The 2010 Indians: Waiting For Next Year
by Jay on Apr 5, 2010 8:20 AM EDT
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PrintI might as well call this one "Why We'll Lose" -- and there won't be a counterpoint tomorrow, either. Not from me, anyway.
As an Indians fan, I spent the entire winter in a deep funk. Maybe deeper than most here, but maybe not. I passed on a chance to do an Indians 2010 Annual, got my family moved and situated, got myself healthy. I focused on being a dad and running my business. Both things are going great, by the way, so great that I've been forced to wonder just why exactly I would even consider devoting my time to the punishment that following and writing about this team had become. From the introduction to last year's Annual through the last installment of "Fire Everyone!", I wrote a whole lot about last season's Cleveland Indians. Maybe I'd written enough.
We've been bad before, of course. Really bad, and for decades. Obviously. But the disappointment of the 2009 season was unprecedented. We started out as the division favorites -- not by a mile or anything, but favorites nonetheless. More than that, we started out as a team carrying out a plan to contend for the next two-to-six years in a row, maybe taking a year off here or there to reload, depending on how the ball bounced. Maybe we'd make the playoffs twice, maybe even three times, by 2014. Maybe we'd be in the hunt four years out of six. Something like that.
So it wasn't that the season was thoroughly tanked by June (though it certainly was). We saw that in 2006 and 2008, not to mention almost every season from my birth clear through my 24th birthday. No big deal, that. No, the real bummer — the unique and profound bummer — was that we'd already more or less tanked 2010 as well, and probably 2011. Beyond that, the systemic, economic weight against the Indians looked far heavier than it ever had before, and the overall competence of the front office looked far lighter.
Somewhere between the haze of the deathless stretch run and the humiliation of a Sabathia-Lee matchup to see which snotty trust fund kid was going to win all the marbles, it became reasonable to wonder if we had any shot at all, next year, the year after, or anytime in the next decade. Where is the smart money, I wondered, on the Indians' chances to make the playoffs between 2010 and 2016? What's the over-under on playoff berths? Is it 2.0? Is it 1.0?
Which is more likely: That we'll make two or more trips to the postseason in the next six years, or that we'll make zero?
Again, it's not just being terrible. Been there, done that. It's the disappointment. The Indians of our youth were a bad organization, but from 1994 to 2007, we learned a new lesson. We learned that the Indians could have a great organization, a smart organization. The Indians could employ people who were capable of building a winning ballclub. It was possible.
After 2009, it's fair to wonder if it's really still possible. To wonder if our front office isn't good enough. To recognize, soberly, that despite incremental improvements to the game's economics in the last two labor deals, the deck is stacked against the Indians even more severely than ever before, with no real end in sight.
Naturally, it must also be said, I did this to myself. I set out to make the case that Shapiro should be fired, almost entirely as an intellectual exercise. I ended up convincing myself that this front office may really have a critical deficit that isn't apparently going to be fixed anytime soon. I set out to write, for Yahoo!, about the experience of being an Indians fan, watching that World Series Game One matchup. I found that I couldn't write an article about that turn of events without stating the single, most essential truth behind it: It was a complete travesty, and it was rooted entirely in the game's economics. (The regular Yahoo! guy wrote a puff-piece about how proud Carl Willis was to see it. My take: Carl Willis can blow me, and he's more likely to actually do that than to coach a good bullpen.)
And then, when it was all over, I had to sit through days and days of knee-jerk hagiography of the Yankees, while waiting for any of the national media to report just once on the fans of 20-odd other teams who were losing what Selig called "hope and faith," as the Yankees bought and paid for their 28th title. I never saw that story on ESPN. No, they were too busy kneeling before the phallus of New Yankee Stadium, presenting another box of championship cock-rings, which are apparently large and shiny enough to obscure the shriveled testicles of a roster that, in a better world, would be held up in disgrace.
Before I lose the plot here entirely, my point is that with no outrage in the media — over what the Yankees did, how they did it, and the nation of baseball fans they did it to — then there's little chance of the system changing anytime soon. (Just look at the dicking around Selig and his latest blue-ribbon panel have been doing. Rather than addressing the core problem — a system of built-in monstrously unfair advantages for a handful of massive-market clubs and doubly so for the Yankees — they want to concoct a system to accommodate the game's economic hegemony. When your team sucks, they can can choose to be in the same division with the Yankees — you know, for the ticket sales! — and then move out of the division when they might be good — you know, because the Yankees of course will be even better! The worst part is, these people apparently think this is a serious idea.)
