Brewers are 11th in the league in attendance and are averaging more than double the amount of fans per game than the Indians.

There aren’t any publicly available ratings for the Indians’ games on Sportstime Ohio so it’s hard to know if people are even watching on cable. But if the Arbitron ratings for radio are any indicator, the Indians aren’t exactly a huge draw at the moment for their flagship station WTAM-1100. Since April, the station’s share of the listening audience is actually down, which coincides with the baseball season. As a result, WTAM-1100 has gone from a tie for first place among local stations to 7th at the end of June.

I’d say that baseball in Cleveland is at a crossroads but it’s been at this crossroad many, many times in the past. For most of its existence, the Indians have been owned by good but cash-strapped citizens. It’s not a surprise, then, that its franchise record is so dismal. When there was finally someone able to spend some money, the team got good quickly. There is a correlation.

As much as dumping Branyan finally turned this season into an exercise in letting the kids play, at its core that’s never really been the issue. The compact between the fans and this team is broken and instead of trying to rope-a-dope the fans into thinking that somehow all this child’s play and revolving rosters will eventually result in consistent winners, it would do Indians fans a far better service if Shapiro and company actually found a way to build a better mousetrap. And if they can’t, then it’s time to give someone else a try.

Lingering Items--Stupid Is As Stupid Does Edition

I don't own a gun. Never have and never will. In fact, I've never even shot a gun and have no desire to do so. And the last thing I want to do on the cusp of the Fourth of July and in the face of the U.S. Supreme Court's siding with the NRA on gun control laws is to get into a debate about guns. So I'll leave it at this: Are Robaire Smith and Shaun Rogers that stupid?

I ask that because in the span of one season, both defensive linemen were arrested as the result of trying to bring a loaded firearm on an airplane. Each had the gun in their carry-on luggage as they went through security and at least we know that the Transportation Safety Administration can spot the most obvious offenses.

What we also know is that while Rogers' arrest was months ago now, Smith actually was caught first, at an airport in Flint, Michigan last November. It's just that local police dithered over whether to file local or federal charges. They settled recently on local charges. The sweet irony though is that when Rogers was arrested last April at Hopkins Airport, Smith was traveling with him. It's almost as if Smith was playing Alan Funt setting up Rogers for some sort of Candid Camera moment. (By the way, am I dating myself with the Candid Camera reference? If so, here's the Wikipedia link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candid_Camera). Except the only hidden camera is the one that documented the arrest.

In each case, of course, the two numbskulls pleaded ignorance and appropriately so. It's actually easy to believe that neither realized the gun was in their carry-on bag. Even the 8-year olds in Miss Landers class know that you can't take a gun on an airplane. But exactly why these two are packing that kind of heat in the first place and who exactly they are protecting themselves from is far more difficult to understand.

This is where the gun lobby jumps in, glosses over those questions and shoots (sorry) right over to every American's Constitutional right to bear arms and, of course, arm bears. But this isn't a Civics lesson. This is more practical.

The gun Smith had was a Five-seveN Belgium made semi-automatic handgun. Knowing nothing about guns myself, a little research tells me that this particular beauty with the strange capitalization (in honor of its manufacturer FN Herstal) is manufactured for use by police and SWAT units. The Browns' defensive line is a lot of things, but it isn't a police or a SWAT unit. In fact, it's almost the opposite of that so unskilled has it been at times at stopping any opposition.

I kind of get the notion that people like to keep handguns in the house to supposedly thwart an attack in the middle of the night. (I digress to tell you a true story about my friend, Tim: He is one such person. Because he has young children, he keeps the gun locked in a safe and keeps a lock on the gun. One late night, his wife heard what she thought was some rustling in the house. Tim tiptoed down the steps and into his office, carefully trying to evade the intruder even as the alleged intruder was helping himself to Tim's various riches, which aren't much. For all Tim knew, the intruder could have passed him on the stairs on his way up to see what awaited him upstairs. After quietly unlocking the safe, Tim grabbed the gun. The problem was that he couldn't get the safety lock off the gun because he couldn't find the key, despite trying for several minutes. By Tim's account, at least a half hour had now passed which means if the intruder was still there he's probably as dumb as Smith or Rogers. Rendered useless without his gun, Tim called the police, which was actually the most useful thing he had done. After a careful sweep of the house, which meant, I think, turning on the lights and looking around, there was no intruder. The theory is that the dog, who is blind anyway, walked into a door. The next morning, Tim diligently looked for the key, found it after an hour or so, and unlocked the gun only to discover it was so dirty from non-use that it wouldn't have fired anyway, kind of like the guns Barney Fife used to give Goober and Otis when he would deputize them. Now Tim keeps the gun nice and clean. He also keeps near the lock, which is about as practical as having a gun lock in the first place.)

What I don't get, though, is the immediate need for guys like Smith and Rogers, and millions of others like them, to pack that kind of firepower. Physically these two are pretty intimidating on their own, or at least they appear to be. But if they need the false confidence that guns give them, what chance, really, do they have in a straight out fight against an opposing offensive lineman every Sunday?

On second thought, maybe that's exactly why the Browns' defensive line has been so bad.

**

The post-post-post-post Russell Branyan era has begun in Cleveland and after Friday night's game, the Indians were 5-1. That means they're winning 83% of their games without Branyan and while I could do a little research on this point I'm not sure it's necessary. An 83% winning percentage will be good enough to get in the playoffs.

The one thing that struck me about the Branyan transaction, both going and coming, is how vastly different two teams can see the same thing. When the Indians signed Branyan, it was pretty much confirmation that Indians' general manager Mark Shapiro had simultaneously thrown in the towel and lost his mind.

It was recognition, really, that the Indians are being funded on the cheap. Branyan represented neither a missing piece nor a long term solution. Indeed he represented nothing much in particular except a guy with a bad back who would take at-bats away from Matt LaPorta.

In Seattle, though, Branyan is being sold by general manager Jack Zduriencik as tangible proof that his team is trying to win. Zduriencik's actual words was that the Branyan trade brings the team credibility. It's a fine line between credibility and crap and I suspect that Mariners fans have a pretty good idea which is which.

Seattle was a better team than Cleveland without Branyan. All his return to Seattle accomplishes for them is to perhaps bring the two teams closer, sort of addition by subtraction for one and subtraction by addition for the other.

