Budget Fillers

There was a time in Cleveland when Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez and Omar Vizquel formed the heart of a team that gave Indians fans their most significant reason to cheer in decades. They were great players growing into the prime of their careers that several times put the Indians on the precipice of a World Series title that now seems further away then ever.

But players like Thome, Ramirez and Vizquel were never going to spend their careers in Cleveland. We can bitch about the reasons why but the truth is that the identity of a particular player and a particular team is as outdated as the reserve clause.

One of the byproducts of the system that Marvin Miller sold first to the players and eventually to the owners was a revolving door concept of player movement. You take two greedy parties—players and owners—whose economic interests naturally clash and eventually you end up a league full of players who, if there's any length to their careers, each probably average having played with 4 to 5 different teams by the time those careers are over.

If the Indians didn’t create the concept of “small market team” then they were at least at the forefront of the concept. When baseball’s runaway financial structure, driven by the kinds of dollars teams were willing to throw at players like Thome and Ramirez in particular, became too dizzying of a ride for less heeled owners around the league, teams either had to find a better way to make use of the money they had or become, well, the Kansas City Royals.

So for the Indians, like their West Coast cousins, the Oakland As, it was easy to say goodbye to players they never intended to keep and replace them with someone who might vaguely replicate their production at 1/10^th of the price.

As a result, every off season in Cleveland is filled not with splashy free agent signingsbut a smattering of goodbyes followed by acquisitions like Casey Kotchman, Kevin Slowey and Cristian Guzman. Even Derek Lowe fits the profile. It’s the only way that the Indians can think of to keep a budget within reason while still turning a profit for their owners.

But it’s a myth that only teams like Cleveland and Oakland do these sorts of things. The Indians and As may do more of this kind of barrel scraping then others, but there isn’t a team in the major leagues that isn’t in the market for an aging veteran pitcher with a history of success and coming off of arm surgery. Heck, Bartolo Colon was a big part of the Yankees’rotation last season.

That’s why it’s fascinating to watch when players like Thome, Ramirez and Vizquel, players who were such a big part of local fans’ dreams, face their comeuppance. No longer are they prizes to whom teams are still willing to throw indiscriminate money toward but instead they are, in effect, some other team’s Kotchman, Slowey or Guzman.

When the Oakland As signed Ramirez earlier this week, it more than drove home the point. Ramirez is mostly a discredited two time violator of baseball’s drug policy. He could be signed on the cheap because he grew fat and remained stupid and he has a 50-game suspension that still must be served.

But the other reason the As would take a chance on Ramirez is for the same reason that aging baby boomers will still buy tickets to a Paul McCartney concert. McCartney may be 70 years old but his voice is still good enough to make you remember when it was coming out of a 25 year old body.

So it is with Ramirez. He could get as big as Prince Fielder but as long as the sweet batting stroke remains in tact, and As general manager Billy Beane assures us it is, then there is very little to be lost except maybe a half million dollars if Ramirez is a complete bust. As cheap as teams can be, they still think little of giving away $500,000 to a player who could credibly occupy a final roster spot.

Still there is a certain pathetic underpinning to it all, isn’t there? Assuming Ramirez’s lack of self-discipline extended to matters financial, the assumption is that Ramirez signed because he needs the money. He never came across as someone who loved the game given his abject indifference toward its formalities for so many years. It's the sad epilogue really to the far headier days when he and his agent dangled the disingenuous notion of his re-signing with Cleveland under a “hometown discount” before maxing out with the Boston Red Sox.

Take away the two drug violations and Thome’s story closely parallels Ramirez’s. He left Cleveland in much the same way, with his agent trying to portray Indians’ management as the bad guys for not paying him his “value” even as he chased the maximum cash that any other team was willing to pay him knowing full well it wouldn't be Cleveland.

Thome had great years with the Phillies and became a very solid 1 percenter in the process. But age and weight and injuries caught up with Thome and for the last several years he’s been a hobbled mercenary looking for a few bucks and a way to extend his career. He’s now on his fourth team since 2006.

It, too, seems just a tad pathetic. And yet there is something gratifying by the way Thome, like Ramirez, has had to humble himself to those he exploited now that he's just another spare part, a plug hole in some team’s budget, as he clings to baseball even after making well in excess of $100 million during his career.

Then there’s Vizquel. He didn’t get there in the same way as Ramirez or Thome but he’s there all the same. Never the splashy free agent that either Ramirez or Thome was it could well be argued that his value as a baseball player was at least as high as either of them.