So is it really that bad for the 2010 Indians? No, it is not quite that bad. Short term, it's not as bad as our local scribes think. But it isn't good, either. We do not need for three or four things to break our way in order to have a mediocre team, as Ocker has written. We are probably going to be mediocre, with only an average number of things going right and wrong this season. The real problem is that if we're not mediocre, we're more likely to be bad than good.
I think there's something important about the Indians that the projection systems are not catching. Not really about the Indians per se, but about clubs with vulnerable pitching staffs. Yes, the lineup is probably going to be good. It might merely be average, as it was last year, but it's just as likely to be one of the best in the league. No big revelation there. Every projection system that I've seen essentially projects individual performances and then aggregates them. I think this works perfectly well for hitters. I think it does not work all that well for pitchers.
In other words, there is a cumulative effect to inadequate pitching that is far greater than mere aggregation reveals.
I'm talking about a cascade of performance and health failures in the rotation that end with Jeremy Sowers getting another ten weeks to put up a 6.50 ERA in the majors this season. The same kind of sequence of events that ended up with Tomo Ohka in the 2009 rotation. I'm talking about the likelihood of something that happening, given the significant possibility of our having zero starters that make it to 160 IP this season. When a pitching staff goes bad, the whole is even more miserable than the sum of its miserable parts.
I'm also talking about Aaron Laffey and the continuing failure of this organization to build a league-average bullpen. Nothing has killed us over the past six seasons like our bullpens — it is our one, clear-cut example of Indians Exceptionalism. Moving Laffey to the bullpen is a reflection of two things that should be obvious from an objective reading of the data. One, that Laffey has limited upside as a starting pitcher — in particular, limited upside as an innings-eater, which is what we really need from our starters at this point. Two, that the Indians need him in the bullpen purely so that they can make an attempt — an attempt! — to have something better than an utter catastrophe there. Again.
And that, in a nutshell, is what the projections are missing. I do not believe for one second that 10,000 coin-flips later, the average result for the 2010 Indians is 79 wins. No way. I think there is a significant chance that the pitching collapses entirely. I think out of every possible result, quite a few of them involve a truly great lineup that can't get slug its way to more than 75 wins.
So where does this leave us, as Indians fans heading into the 2010 season? Are we facing a season like 2003 or 2004? I don't think so. I think we're looking at 1992, coming off a truly awful season, with a bunch of promising talent in the farm system. Only this time, there is no new stadium around the corner, and there is no economic boom on the horizon. The Indians will not be hip in a few years; if we're lucky, they'll be edgy. Just as surely as Jobu can't hit a curveball, there is no revenue salvation coming in the next few years. We will not have a top-five payroll, probably not even top ten.
So it's gut-check time, my friends. We may well have two 76-win seasons coming our way now, but they won't be followed by a jump that brings us within 10% of the Yankees payroll. If we win, it'll only be because the moves our new GM made worked out really well, and that may or may not happen.
Are you ready for that? Ready to love Indians baseball, just because it's Indians baseball?
Ready to follow individual players and root root root for a mediocre team, repeating every year that maybe, just maybe, we might just put it all together next season?
Are you ready to savor young, budding players like Cabrera and Santana, cheer on stars in their primes like Sizemore and Choo? Are you ready to do it knowing that we're probably not going to playoffs — probably not this year, and probably not next year either?
I'm not here to rain on anybody's parade, honest. I just think we need to face up to the redefinition of Indians fandom that lays before us now. We are not following the new, improved version of the Billy Beane A's. We are not the new, zippy Tampa Bay Rays, only with more fans — yes, we do have a lot more fans than the Rays, even now, but they're not buying season tickets. We are a small-market club in a declining town, run by an organization that's pretty great at some things, but certainly not at everything. We have plenty of talent, but a lot of it is still in the minors, and nobody's afraid of us.
There are two things we have going for us as fans, however. One, low expectations. Rank-and-file Cleveland fans are expecting a win total in the low 70s. We'd be smart to join them; I can't see any possible upside to expecting the team to approach .500 any more closely than that. If we make a run at something, we can treat it like a minor miracle — which is, in fact, what it will be. Two, we can say good-bye to the front-runners. Let's be honest, we were sick of those people anyway. Many LGT readers came of age with a winning ballcub, and of course there's nothing wrong with that. If they're sticking around, though, they're about to be initiated into what it really means to be an Indians fan. They shouldn't kid themselves. We probably aren't at the start of something great — unless by "great" you mean devotedly following a team that's going to lose, over and over again.