**

There's a pretty high amusement factor in thinking about grown men who should know better literally dropping to their knees to lick the feet of LeBron James during a series of meetings in Cleveland this week.

New York Knicks head coach Mike D'Antoni sounded positively giddy, like a teenage boy who discovered his father's collection of porn, at the freedom he now has to publicly declare his man-love for James. It's like college recruiting without the pretense that it's about academics.

As wordly as James is and wants to be, he's still just a big kid at heart. Two quick stories: Two weeks ago I was driving home from the grocery store. James lives in my neighborhood, about a mile away. As I turned the corner near, I saw James and one of his buddies riding bicycles like they were any other bicyclists out for a nice Saturday ride. James was wearing a helmet, by the way.

As I watched James ride, it struck me how innocent it all looked. At the same time various ESPN talking heads and so-called experts were talking all over each other in an epic quest to look smart while knowing nothing, James was just out having a nice, wholesome time in the neighborhood. There was something oddly affirming about it all and made me think “where in New York City will he ride his bike?”

Then, on the night before the official quest for James began, when most of these same talking heads and so-called experts were probably theorizing that James was in deep meetings trying to determine how best to proceed, James instead was at a local high school with his buddies playing a game of softball and signing autographs for the few that happened to notice he was there. If tells you that James is far more relaxed about this process than almost everyone else. It also tells you, once again, that James is happiest when he's around his friends doing the same kinds of things that a lot of us like to do in our off time.

If it were me giving the presentation to James, that's exactly what I'd focus on. James undoubtedly wants to win multiple championships, but for him it's about relationships even more. He wants to be part of the mix and he wants to have a good time. But by all accounts the Nets and the Knicks instead focused on the worldwide branding efforts and all the kinds of things that will come anyway because of James' talent on the court. To me it sounds like a misstep.

When James said Cleveland has the edge to sign him, I believe him, but not because of any obligation he feels toward the city, but because it's home. It's where he rides his bike. It's where he plays softball. It's where he goes to the movies and shops for groceries. And it's where all his friends still are. That's the most powerful tug of all.

**

Mike D'Antoni claimed he was cautiously optimistic about the Knicks' presentation. Which begs this week's question to ponder: Wouldn't it have been more appropriate for D'Antoni to say he was optimistically cautious?

Lingering Items--Credibility Edition

Well, we're not going to have ol' Russell Branyan to kick around anymore.

As mysteriously as he was signed, Branyan was just as mysteriously shipped to the Seattle Mariners on Saturday night. No need to go back and check the records. Your memory is correct. Branyan played for the Mariners last season and despite his middling success in the first half of that season the Mariners opted not to sign him in the off season, mainly because he developed back problems and essentially wasted bench space and, well, stood in the way of developing younger players.

The Indians, ever the mercenary good guys of the American League, did Seattle a favor by paying for Branyan's rehabilitation, not to mention nearly a million dollars in salary, to get Branyan right back to where his career stats say he should be: striking out with regularity, hitting home runs occasionally, and playing awful defense consistently.

But if you think all that makes Indians general manager Mark Shapiro look like a sap, you just aren't paying attention. For the Indians' trouble, Shapiro wrestled Seattle's 15th best prospect from their system along with a 21-year old switch hitting shortstop languishing in A ball. Never mind that the Mariners have one of the worst farm systems, depending on whether or not you believe the various rankings. The Indians still got their 15th best prospect, Ezequiel Carrera, who won the AA batting title just last season. That's something I guess.

The ignominious end to Branyan's second tour of duty in Cleveland, coming as it did seemingly in the middle of the night, doesn't befit one of the dumbest off-season moves of the Shapiro reign in Cleveland. What most anticipated is that Branyan would probably blow out his back again on one of his patented upper cut swings and slip quietly into oblivion courtesy of the 60-day disabled list.

Now it's likely that will be Branyan's fate as he returns to Seattle, presuming of course that his back doesn't stiff up on the plane ride over.

Now it's Seattle general manager Jack Zduriencik's turn to explain what the heck a team with no chance of winning this season or next is possibly doing signing Branyan. I'll let him explain, courtesy of Geoff Baker's report in the Seattle Times, and if you close your eyes it sounds almost exactly like Shapiro explaining why he signed Branyan as well:

"If you look at our team, as we move forward, just about every player who is here now will be here again next year," Zduirencik said. "We're committed to the development of our players and that goal, that objective, has never changed for us. But part of that development process is also winning games. We want our players to be able to experience winning games this year. And we're trying to do what we can to give them what they need to get there."

As Baker noted, Seattle's pitching has been decent this season but they are hardly scoring any runs, kind of like the Indians except without the decent pitching thing. Reading between the lines, according to Baker, is that Zduriencik is trying to maintain some credibility between the front office and the team on the field.

Exactly how the signing of Branyan will accomplish that isn't any clearer in Seattle than it was here. By my count, Branyan helped the Indians win exactly one game this season. Admittedly when you've only won 26 games overall, perhaps the ratio of 1 in 26 doesn't look that bad. And by the way this isn't even debiting how his miserable defense has probably contributed directly to two or three losses this season. We'll just leave that part alone.
Maybe Branyan hits a key home run or two for the Mariners and instead of the 12 games below .500 and 14 games they're out of first place now they end up only 20 games below .500 and 22 games out of first by season's end. Who knows? But if Zduirencik actually thinks that brings credibility to his franchise, then the Seattle fans are being force fed the same delusional thoughts that Cleveland fans have been on the business end for the last several years.

**

This is the week that Cavaliers fans, along with virtually anyone with even a passing interest in the NBA, have been waiting for, the beginning of Amir Johnson's free agency tour.

Actually, this is the week that Cavaliers fans have been dreading in only the unique way that Cleveland sports fans in general can dread. So fearful are they that LeBron James will leave Cleveland for anywhere else, Cavs fans have pretty much resigned themselves that for now, of the town's three major professional teams it's the Browns that now offer the most promise.

Maybe that's all part of the grieving process. You see your loved one lying there knowing he or she is terminal and you just start resigning yourself to the outcome. That won't mean of course that the death won't hit you hard. It just means that you've mostly prepared yourself for the sting.