Vizquel didn’t leave Cleveland because he was chasing free agent dollars. He left because general manager Mark Shapiro kicked him, his 37 year old body and his relatively modest $6 million a year salary to the curb in favor of a potentially promising Jhonny Peralta who worked much more cheaply. Since then Vizquel went on to start for the San Francisco Giants for years but now finds himself as a 45 year old trying to keep a million dollar salary coming in. As long as he can still field the ball on occasion and doesn’t make waves, he’s the perfect plug hole in some team’s budget as well.

That Vizquel still clings to baseball as a bit player is a sad end to a glorious career. There's no reason not to take the money that some team wants to throw your way but it really is rather sad that in the pursuit of another dollar a player of his stature is willing to tarnish an otherwise glorious career.

In retrospect, it all seems rather ludicrous to have gotten so excited about trying to retain at least Ramirez and Thome, even as I still question Shapiro’s decision to jettison Vizquel when he did. Even if they all had remained in Cleveland and had put up exactly the same numbers as they did for their new teams, there is no certainty that the Indians would have won a World Series.

But even more to the point is simply that they more then prove that as much as major league baseball markets its superstars, the only real way to remain committed as a fan is to love the game more. Players come and go quickly, particularly these days, and their self interests will always break your hearts. But the game itself still endures and is the reason to watch. It’s the only way to be a fan in Cleveland and, frankly, every other city with a major or minor league team.

The Snowball Effect

You could read the tea leaves or just trust your own eyes. Certainly by this point, though, you’ve concluded that the Cleveland Indians will not make a run at a division title this year, let alone a World Series crown.

Sure, it’s irritating and aggravating but it’s not as if Indians fans don’t know how to deal with it. If disappointment was a degreed program, Indians fans would all qualify for a master’s. But the problem is that the rest of the American League Central division refuses to let you stew in peace.

In losing four of their last six games, the Indians only fell behind one game in the standings. What this signals is that the AL Central is ripe for the taking and the only ones not paying attention are the stats freaks in the front office. General manager Mark Shapiro seems caught in an endless loop of indecision, trying hard but failing to figure out if this disaster of a season is the result of injuries or bad luck. Manager Eric Wedge is acting every bit the company man, encouraging his light-hitting charges that though they might not be scoring runs, they are at least putting together good at-bats.

Meanwhile, it’s almost as if the rest of the division is deliberately taking a breather or two in order to actually give the Indians a chance to get back in this thing, as if they are themselves surprised at what a mess the team has become. They shouldn’t be surprised. This season was several years in the making.

The injury debate has gone on far long enough. At present, there are three legitimate injuries, four if you count what’s going on in Travis Hafner’s head as an injury, which the Indians have to overcome. But it’s time for everyone associated with the Indians to stop using these as the reason to completely write off another season. It is unrealistic to think that Shapiro believed that the Indians’ chances this season hinged on the team being injury free. It’s a part of every season. The good teams overcome. The flawed teams make excuses.

On closer analysis, the only injury that seems to have really had an impact is Victor Martinez’s ailing elbow. Losing two starters in Fausto Carmona and Jake Westbrook is far down on the list of why this team isn’t performing. Their substitutes may not be the equivalents, but they aren’t exactly killing this team either. Not having Hafner around just continues the status quo from last season. Reduced to its simplest terms, the Indians are essentially saying that can’t overcome the loss of Martinez.

If you buy that, I have the deed to the Detroit-Superior Bridge that I’ll sell you at a bargain price. If you don’t, then what you’re left with is the chilly reality that the lack of production is the end result of a series of bad decisions by Shapiro stretching out over several years.

Though it could be, this isn’t about revisiting the Hafner contract. It’s not about revisiting Brandon Phillips either. It’s also not about revisiting Kevin Kouzmanoff. Giving up on Jeremy Guthrie could be questioned, but won’t be here. Ryan Church? Ditto. What is worth re-visiting for a moment as the microcosm of all of that is Omar Vizquel, who Shapiro put out to pasture four seasons ago, deeming him unworthy of a three-year contract extension.

Vizquel was clearly one of the most popular players in recent Indians’ history. A nearly peerless defensive shortstop, Vizquel is a Hall of Famer. But at age 38, Shapiro decided it was Jhonny Peralta time. Shapiro didn’t pretend the Peralta would ever possess more than a fraction of Vizquel’s defensive skills. But the lure of a young (i.e. cheap) power-hitting shortstop was too much for Shapiro to resist. Perhaps if Vizquel had changed his name to Dellucci, Shapiro might have reconsidered.