And you know what? Maybe that is what we mean by "great." That is what many of us have done for most of our lives. We've been Indians fans, and they've been terrible — and it's been great. The Indians have up years and down years, mostly the latter. We stay the same. It's part of who we are. This is how we were raised, and God help them, it's how we're raising our own kids.
So go ahead, get yourself excited about the 2010 season. There's plenty to see here, just probably not a playoff berth.
Let's see if Cabrera and Choo can get themselves to an All-Star Game, and if Sizemore can get back to 30-30, or even better. Let's see if Carmona and Hafner can somehow get back whatever it was that once made them so ridiculously good. Let's see if Westbrook can revive his career, and if Huff can get one started. Let's see Carlos Santana throw out a runner in the top half of an inning, and then put that first moon shot deep in the seats in the bottom half. Let's see Rondon get knocked around in his first big-league start, and then throw a shutout in September. Let's see Chisenhall, Hagadone, Gomez and the rest.
Let's see all the things that you couldn't make up if you tried but are going to happen anyway. It is still baseball, after all. Still the sport of working men, philosophers, poets, and warrior-statisticians alike. And these are still our Cleveland Indians.
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Good piece. A bit of a downer with opening day around the corner but on point.
I fear that growing up with those mid 90s teams has left me permanently addicted to the Tribe and the teams on the horizon will, at best, be a shot of methadone.
As General Manager of this team, I demand to know when I'm getting a start.
The regular Yahoo! guy wrote a puff-piece about how proud Carl Willis was to see it. My take: Carl Willis can blow me, and he’s more likely to actually do that than to coach a good bullpen.
Wow. Strong, but appropriately so. Hard to refute much of anything except to just blindly hope. And, for me anyways, a lot of that hope is hoping that I actually do love baseball enough to survive through not just bad Indians teams, but an economic system that doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to change. I think I do, and I hope that I don’t have to find out, but it’s certainly depressing to think about.
That said, it’s still opening day tomorrow. We can still have hope that not only will minor miracles occur, but major ones too. And when they don’t, it’s still baseball and beats the hell out of just about everything else.
Il faut d'abord durer.
And when they don’t, it’s still baseball and beats the hell out of just about everything else.
My alma mater is on the verge of a national championship, and the Indians are exactly what Jay says they are. But this… one thousand times this.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Apr 5, 2010 12:02 AM EDT up reply actions
I don’t think “on the verge” conveys any sense of inevitably. They are literally one game away.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Apr 5, 2010 12:32 PM EDT up reply actions
Dark my friend…a couple of initial responses.
In other words, there is a cumulative effect to inadequate pitching that is far greater than mere aggregation reveals.
I agree with this, and I agree that as the Indians teeter away from their mean projection this season they are much more likely to teeter towards the low side because of the pitching. The pitching situation, right now, is not good. I think the most underplayed discussion of the spring has been that our bullpen can’t throw strikes. Bullpens that don’t throw strikes are painful to watch. There are going to be, I fear, more than a few games in which we are finally happy to see Huff or Talbot (or any of our starters) go a strong 6-7 innings and then watch the bullpen piss it away by walking batters. That is going to suck, and there is really no way to brace for it. Our starters, on the other hand, are just mysteries. I’m not sure, but I think “mysterious” pitching is bad. Possibly very bad.
We may well have two 76-win seasons coming our way now
I’m not this pessimistic, though. I was on the radio earlier tonight and I brought up a comparison of the current team with the 1993 Indians. That was a team with a young, emerging nucleus of offensive talent. Belle and Lofton both had breakout seasons in ‘93. Baerga followed up his breakout 1992 with an equal performance in ’93. Manny Ramirez made his first significant impact that season. Thome even had his first taste of success that September. Those are 4 Hall of Fame caliber guys plus a guy who put together 2-3 pretty great seasons…that’s the kind of thing you can’t count on happening again. But I think we have something similar now. Sizemore is a legit stud. Choo looks like a legit stud. Cabrera seems poised to enter that category. And then we have guys like Valbuena, LaPorta, Brantley and Santana all positioning themselves to potentially enter that group. That ‘93 team lived and died with its pitching though, and time and time again it got crushed. Nagy, coming off his 17-win ’92 season was hurt most of the year. Jose Mesa led the team in starts. The only young guys who saw action on the mound were Albie Lopez and Julian Tavarez who both made inauspicious debuts. So, ultimately, that team failed. And the mid-90s team that came out of it were only about to exist because we went out and signed free-agent pitchers (Martinez, Hershiser, Gooden, Hill, McDowell, Burba). None of those guys were great, but they gave that team just enough to put us in position. We aren’t going to be signing guys even of that caliber in the near future.