And Clevelanders, whether they admit it or not, are preparing for the sting of a James-less Cavaliers. By this point, and including these several paragraphs, the official count on words written about James and his free agency is approaching one for each dollar in his soon-to-be new contract. And while there isn't a whole lot more to say, there still is some.

For instance, all those daily rumors about James and where he'll land are pretty meaningless, even if entertaining. As these last few days wind down before the real circus begins, remember that James' stated goal is to win multiple championships and about the only thing that will give him any more insight into where that will happen for him than anyone else has is if he has a better crystal ball than anyone else. He doesn't.

Sure teams can clear cap space, but the reason they can do this is because they're mostly miserable and/or poorly run teams that have done a lousy job up to this point in making themselves competitive in the first place, kind of where the Cavaliers were before they got James and a whole new regime along with him.

James brings any franchise instant credibility and a likely playoff run, but he isn't a one-man show. Either was Michael Jordan.

Indeed, for as much as people always talk about how Jordan needed Scottie Pippen in order to start winning championships, the truth is that he needed even more than that. A team with cap space may be able to sign two high profile free agents but even that isn't going to guarantee multiple championships.

That's where the rest of the franchise's track record has to be considered and I keep going back to the same place I started—the track record that put those teams in a position to clear cap space in the first place.

James is an otherworldly talent that doesn't necessarily need another otherworldly talent along side of him to be successful. What he does need though is a complimentary group of players with whom he can always remain in sync.

James doesn't have a college track record for reference, but look at his high school teams. They were talented, certainly, but no one outside of James has played in the NBA. In fact, no one outside of James made much of an impact afterward. There were scholarships, but not to high profile programs.

But these players had an uncanny bond with James. It was a product of not only growing up together but of finding a way to fit in their unique contributions within his overall game.

To a certain extent you can project the same thing in the NBA. James' trajectory in the NBA, at least with the Cavaliers, has followed a similar path. As the complementary players improved, so did James and so did the team. The Cavs were able to eke out those most wins in the NBA for a couple of years now and James was similarly able to eke out the most valuable player award in the same time period because of those complementary players, the same ones he took with him to St. Vincent-St. Mary's high school to pick up the award.

James' play in all star games and at the Olympics has revealed these same traits. He's always played his best with other players in complementary roles. On a team of all superstars, James still shines best when he's part of the overall team dynamic and not the complete center of attention.

Maybe it's part of his psychology that developed as part of a fractured childhoold. But James craves the team dynamic as much as he craves the potential for championships that comes with it.

I have no particular insight into what James is thinking at the moment, but his track record and his best moments suggest that he understands full well what makes him successful. Teams that have been poorly run for years and only now are at the forefront of the James' sweepstakes because of it are probably going to be also-rans in this competition as well because, frankly, there's no reason to think they'll suddenly get good at building teams. They won't.

For Cleveland fans, whether or not James puts the Cavaliers in that category or not will determine his fate here, not the cap space or lack thereof.

**
Although NBA free agency begins July 1st, it may be another week or 10 days before James' status is resolved. But it leads to this week's question to ponder: If Cleveland, with all the built in advantages it has to re-sign James nevertheless can't re-sign him, does any Cleveland team have any chance of ever again signing a high profile free agent in his prime?

The Big Six

If the Cleveland Indians have a set of goals for the season scrawled on a piece of paper inside the mind of general manager Mark Shapiro, it probably says “when you don't know where you're going any road will get you there.”

Here's a test: on any night watch the Indians for as long as you can stand and then try to write down exactly what you think they were trying to accomplish. On the list of things you're likely to write down, “win games,” if it appears at all, will be down at the bottom. For a team rebuilding that's understandable. The real problem is that at the bottom also will be “developing a team that someday will win games.”

During this past off season Shapiro spent a lot of time talking about how this team needed to get a better start out of the gate than in seasons past. Shapiro all but painted the picture that the team's slow starts was the primary reason Eric Wedge now has “former Indians' manager” as part of his title.

To that end Shapiro and the brain trust that brought you this roster went about supposedly revamping the spring training experience as if the only thing that stood between this roster and on-field success was a better cut of steak at the training table. Manager Manny Acta placed more emphasis on winning preseason games than did his predecessor (as well as most of the other current managers) and indeed from that perspective the Indians' spring was a success.

But a distressed room doesn't suddenly get a makeover just because you move a few lamps around. When the season started this team was still the uneven mess it looked like on paper in the off season and thus it shouldn't have surprised anyone that April again was miserable. It was bound to be.

Then again, we're likely to be saying the same thing at the end of May, June, July and August as well. By September fans will be so focused on the Browns that they won't notice whatever fate awaits the Indians' then.

The Indians 9-13 record at the end of April projects to a 66 win season. Since most figure this team to win about 70 games anyway, it seems like they are right on pace.

It would be one thing if this team was built with the intent of taking its lumps early while it gels into a competitive unit late. That's just not the case. It's a team that seems to have been built with only one unifying theme: don't lose too much money.

Even that task isn't going to be easy, not with a lineup featuring the Big Six.

The Indians as constructed are mostly a mess. Of the seven players on the roster making over $1 million this season, 6 of them are among the least productive. Unfortunately, three of those six look to be around for a few more years. The Indians have no other choice.

What it all adds up to is a cringe-worthy lineup with only the occasional bright spot or, in mathematical terms, a team that deservedly is on pace to win 66 games, for years to come.

I've railed against Russell Branyan being on this team plenty of times so no need to turn over those shovels of dirt again. Nothing he's done since his return changes that assessment. The best that can be said is that he's not guaranteed any money for next year. All he's doing on this team is eating up space and inhibiting the development of players that might actually have a chance to be on this team a year from now. His $2 million dollar salary is essentially a gift that Branyan would be wise to put in a CD. I hope he sends a thank you note.

You could say the same thing about Travis Hafner, except that his salary is now in the multi-millions, 11.5 of them to be exact.

It's actually hard to watch Hafner these days because so much of what he isn't now is wrapped up in what he used to be. It may be that injuries have robbed him of his ability to be productive any longer. It also may be that his lack of productivity at the plate is exacerbated by his contract, with 3 years remaining, that has become the millstone around this franchise that prevents it from putting a more cohesive lineup on the field. Hafner not only is collecting $11.5 million this season, which equates to about $100 per bad swing at this point, but the Indians are also on the hook to pay him $13 million each of the next two seasons. Hafner is like that stock you bought at $85 a share and held on to even as the company went bankrupt. What else could you do?