What has always been less than clear is why Shapiro simply didn’t let the two co-exist. Peralta could have been moved to third base, still a hole on this team, or even to second. Either situation would have been far more stabilizing for far longer than the current state of flux that still finds Casey Blake at third and now role-player Jamey Carroll at second.

Ok, I lied. It’s not less than clear. In fact it’s crystal clear. Shapiro wanted Vizquel for maybe one more season but Vizquel wanted a multi-year deal for more than $4 million a year. Shapiro took a look at his skinny budget and made a value judgment that this money could be better spent elsewhere with negligible impact. Penny wise meet pound foolish.

By sacrificing Vizquel to the budget gods, Shapiro turned his back on a player who actually could have supplied the Indians with the kind of veteran leadership that he tries to wring out of such lesser talents as Dellucci or Jason Michaels. He also turned his back on a player who wasn’t done and still isn’t, although four seasons after the fact it’s finally starting to look like retirement is near.

When Shapiro had to confront Vizquel’s impending free agency, he guessed correctly that Vizquel probably wasn’t going to hit .333 again like he did in 1999. But he was painfully wrong in guessing that Vizquel wouldn’t live out a multi-year deal. Vizquel was the steady clubhouse presence while the Barry Bonds circus played nightly. In the process, he didn’t embarrass himself in the field or at the plate. He hit .295 in 2006 and stole 24 bases in both 2005 and 2006, the most he had stolen since 1999. If anything, his defense over the last four years has been better than the previous four seasons in Cleveland.

In short order, Vizquel at $4 million for each of the last three seasons would have been a good deal and not strictly because of the production. It also likely would have kept Kouzmanoff in Cleveland playing third, Peralta would be at second and Josh Barfield would be back in San Diego. Casey Blake might have survived another season or two but by this point he’d likely be the odd man out. If you think all this would have resulted in a far better lineup then the present mess, you’re not alone.

This season will not do anything to diminish Shapiro’s status in the eyes of his employers, but a few more like it will. The problem with personnel mistakes is that they tend to snowball until they begin to smother you seasons later. The decision to not re-sign Vizquel may not have been the lynchpin for why this season’s team is suffering, but it certainly helped sow the seeds of this latest season of discontent. And, if past be prologue, then there’s little doubt that a few years from now we’ll be dissecting another egg laid and pointing probably to the decisions to offer long-term contracts to Hafner, Peralta and Jake Westbrook, coupled with the inability to sign C.C. Sabathia, as the culprits.

Predictions

Each week, as a writer with TheClevelandFan.com I get an email asking for a pithy response to a question posed for that week’s roundtable which then gets posted sometime on Sunday. With the Cleveland Indians season poised to begin next week, this week’s question naturally asked for predictions regarding the upcoming season.

Predictions, of course, are like nose hair in that most people have some. And it seems to be the role of those who write about the accomplishments of others to not only write about the accomplishments as they happen but to predict what might happen next. In other words, if there’s no news, invent some.

The last time anyone saw a prediction under this byline was related to the Cavaliers. In that column we noted, with great accuracy, that if the Cavaliers were as good as advertised they’d win 50-52 games, if not, they’d win 46-48 games. There was little genius behind that prediction, by the way. It was made under the simple analysis of what the schedule held in terms of how many back-to-back games they played, particularly when the second of the two was on the road. In other words, and for various reasons, the home advantage seems much more pronounced in the NBA than in any other sport and thus makes it much easier to extrapolate the schedule’s impact on the overall record.

In other ways, the NFL is almost as easy to predict. You rarely see anyone predict a team going 12-4 for example or 2-14, for that matter. Instead, you’re always safe if you predict that a respectable team will go 9-7 since most of them do. You’re also always safe if you predict that an acknowledged lousy team will go 6-10 or 5-11 since, again, most of them do.

