Nobody Backs Baby Into a Corner

The Indians essentially stood pat. No moves of note to make a big push for the Central Division title.

I figured that this would be the most likely course of action.  The Indians are backed into the figurative corner.

Like most so-called small market teams, the Indians attempt to run their ballclub like a wave.  Start small with prospects, develop them and get a few peak years out the same "core" group of guys, and then unload them when it has become clear that the big market teams are ready to pick them off in free agency.  There is always a point where the player realizes that they are more valuable than what the Indians are willing to pay.  So the team beats them to the punch instead of making a real offer.  The last attempt to beat the big teams at this game was really Jim Thome, and we see how that turned out.  I'm guessing the Indians front office weren't good poker players back then.

So back to the hear and now.  The Indians are supposed to be at the peak of their wave.  Yet they have little dwindling hope of making a real push this year.  I don't think they have any real hope of making a push with this group of guys.

Why? you may ask.  Because they're in that corner.

How so? you may ask. Well this is a longer reply.

The Indians have in multiple ways that have handcuffed the front office.  Some of which was their own making.

~Primarily they have completely and utterly failed in drafting players.  Wikipedia offers us the last ten years of first round picks

2003	Adam Miller	Right-handed pitcher
2004	Jeremy Sowers	Left-handed pitcher
2005	Trevor Crowe	Outfielder
2005	John Drennen	Outfielder
2006	David Huff	Left-handed pitcher
2007	Beau Mills	First baseman
2008	Lonnie Chisenhall	Third baseman
2009	Alex White	Right-handed pitcher
2010	Drew Pomeranz	Left-handed pitcher
2011	Francisco Lindor	Shortstop

Yowser!

Here are another eleven years just for comparisons sake:

1988	Charles Nagy	Right-handed pitcher
1988	Jeff Mutis	Left-handed pitcher
1989	Calvin Murray*	Third baseman
1990	Tim Costo	Shortstop
1990	Sam Hence	Outfielder
1991	Manny Ramirez	Third baseman
1992	Paul Shuey	Right-handed pitcher
1993	Daron Kirkreit	Right-handed pitcher
1994	Jaret Wright	Right-handed pitcher
1995	David Miller	First baseman
1996	Danny Peoples	First baseman
1997	Tim Drew	Right-handed pitcher
1997	Jason Fitzgerald	Outfielder
1998	CC Sabathia	Left-handed pitcher

Five of those names should stand out to any Indians fan.  One or maybe two will be Hall of Famers.

The drafting in the past two cycles hasn't been mediocre, let alone competent enough to support a pennant contender.  People forget how good the drafting was leading to the success of the '90s.


~Second the trades at the end of the last cycle didn't return enough talent. Again from the all mighty wiki:

      "Prospects for the 2009 season dimmed early when the Indians ended May with a record of 22-30. Shapiro made multiple trades: Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco to the Philadelphia Phillies for prospects Jason Knapp, Carlos Carrasco, Jason Donald and Lou Marson; Victor Martinez to the Boston Red Sox for prospects Bryan Price, Nick Hagadone and Justin Masterson; Ryan Garko to the Texas Rangers for Scott Barnes; and Kelly Shoppach to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for Mitch Talbot."

Sure there were a few quality parts, but nothing approaching a star.  When you cash in the chips you have to score top flight talent for a Cy Young winner.  The Indians have failed.  They got roll players and solid utility men. (** edit, turns out I was wrong about Cookie.  But one players does not reject the point I made**)

~Third with the prospects exposed as duds, piss poor drafting, and an illadvised trade to get Ubaldo Jimenez; the Indians minor league cupboards are Old Mother Hubbard bare.  There isn't enough talent down there to get a real piece to help the team now.

~Fourth, the stars on the team aren't good enough to warrant a type of trade to increase the current talent on the major league clubs' roster.  They would love (I'm guessing) to trade one player and get a viable major league talent along with a near ready AAA player and a medium term player.  This would be a good move for the short and medium term.  Trading a starting pitcher for a proven major league bat and a pitching and/or hitting prospect would do wonders for the outlook, but there isn't any player who can pull this type of trade for the Indians.  Right now the only trades will be lateral or long term prospects.  And there are just too many holes right now.

As for the holes, three position players and two starting pitchers is just too much to fill when you missed on Sizemore, Hafner, LaPorta, Jimenez and the rest of the busts.  The ownership's unwillingness to cut bad decisions and eat the salary to make room for new players just makes the old wounds fester and drag down the team like a leg shackle.

The only hope is that they go nuts and take this money that frees up this off season and sign four legit everyday players.  I'm not holding my breath.  And they still have a hole.

The only real play for an owner unwilling to risk some cash is to cash out again and flush everyone but Kipnis and a handful of others.  Stock up again in prospects.  Flog the draft team on public square.  Hire a new AA manager to train the next wave.  And buckle up for a couple of hundred loss seasons.

The other option is to remain in the corner of a mediocrity cycle.  Good enough to play .500 ball, never enough to win for real.

A Culture of Change

So the Browns look to have a new owner.

I'm not to impressed either way so far.

I think the general view I hear most is, "I don't think I trust this guy.  But I really don't like Lerner either."

I think waiting for the other shoe to drop has been bred into the Cleveland fan.  It's like the observation radio host Kevin Kiley made a while back.  I have to paraphrase, but it goes like this: "I've been in Cleveland for seven months and that part of my brain that creates hope is dead."  It makes me laugh every time I hear the soundbite in the car.