The sad fact is that the Indians could be as productive with Andy Marte and pick a player making the minimum as they are with Branyan and Hafner in the same lineup at about 1/12th the cost. This alone goes a long way to explaining the mess that is this lineup.

Yet if these two were the only problems then maybe things would look brighter. But then I watch Jhonny Peralta slumber through his existence at third base like the kid in the back of your high school science class who, when he was there at all, was usually sleeping.

Peralta, with his $4.85 million salary, is like a trust fund baby just gliding through life hoping the money never runs out. Fortunately, it might. He's due $7 million next season, but that's a club option which, if exercised, means Peralta has some incriminating pictures of someone stored in a safety deposit box. If neither Shapiro nor his hand-picked successor Chris Antonetti can't find someone to be as productive as Peralta for 1/10th the price then the Dolans should sue for malpractice.

You could make the case, weakly, that Peralta is still pouting over being moved to third base. But really he wasn't any better at short, either. He has occasional streaks where he's semi-hot at the plate followed by long streaks where he looks like he'd rather be any place else. Mostly though he continues to occupy a spot in the heart of a very weak offensive lineup because his guaranteed salary makes it impossible for the Indians to put anyone else there.

Branyan, Hafner and Peralta are mostly old stories at this point. Unfortunately another player that's becoming an old story is Grady Sizemore. Like Hafner, Sizemore's high water mark was 2006. Since then he's been on a steady and mystifying decline.

That might be fine if Sizemore were still earning league minimum. Instead he's making $5.7 million this year and is scheduled to make $7.6 million next season. In fact Sizemore's salary and productivity make a perfect “X” on the chart with the crossover point being that 2006 season.

There's no question that Wedge had trouble grooming Sizemore in the same way that Wedge had trouble developing most players. Yet at this point the problems with Sizemore seem to be beyond the grasp of nearly everybody. Except for the occasional spectacular play in center field, he looks nothing like the player that was poised to become the Indians' next superstar to be traded. Right now he looks like just another spare part among the many cobbled together in order to field a line up each day.

You can blame Shapiro for giving Hafner an outsized contract and for placing too much faith in a player like Peralta who never quite deserved it. You can find a healthy number of baseball executives that would agree with you, too. When it comes to Sizemore, though, there probably isn't an executive in baseball that would yet turn his back on him. And yet, where he seems to be headed is for a career that mirrors that of Rick Manning. That isn't awful, but it you shouldn't pay nearly $8 million a year for it either.

Then there's the money being chewed up by Kerry Wood as he sits in the spot where he's apparently most comfortable, the disabled list. But his $11 million for next season is a club option which means that if he somehow survives the whole season in Cleveland he won't survive the off season.

The same applies to pitcher Jake Westbrook, with his $11 million salary. He is the last of the Big Six as he's a free agent next season. His injuries caused him to miss all of last season but let's be honest, before that he was a career .500 pitcher anyway with an ERA well over 4.00. His history indicates he would never have received full value from what they were paying him anyway.

Fausto Carmona is the last of the 7 players making at least $1 million this season. Of the group he's been far and away the most productive. He's also the most mercurial of the group and always on the verge of being a few pitches away from the mess he's been the last two seasons or, stated differently, on the verge of making the Big Six the Big Seven.

Which means, of course, that as long as the majority of this group stays in tact, and it will, for the next few seasons, there's really no reason to think that April 2011 or 2012 is going to be any better.

Lingering Items--Striking Out Edition

The Cleveland Indians may be in extreme cost-cutting mode, which is about the only explanation out there for how they found a doctor to medically clear Russell Branyan. Perhaps their medical staff is made up of equal parts Dr. Vinnie Boombatz, Dr. Bombay and Dr. Demento.

Branyan has yet to sniff an at bat in the preseason as he supposedly rehabilitates the bad back that kept him out of the last month of the season. With almost no competition for his services given both his incredibly mediocre major league career and his physical condition, the Indians got medical clearance and couldn’t wait to throw $2 million of its shrinking revenue pool at him. Now Branyan looks destined to start the season on injured reserve.

To which I can only say, really? It’s exactly this kinds of bizarre moves that gets fans so frustrated with general manager Mark Shapiro. There is nothing about Branyan’s history that suggests the Indians should have signed him even if he was completely healthy. He’s a hack in the field and a hack at the plate. He can occasionally hit the long ball but all the stuff he does in between those pokes isn’t worth the effort.

But Branyan isn’t healthy, which makes this signing even worse. Supposedly Branyan is at least participating in some spring training activities but the fear is that Branyan’s back won’t physically let him swing and miss too often against actual pitching. Here’s the thing, I think Branyan would strike out just as often if he was hitting off a tee. He doesn’t need 50 spring training at bats to polish his batting eye, he needs a new set of eyes.

Branyan claims he really only needs a week of spring training to get ready for the season and for once I can’t disagree. Branyan has been kicking around professional baseball since the mid 1990s. In that time he’s shown remarkable consistency in his ability to strike out, whether it’s against the American League, the National League or the minor leagues. That’s not a skill that takes much practice to master. You could literally pull a man off the street, give him a uniform and a week of practice, and accomplish the same thing. And I’m guess that would have cost Shapiro far less than $2 million.

At some point, which means when Branyan actually goes on the disabled list, Shapiro will switch into “it was worth the gamble” mode when it comes to justifying the Branyan signing. As Branyan’s back persistently refuses to respond favorably to rehabilitation Shapiro will then switch to “this now gives us a chance to look at the prospects” mode.

Meanwhile as the season turns from one fitful month to the next and Shapiro starts entertaining offers for any assets left of value, we can then begin to calculate the real impact of this little $2 million mistakes. As they like to say in government, $2 million here, $2 million there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

**

The National Football league has changed its overtime rules for playoff games to hopefully lessen the impact that winning the coin flip can have on the outcome of the game and this is hailed as progress.

For professional sports’ most tightly wound league, I guess it is.

Now, if the team that wins the coin flip kicks a field goal, the opposing team gets a chance. If that team kicks a field goal then play continues. If that team scores a touchdown or fails to score at all, the game is over.