Major league baseball, on the other hand, is easily the most difficult sport to handicap, whether it’s game by game or over a whole season. In the first place, 162 games is boat load of games by any measure. While that sort of marathon tends to ensure that the better teams will ultimately prevail, it also increases the variables one needs to consider in forecasting the upcoming season. Though baseball is the least physically demanding of the three major sports, the injuries nonetheless pile up. Outfielders run into walls or to each other. Infielders are prone to tough landings on ground balls in the hole or down the line or suffer the occasional spike to the leg. Pitchers eventually show the wear and tear of throwing curveballs since they were 10 years old. Catchers tend to show the strain of all that squatting. Runners pull hamstrings. Thus, much of the season can turn on the performance of players who currently reside in the minors or with other teams.

Another variable is the weather. Rain outs tend to get rescheduled as doubleheaders and doubleheaders tend to result in a splits. The use of the unbalanced schedule can be particularly rough on teams in good divisions and teams with an easy interleague schedule can get fat while their counterparts on the other end of the spectrum can get slaughtered.

If all this sounds like a cop-out for not participating in a rite of passage, you’d be wrong. There are still plenty of predictions to make:

First, I predict that Peter Gammons will predict a good year for the Boston Red Sox.

Next, I predict that there will be 132,654 stories about the deteriorating relationship between Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. In April.

Next, I predict that Larry Dolan will tell Indians fans that he won’t hesitate to spend money if need be in order to help put the Indians over the top. I also predict he’ll never see the need.

Next, I predict that Mike Trivisonno will conduct three interviews with Mark Shapiro during the season. I also predict that the toughest question Shapiro will get asked in any of those interviews is what he had for lunch earlier that day.

Next, I predict that the Kansas City Royals most current rebuilding plan won’t work, either. I also predict that they’ll consider another managerial change although I also predict that most fans inside and outside of Kansas City couldn’t even name their current manager.

Next, I predict that Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Chicago White Sox, will say something stupid every other day. I also predict that Guillen will be forced by Bud Selig to seek a refresher course in sensitivity training after he goes all Ann Coulter on a writer who happens to highlight any number of the stupid things he says.

Next, I predict that Peter Angelos, owner of the Balitmore Orioles, will express dismay over his team’s latest woeful performance. I also predict that Angelos will consider another managerial change although I also predict that most fans inside and outside of Baltimore couldn’t even name their current manager.

Next, I predict that someone will do an interview with Billy Beane about how he manages to keep the Oakland As competitive despite such a small budget. I also predict that within the first two sentences of the lead-in to that interview, the writer will mention “Money Ball.”

Next, I predict that there will be 456,794 stories pondering whether the home run record Bobby Bonds is about to set is tainted by the lingering suspicions that Bonds used steroids. In April.

Next, I predict that Bobby Bonds will act surly toward the next reporter that asks him whether he’s concerned that he might be prosecuted for committing perjury before the grand jury.

Next, I predict that ESPN’s Baseball Tonight will spend the better part of 4 hours of their All Star game coverage discussing whether the winning team in that game deserves to get home field advantage in the World Series. I also predict that one of the participants in that discussion will be a contrarian and insist that having home field advantage at stake makes the All Star game more meaningful.

Next, I predict that Bob Costas will give at least a dozen different interviews in which he says that having a wild card team in the playoffs detracts from the purity of the game.

Next, I predict that there will be 658 stories suggesting that managers in the National League have an advantage when it comes to the World Series because they are more used to managing without a designated hitter and are, conversely, more versed in the beauty of the old double switch.

Next, I predict that at least three managers will be fired during the season, possibly four.

Next, I predict that there will be 978,943 stories about how baseball is alienating its younger fans by kowtowing to the networks by starting World Series games at 8 p.m.

Next, I predict that at least four games in April and three playoff games in October will be interrupted by snow.

Next, I predict that at least 687 callers to WKNR (assuming they have that many different callers) will suggest trading C.C. Sabathia for prospects so that we don’t risk getting nothing for him when he opts for free agency. I also predict that all 687 of those callers will say that the Dolans cheapskates.

Next, I predict that following Jhonny Peralta’s first error, either one of the Indians beat writers or Terry Pluto will say that Peralta looks uninspired in the field.

Next, I predict that there will be 954 stories in which Omar Vizquel is referred to as an ageless wonder as he continues to play flawless defense and hit around .300 for the San Francisco Giants.

Next, I predict that the next time Manny Ramirez commits an error in the field or on the basepaths or takes his iPod into left field during a game, 4,567 commentators and/or writers will say “that’s just Manny being Manny.”

Next, I predict that there will be 886 stories pondering why teams in the north and the east don’t start their seasons in the south or the west in order to avoid bad weather.

Finally, I predict that the Indians will win 89 games.