A new owner just might be the thing the Browns need.  I didn't have a problem with Lerner per se.  He seemed interested in doing whatever was needed to make a competitive team short of actually managing something.  Which is why he wasn't going to win.  Having an absentee owner/ceo is a great way to create political strife as underlings vie for control of the organization.  Hiring Holmgren was supposed to fix this problem.  It hasn't.  Not to say that I  get the impression that people are infighting at this time, but Holmgren hasn't been plugged in enough (as it appears from the outside looking in) to really seem like he's actively creating something of long lasting value.  I'm sure he would deny this.  And he may actually believe it.  But Holmgren is on the back nine and he's dreaming of his home.  Especially since all he gets is flack in this town.

Lerner wanted to just mail in the check and let the football organization take care of itself.  This doesn't seem possible.  The owner sets the tone.  Even bat-shit crazy guys like Al Davis.  Even if he (or someday she) isn't the face of a team, the owner must and will always set the organizational culture.  If he doesn't, then any mold will grow in its place.  The team will be adrift.  And I don't know of any better way to describe the new Browns.

Randy inherited a team that has a fan base obsessed with its football heritage.  He never took advantage of this. 

The truth is that the Browns culture is still alive and well.... in Baltimore.  Ozzie might be the last man who can and does actively manage this culture of winning started by Paul Brown years ago.  Maybe the Baltimore ownership has been smart enough to see this and go with it, but in practice the Ravens are still the Browns under the veneer of Purple and Black.  The current Browns have yet to put it all back together since returning in 1999.  They're running out of time to do so.  There are ever fewer active ex-Browns who lived the culture first hand.  It may be too late.  But the first thing I would do as owner is pull in all the old Browns I could lay my hands on.  I wouldn't tell them to walk around and talk about the old days.  I wouldn't want them to reminiss with the young guys so they understand the Browns history.  It doesn't matter if Trent Richardson knows about Marion Motley or who Turkey Jones was (and why he was so damn awesome).  What matters is that we need guys who lived in that system and culture.

We need guys who knew how a winner functioned, and how that fit with the city.  The new guy may not ever figure out this either.  But he may also bring a new culture in, different and fitting for the new Browns that will lift the team up.

Whatever the case.  We should prepare for a bunch of change in all areas.  Which is something we haven't had here since 1999.

Predicting Success

It's football season!

Well almost now that NFL training camps have opened up all over.  Time to consider your fantasy team rosters and draft plans.  Time to consider those teams with the stones to make a playoff push and/or a super bowl run.

This is just a little something to keep in mind as you make your "bold predictions" (tm) on the division winners and wild card teams. 

When I review the predictions made by the talking heads of the NFL pontificating world; I notice how little they deviate from a team's prior year effort.  So rare does a supposed expert venture off to the realm of the possible, that it is noteworthy to say the least.

Obvious exceptions are those teams that somehow become the media darling that gets picked year after year as the "it's their turn now" team.  Like Arizona for several seasons.  And then when they do make it (after four or five years) these men of genius get to sit back and point out how brilliant they were to call their unprecedented rise from mediocrity to marginal success.

The truth is that when the league expanded from 8 to 10 playoff teams in 1978 the average number of new playoff teams rose to 4 a year, or a 40% turn over rate.

Those numbers grew again when the league expanded to 12 playoff slots in 1990.  On average the league turned over 4.5 spots a year for a 45% playoff turn over rate during the next 12 years. 

Finally, since the league expanded to its current playoff system in 2002 (which didn't add a slot but converted one from a wild card to a division winner) the average number of new teams in the playoffs has been 6.2 for a 51.7% turn over rate.  Four of these ten years have given us playoff cards with more than half the teams different from the season before.

And last season fits right into this trend.  Half of the teams were seldom predicted to be in the playoff hunt.  New comers included: NY Giants, San Fran, Detroit, Cincinnati, Denver and Houston.

The Giants were easily the most expected of the group.  Detroit and Houston has been "teams on the mend" for several seasons.  Their breakthrough wasn't unprecedented, but most still weren't on the bandwagon yet.  Denver was an outside shot at best.  Cinti and San Fran were hot messes going into the season and their success was most impressive.

So keep in mind that several teams this year will come out of the blue to surprise us all when December rolls around.  This unpredictability, among many other reasons, is why professional football reigns supreme as America's sport.

The Recovering Fan

Being a Cleveland sports fans is exhausting.   There really isn't much to cover that someone else hasn't already said.  It's agonizing to watch one team after another down in mediocrity for seasons only to put together a squad that is just not good enough not to win a championship.

Only two teams in the past forty years rank up there as dominate in their league for their time.  The '86 Browns and the '95 Indians.  Both fell short of the ultimate goal.  The other teams with marginal success were just that, marginal playoff teams.

But after the missed opportunities of the '80s Browns, the '90's Indians, and then loosing football to Baltimore, and then selling two Cy Young winners in back to back years; I had finally had all the die hard beaten out of me.  I have finally had all the homer bias beaten out of me. 


And I so much more enjoy watching sports now.


Maybe it's a factor of just getting old; but I can more clearly see and appreciate good play when I'm not so invested in creating excuses for my teams lack of talent, or why my most hated rivals aren't as good as they seem.  I can create constructs or concepts that explain how the sports world works that has a logical consistency.  It has the same effect as letting go of political party ideology.  It's liberating!

I still would like to see "my" teams win.  There isn't anything I'd like to see more as a sports fan than a superbowl win for the Browns.  But I can't sit around and just watch lousy play by the same inept teams that we've had for decades.  I'd much rather watch well played games between teams that know what the hell they're doing.  I've watched enough bad baseball, football and basketball to cover a dozen sports fans.

So while I may not watch as much as I used to, I still enjoy talking sports and sharing my observations of Cleveland sports as a recovering abused fan.