As innovations go it’s a step in the right direction. The NFL has been reluctant to embrace the college overtime rules because how long it can extend a game and hence increase the chance of injury. That’s fine. But what isn’t quite fine are the reasons the NFL has given for not putting its new overtime rule in effect for the regular season.

The first reason is that the outcome of a playoff game is far more important than a single regular season game. That’s not completely true. Teams miss the playoffs by a single game every year and it’s not hard to imagine a 9-7 record being 10-6 but for the want of a chance in overtime. This is even more true in the last few weeks of the season when there are few if any games remaining to overcome that loss.

Moreover, the sheer number of opportunities for overtime games in the regular season vs. the playoffs strongly suggests that keeping the current overtime rules for the regular season will have a far greater chance of negatively impacting the playoffs than keeping the old rules in effect for the playoffs have had.

And while all that’s a fine debate, it’s not the primary reason the NFL isn’t implementing the new rule for the regular season anyway It all has to do with the length of games and the impact on the networks’ schedules.

Everything about the NFL is regimented, from how much of a sock must show on a player’s leg to the starting and finishing times of games. When a 1 p.m. game runs long because of overtime, it bleeds into the 4 p.m. game. When the 4 p.m. game runs long, it bleeds into the network’s prime time lineup and when a Sunday or Monday night game runs long it bleeds into a network executive’s sleep time.

I’m not one of those who will rail against the influence of the networks when it comes to sports because, frankly, without them most people wouldn’t get to see any sports. They bring the games to the masses and pay hundreds of millions each year to do just that. So if their needs can be accommodated, they should.

Where I think the line gets drawn, though, is when the networks’ influence goes from accommodation to actually impacting the outcome of a particular game. The networks invest a lot of money into their primetime lineups but preserving them by enhancing the predictability of when regular season games end is a step in the wrong direction.

The NFL’s overtime rules have never been particularly fair in the first place but they were equally unfair to all teams and that’s a paradigm relatively acceptable. But as the NFL tinkers with the unfairness, it should address it not just for certain games but for all games. It’s as if major league baseball were to suddenly decide that regular season ties after, say 10 innings, are decided by rock/paper/scissors, best two out of three, while post season ties are decided by as many extra innings as it takes to get a winner on the field.

**


The Plain Dealer’s Tony Grossi recent article about Holmgren and his philosophy for drafting quarterbacks was interesting both for its candor and it’s message.

As things stand now, according to Holmgren the Browns don’t intend to try and get one of the nameplate quarterbacks early in the draft. That may be a reflection of the Browns’ gaping needs at every position or a reflection of the relative quality of those nameplates such as Sam Bradford and Jimmy Clausen. It’s probably a little of both. And wasn’t it refreshing to hear Holmgren admit on the record that he doesn’t much like Clausen?

Certainly the Browns could course correct and head coach Eric Mangini alluded to as much in his recent comments about how the Browns plan to use all the draft choices they’ve collected like Beanie Babies. But I doubt it, based on Holmgren’s history.

Holmgren has an excellent perspective on drafting players, particularly quarterbacks: keep replenishing the stock. If one doesn’t work out, cut the ties and move on to the next.

Most of the time NFL teams spend years trying to paper over their draft mistakes instead of making the hard decisions early on. Drafting is an inexact science, at best, so it’s not a surprise that it goes awry occasionally (or in the Browns’ case, often). Holmgren’s approach appears to be to treat them as lessons learned and move on.

But Holmgren’s approach, as noted, also is not to pick quarterbacks in early rounds possibly to avoid exactly that trap of trying for years to pound a square peg into a round hole in order to justify the initial drafting decision of a player that doesn’t work out. Think Brady Quinn.

I wonder, though, how this approach really plays out in reality. According to the Grossi story, Holmgren has basically drafted 10 quarterbacks in his years in both Green Bay and Seattle and of those 10 only 3 have been relatively long-term starters: Ty Detmer, Mark Brunell and Matt Hasselback.

On the surface, it’s not a very good percentage and belies, to a certain extent, Holmgren’s reputation with quarterbacks. There are various factors you could attribute to the success rate including, as Holmgren notes, the relative late picks he had when he was in Green Bay.

But the other factor simply is the fact that Holmgren doesn’t seem to like to spend 1st or 2nd round draft picks on quarterbacks. That alone will decrease the chances of success. It’s bound to.

In some ways it’s similar to Ernie Accorsi’s philosophy in Cleveland (and probably elsewhere) when it came to drafting linemen. He felt NFL linemen were made not drafted and thus anything other than a late round pick or an undrafted free agent was all it was worth spending on them.

Eventually that came back to haunt the Browns, just ask Bernie Kosar.

The problem sometimes with successfully converting a late round pick into a valuable skill player (Hasselback was a 6th round pick) is that you begin to think you can replicate it again and again.

The Browns’ quarterback situation may not be on life support but the patient isn’t doing too well either. Jake Delhomme is a question mark and Seneca Wallace isn’t exactly an established star. If Holmgren’s goals with this team are realized, meaning it’s successful, then this may be one of the last chances for the Browns to parlay a relatively good draft status and a bevy of picks into a frontline quarterback. I’d hate to think that instead of taking advantage of it the Browns begin a decade long pursuit of picking a bunch of Spergon Wynns in the hopes of finding the next Matt Hasselback. We’ll see.

**

You can start with Butch Davis, travel through Phil Savage and end with Eric Mangini and still have only part of the reason why Browns’ owner Randy Lerner finally determined that he needed a serious, credible leader for his franchise.

The rest of the picture is the money. What these various folks brought to Lerner’s franchise didn’t just raise the ire of the average fan who sits at home watching one torturous decision and game after another it raised the ire of those who Lerner really counts on to fund his lifestyle: season ticket holders.

It’s no secret that once the novelty of the Browns return wore off and the reality of massive mismanagement blossomed like dandelions on a spring lawn revenues started going in the wrong direction. Corporations stopped renewing loges, season ticket holders dwindled.

Mangini didn’t do Lerner any favors last season as he seemed to openly work in ways to alienate the fans that remained. Lerner didn’t do himself any favors either as he stayed in the background and remained silent while Berea burned.

Proving that irrespective of your economic status money still talks, Lerner behind the scenes had to see what was taking place and was forced to act. It was time to bring in real grownups to run the franchise. Hence the hiring of Holmgren.

While Holmgren’s hiring was a huge step in the right direction, it didn’t fix everything overnight. Now comes the hard part of wooing back the alienated in order to get the revenue item of the budget back in line. As a first step, the Browns have quietly been trying to re-engage former season ticket holders by offering them a chance to get back into the tent without paying a for a new personal seat license so long as they jumped ship within the last 3 years.

The way to think about this is to think of season ticket holders like disenfranchised members of a country club. Having once paid the initiation fee in the form of a PSL only to find the experience miserable and not worth the money, the likelihood of them returning for more punishment is greatly diminished particularly if they have to endure the indignity of once again paying an initiation fee in the form of another PSL. Waiving the initiation fee or, in this case, the PSL, might get a few back though.

I suspect that the Browns may be able mildly successful with this move but I also suspect that before it’s wildly successful the Browns are going to have to show some tangible and sustainable improvements on the field.

So far this offseason it’s mostly been confusion, but at least it’s the good kind of confusion. Still, having been burned with one of life’s all time worst investments, does any season ticket holder or loge owner suddenly freed of paying for games they aren’t likely to attend ready to immediately jump back in? Probably not. Good try, though.

**

The Browns’ signing of free agent linebacker Scott Fujita may not have moved the needle all that much in the fans’ eyes, but here’s a reason to like Fujita: brutal honesty.

Fujita is an executive committee member of the players’ union. Talking with the USA Today about the possibility of the owners locking out the players in 2011, Fujita said, among other things: “Why would you want to lock us out and ruin what is such a good thing right now? When 40 to 50 million people are turning in to watch the NFL draft? It’s one of the most boring things on television. So why mess that up with a lockout?”

Good point. But for clarification’s sake, it’s not the most boring thing on television or even the most boring thing the NFL does. That would any preseason game.

**

Since I’ve given short shrift to the Cavs in this column, here’s a question to ponder: When Zydrunas Ilgauskas decided not to sign with the Cavs for next season as well, do you think he knows something we don’t about who might

Lingering Items--Quantitative Analysis Edition

In the infamous words of Alex Baldwin in “State and Main”, well, that happened.

The Cleveland Indians signed Russell Branyan, against all sense and logic and this is what qualifies as good news in Cleveland. Back problem, schmack problem. If he can just somehow repeat his career year (and I’ll disregard the inherent oxymoronic nature of that phrase) then the Indians have a chance to, what, win 73 games instead of 71?

Branyan is an awful player living off a singular ability to hit long home runs on occasion. As a player, he’s less dimensional than even Mel Hall. I could spend the next several paragraphs providing the iron clad case against Branyan but at this juncture what’s the point? Indians-President-In-Waiting Mark Shapiro already struck the deal.

Here’s the issue with the Indians as I see it. They operate in an economically-depressed market in an ethically-challenged league led by a thin-skinned commissioner with the business sense of a Russian peasant. They are owned by folks committed to conflicting goals of winning a World Series while maintaining a modest payroll. To accomplish these goals the only competitive advantage they can muster is to find off-the-radar players through their use of quantitative analysis about any and every professional and amateur player in the universe. The problem is that irrespective of what that analysis tells them, they still end up with players like Branyan.

I’ll challenge Shapiro and General Manager-In-Waiting Chris Antonetti to make the statistical case for Branyan. Go ahead, I’ll wait. The truth is, they can’t. Sure, you can highlight some things, downplay others and come up with a scenario that paying Branyan $2 million for the numbers he projects is a relatively low risk proposition in the context of the bizarre economics of baseball.

But Branyan is simply a baseball vagabond, nothing more. He’ll drift from city to city year after year and won’t take root anywhere. He’s not good enough to invest in long-term and apparently isn’t awful enough to move on to his real life’s work.

What good, though, is the Indians’ so-called competitive advantage, its front office smarts, if they are put to this kind of use? Maybe Branyan’s name was spit out by some hybrid program Antonetti cobbled together, but if he is the end result then it may be time to develop a new program.

There is just something about all of this that I find terribly depressing. For the last two seasons the Indians have been dumping nearly every asset of value as if the Dolans were trying to re-enact the movie Major League. In doing so they’ve stripped the fans of any real semblance of hope and replaced it with a lingering sense of dread.

But every year is a new year and no sport regenerates faint feelings of hope more than baseball. And yet the Indians are barely in camp and they’re already dropping turds in the punchbowl, saying, basically, Branyan is the best that we can do.

This season and the next several are now officially being played for the baseball purists, that rare breed of person that loves the poetry of the game and would be just as content to watch the Washington Nationals play the Kansas City Royals as they would be to watch the Indians play anyone.

For them and maybe a few others, watching some young players get good enough where they'll be too pricey to sign long-term is about all that's on the horizon to keep them satisfied. Meanwhile the more meaningful games will be played elsewhere once more.

**


The NFL combine is open for business which means, of course, that the NFL’s official Disinformation Campaign is in full swing. The combine has morphed into a traveling circus, except that it sticks around longer and is even less entertaining.

Teams approach it like an amateur approaches a no-limit Texas Hold’em tournament in Vegas, as if the point of it all isn't to win but to bluff well. So scared are teams of tipping their hand about what they plan in both free agency and the draft that instead of really using it for its intended purpose it's now just about showing how uninterested you really are in the guys that interest you most.

I’ll make this easy for any fan who is trying to glean insight about the Browns’ plans from what’s taking place at the combine. Turn off your television set. Hide your morning Plain Dealer (if you still subscribe to it, which you probably don’t). Ignore WKNR (which you’re probably doing already). Nothing that takes place at the combine has any relevance to who the Browns might sign or draft. It’s really that simple.

If you don’t believe me and instead want to follow the arc of the various Tony Grossi musings on this subject, then drop me a line in another week or so and let me know how accurate the following is: the Browns are interested in a quarterback, or they aren’t. Maybe they really want a right tackle to bookend with Joe Thomas on the left. They like Sam Bradford if he’s not hurt. Same goes for Colt McCoy. Jimmy Clausen reminds them too much of Brady Quinn or maybe he doesn’t. The Browns are going to trade down or else trade up. They will package some of the draft picks they got last year for even more next year or else they’ll concentrate on the defense.

There you have it. Your update from the combine. Plan accordingly.

**


I continue to remain puzzled as to exactly why general manager Mike Holmgren retained head coach Eric Mangini. Most of what Holmgren's said lately, particularly as it concerns Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn is a flat-out repudiation of how Mangini ran the team last season.

From nearly the day he arrived on campus last season, Mangini set up an ill-conceived quarterback competition. He never affirmatively settled on either and as a result made both unprepared and tentative.

From nearly the day he arrived on campus, Holmgren has intimated how ridiculous the whole situation really became. Speaking to reporters at the combine, Holmgren couldn't have been more dismissive of Mangini's handling of the situation. As reported in the Akron Beacon Journal, Holmgren said “whoever's playing has to believe you have his back. That confidence level, even though you make a mistake, 'I'm still OK. I'm going to get better.' He's got to feel that. It's all part of coaching that position.” Ouch.

But there was more. “Someone's got to play a full season, not two games here, off two games, three games, off two, that doesn't work. Because whoever's playing, the first interception, everybody in the stands yells for the other guy. And then you switch them. It doesn't work. So pick one, commit, coach them up, build confidence, make them better and go. And surround them with good people.”

That's about as opposite of an approach as one can get to how Mangini handled the situation last year. Much of what Mangini does, actually, is to prey on a player's insecurities as a means of motivating him, as in “if you don't want me to keep yanking you out of there, don't throw an interception.”

It sounds, though, that Holmgren is going to make it easier on Mangini. Rather than leave him with the decision on who to start, Holmgren has removed Mangini completely from the process and put it in his own hands and those of general manager Tom Heckert.

In a more subtle way, Holmgren and Heckert also have repudiated Mangini by indicating that they tend to make a tender offer to running back Jerome Harrison. On the surface that may seem like an easy decision given what Harrison accomplished at the end of last season. But just remember that Mangini almost steadfastly refused to give Harrison an opportunity at all until he was forced to because of injuries. Mangini was more infatuated with the rookies he brought in and with Jamal Lewis, even though Lewis clearly was washed up. Even when Harrison would excel in spot duty, as he did in the first Cincinnati game last season, he found himself buried the next week.

It's a nice outcome for Harrison, a back that former head Romeo Crennel also didn't treat particularly fairly. As for Mangini, it's once again a reaffirmation that his input into personnel decisions will be limited at best.

**


I actually believe Holmgren when he says that he hasn’t made a decision yet on whether to keep or jettison Anderson and Quinn. I also think that this is the lynchpin decision for the Browns. If you really want a clue into their thinking, the next key date on the calendar is March 19. That’s when Anderson is owed his next roster bonus, a tidy $2 million.

Former general manager Phil Savage has been bashed by many, including me, for a whole laundry list of sins. But his handling of Anderson and his contract situation isn’t one of them. Anderson had the good fortune of having a breakout, Pro Bowl season during a free agent year. Even with Quinn lurking in the background, Savage was able to sign Anderson to a very club friendly contract that has had all sorts of convenient off-ramps attached to it. March 19th is just the latest.

For a team still building (you can’t rebuild something that wasn’t ever built right in the first place), it helps when you aren’t saddled with the previous regime’s baggage. Savage may not have been able to foresee his own demise but he was at least able to foresee the likely scenarios involving Anderson and Quinn and plan accordingly.

In much the same way as he did with Anderson, Savage also signed Donte Stallworth to a club friendly contract. Stallworth proved himself the worst free agent signing in history in his first season and yet head coach Eric Mangini still pulled the trigger on him for a second season, only to see that blow up in his face the very next day.

There are two points to all of this. First, it’s so much more myth than reality that Savage left the franchise a mess. Savage had a spotty history in the draft and left this team without much talent, but from a business perspective, the team was not being run like the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin as Mangini implied all last season. Second, because the franchise is not the mess that Mangini liked to say it was, it is actually well positioned to build in earnest and in the right way far more quickly than most realize. Having, finally, a credible head of the organization was all that was needed and now that box has been checked.

**


Speaking of cleaning up the last few dirty dishes, the other news of the week from Browns camp is that, surprise surprise, the Browns and former general manager George Kokinis have settled their differences.

There was no way this wasn’t going to get settled. Terms are confidential, of course, but just know that Lerner is parting once again with a boatload of money for another former executive. Call it the high cost of his own mismanagement.

The only thing that bothers me about all of this is the whisper campaign that’s been going on about Kokinis. According to reports he was overwhelmed from day one, came into work late, left early and occasionally would nap at his desk like George Kostanza.

I don’t know whether any of this was true but it’s hard to imagine they are given how little time Kokinis was on the job. But let’s assume it is true. What does that say about Mangini, the person who handpicked his own boss? The kinds of things being said about Kokinis are major red flags. How could Mangini have missed them?

I rather doubt he did miss them. I just consider the vested interest of those spreading those rumors and place them into that context, just I place it into context that Mangini has a distinct patter of burying former close friends when it furthers his own interests.

Putting all that aside, though, this was a distraction that’s now been resolved, allowing the Browns to truly look forward. It’s about time.

**
Here's a question that keeps me pondering as I read more and more about the upcoming NFL draft: why is Jimmy Clausen considered a first round pick?

Heading Toward Extinction

Football and basketball may be headed for their version of labor wars, but the sport in the most trouble and the least interested in addressing it is baseball. In fact, baseball’s economics make the problems in football and basketball look positively quaint by comparison.

There are a million places you could start with baseball and everyone of them will be right, but I’ll just give you two. On Monday, perennial bottom-feeders, the Washington Nationals, signed Chien-Ming Wang to a $2 million, one-year contract. It includes an opportunity for Wang to earn another $3 million in performance bonuses.

I’m not exactly sure the bonus targets that Wang may have but I’m pretty sure that Steve Carlton in his prime couldn’t achieve whatever it is they may be with the Nationals and Carlton’s a guy that won 27 games for the 1972 Philadelphia Phillies team that only won 59 overall, still among the greatest accomplishments ever in baseball.

So assuming Wang won’t sniff the $3 million in bonuses, that still leaves him with the ability to cash $2 million worth of paychecks, which seems fair, doesn’t it? After all, Ming did go 1-6 last season and had a 9.64 ERA before having shoulder surgery.

You can fault the Nationals front office for being frivolous and chalk it up to the fact that they compete with Congress and the Senate each and every day to see who can out-dumb the other. But all they really are doing is what pretty much every other team outside of the chosen few are doing these days in order to get bodies, particularly pitchers, on the field.

The bigger question this all begs is why anyone would want to invest their time and energy in watching a league that lacks such self-discipline and self-respect. If people think Congress frits away the nation’s money, it’s nothing compared to what baseball does with its fans’ money. I take back every snarky thought I’ve ever had about congressional earmarks that are used to fund vanity projects. The next time I hear about a million bucks going to fund research on spider monkeys I’ll just remember that the Nationals once gave $2 million to a washed up pitcher with a bum shoulder.

As bad as this is, though, it pales in comparison to the Indians offering Russell Branyan a big league contract. I take that back. It pales in comparison to the fact that the Indians have offered Russell Branyan a big league contract and are bidding against two other teams for the privilege of signing him.

I should probably offer a disclaimer before going any further about how baseball has to be on the verge of an apocalypse if Branyan at his age (I think he’s about 173 years old), or Branyan at any age, can still manage to get teams to sign him for millions.

I’m not a Branyan fan. In fact, I once wrote a short story where Branyan was the protagonist. It was published on these very pages, in fact. The point of this mostly fictional story, as near as I can recall, was that Branyan had such little plate discipline that someone from the crowd could probably take the mound and strike him out. In fact, I’m still willing to put up some money that this could be the case.

Indeed, Branyan isn’t just an incredibly lousy hitter, he’s equally bad in the field. It made me chuckle to read that the Indians see Branyan as offering protection at three positions—first base, outfield and designated hitter. Let’s be honest here. Branyan offers protection only in the sense that he’s a slight improvement over actually not having someone play those positions. I don’t mean that pejoratively, either. I mean it actually. If, say, Manny Acta one day, while filling out the line up card, asked himself “would I be worse off defensively if I had no one play third base or I put Branyan in there” it would take him until the third inning to come up with an answer.

I was at an Indians game years ago with my oldest daughter. It was June 10, 2001, a Sunday. We had great seats about 10 rows behind the Indians’ dug out. Jaret Wright was on the mound, still trying to come back from his own arm and shoulder problems. It was a beautiful day, except for the fact that Wright got his brains bashed in against the Cincinnati Reds, giving up 8 runs in 1 1/3 innings.

But the day wasn’t a total wash out. Branyan started in left field and had a throwing error in the first inning that helped Wright come unglued. In the 6th inning, he moved to third base and promptly offered up another throwing error. Two in one game and from entirely different positions. Try to find that kind of achievement duplicated elsewhere. Good look Elias Sports Bureau.

And that was when Branyan was in his prime. Over the years, Branyan hasn’t gotten any better at anything. Although he’s never played a full season in his career, the reason Branyan keeps sticking around is the result of his occasional ability to hit the long ball. According to baseball-reference.com, Branyan’s career statistics project out to 162-game average of 30 home runs, 73 RBI. To general managers like Mark Shapiro, trolling for players like hobos scan the sand at a beach for coins with a metal detector, these numbers look pretty good.

What Shapiro and his ilk always overlook in a “yea, but” sort of way is the fact that the value added by these 30 home runs is more than offset by the rest of what comes with it.

Look at it this way. Branyan is a .234 hitter who strikes out nearly 40% of the time. Assuming 5 at bats per game, Branyan will strike out twice, game in and game out. That goes along with the two other outs he’ll make, game in and game out, all the while giving the team the equivalent of 1 hit per game. And for all that, once a week one of those hits will be a home run.

Last season Branyan “earned” $1.4 million playing for Seattle. Because Tampa Bay and Boston supposedly are also in the mix for his limited services, that means Branyan is likely to command even more this season. And that’s the rub.

In any other era, Branyan would long since have been out of baseball. He’s awful in the field, awful at the plate and yet hangs around because teams can’t seem to help tripping over themselves to literally throw millions at him in the continued but failed hope that he can deliver more than an occasional, majestic shot over the center field fence.

I certainly don’t begrudge Branyan sticking around to take the money. If someone was willing to give you a winning million dollar lottery ticket every year and all you had to do was show up and wave at the ball, wouldn’t you do it, too?

The people I begrudge are the Shapiros of the world and the owners that let them throw that kind of money away while pinching pennies elsewhere. Talk about stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime. There isn’t even one credible scenario that I can imagine where any team signing Branyan for that kind of money makes any sense.

For Cleveland, Branyan brings absolutely nothing to the roster. Even if he helps them win an extra game or two (a feat I herewith deem impossible), that won’t make any difference in the standings. The Indians have absolutely no chance of getting to the playoffs this season anyway so why waste even one roster spot on someone like Branyan?

For Tampa Bay and Boston, two teams fighting for the playoffs where winning one more game could be crucial, you could make the argument that if he helps either win at least that one more game than he’s worth the investment. But that’s assuming that in the process of helping you win that one more game he doesn’t cost you a few in the process.

I’ve watched Branyan play over the years with a bit of perverse fascination and I can tell you unequivocally that if you march him out there day in and day out, he’ll cost you more games than he’ll help you win. With his track record you can rest assured that more than a few times he’ll strike out at some crucial moment with runners in scoring position. And if you deploy him in spot duty, the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against you that he’ll do anything more than simply take up space. You’d be better off with a space heater.

If you want to take it even a step further, signing Branyan at even league minimum makes no sense. At that price I would much rather have literally anyone on the AAA roster instead. At least with a younger player there is the illusion of hope. With Branyan, and all the players like him, there isn’t even that illusion.

But as much as this is about Branyan it’s not about Branyan at all. It’s about the fact that baseball economics are a mess, the number of competitive teams has dwindled down to a few and instead of fixing the problem they keep adding to it by paying millions of dollars to players that by now should be working at Big Lots.

I don’t pretend to understand why baseball keeps inflicting the same old wounds on itself each year but I do understand the ramifications. Professional baseball should now officially be declared an endangered species, like the giant panda, and treated similarly, meaning that unless there is drastic action soon, it too is heading for extinction.