Here’s the thing, though. If you look at the organization in ’93, there was very little in the way of pitching talent anywhere in the organization. That is not the situation now. Our major league rotation might be a giant ball of uncertainty right now, but our minor league staffs are loaded top to bottom with potential pitchers. They are only potential pitchers, of course, but if we turn them over at the same rate we have done in the past, we are talking about adding 1-2 legit pitchers to our rotation for each of the next 4-5 seasons.
I don’t know how it all plays out. It might be disastrous. The economic reality of baseball might laugh at Cleveland and take the lollipop out of our hands. Last season was the most disappointing Indians season of my life. It did expose huge problems with the front office and a pretty sizeable “smartest guy in the room” issue. But we’ve got a pretty talented organization. We have new leadership, particularly on the field.
Baseball is an amazing sport to follow because the season is tremendously long and marked overwhelmingly by failure. The outcome of any individual game is often based on the seemingly marginal interactions and actions of seemingly insignificant players and plays. It is a situation in which rather minor adustments can actually lead to fairly large changes in outcome. That can seem devastatingly arbitrary. But it can also be hopeful. The Indians are sitting on top of an awful lot of upside…we probably won’t see most of it this year, but I’m going to have a hard time accepting someone’s projections for failure in the near-term future.
See? No one could have predicted that Dr. Grant would suddenly jump out of a moving vehicle. Now I’m sitting in here by myself, talking to myself. That’s Chaos Theory.
by fleerdon on Apr 4, 2010 11:20 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
Chaotic dynamics, it turns out, are surprisingly difficult to actually find in natural systems. What is amazing is the way in which obscure interactions can create considerable complexity.
Yeah, but, Adam, when the Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don’t eat the tourists.
by fleerdon on Apr 4, 2010 11:34 PM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
Recs every time.
Though I look right at home, I still feel like an exile
by Manhattan Tribe Fan on Apr 5, 2010 12:05 AM EDT up reply actions
Rather than addressing the core problem — a system of built-in monstrously unfair advantages for a handful of massive-market clubs and doubly so for the Yankees — they want to concoct a system to accommodate the game’s economic hegemony.
I think this is why I’ve been struggling so much with being a baseball fan since mid-last season. Basically, that the economics of the league are designed to make it impossible for a small market team to compete. And I only have eyes for this one small market team.
-Erik
It is something you can’t confront, though. Because in the end, you can’t do anything about it. I do take the attitude of saying #%$ it…you might be bigger, stronger and faster, but I am a bad@#$ m@#$@%%*er and I am going to take you down anyway. If you insist on justice as a prerequisite for playing the game you are screwed, and that is as true in life as it is in baseball.
Look Adam, I understand that. The intellectual in me understands that this is the system and that there must be a way to find success within it. But the fan in me thinks it sucks. The fan in me can’t help but look at this and go, why bother being a fan when the deck is stacked like this?
Just to be clear though, like Roger, I’m in this for the long haul too.
-Erik
The fan in me can’t help but look at this and go, why bother being a fan when the deck is stacked like this?
That is why I just say it is question you can’t ask.
MLB’s current economic system has rendered the game into a fraud. I’ve brought it up before here and here so I don’t want to prattle on too much about it. I am a fan of the game and probably always will be and I went in on a ticket package this year. While I don’t need to have my team be a winner to enjoy the game, I don’t like being taken for granted and I really .don’t like being made a fool of. I will watch the game and appreciate its inherent beauty but by purchasing tickets I am abetting fraud.
Yeah, that kind of thing is just not my strong suit. Not asking, I mean.
by Jay on Apr 5, 2010 1:20 PM EDT up reply actions
So I was recently involved in a discussion about a research paper put out by some IMF (or maybe World Bank?) folks on global poverty and distribution of wealth. And it turns out you can look at a person’s place of birth (citizenship, really) and parent’s income level and explain 80% of the variation in global wealth. So basically, the luck of the draw of where you are born and who you are born to explains 80% of global differences in wealth (and the country factor is by far the larger of those two factors). Born in a bad place or to the wrong set of parents and the numbers say you might as well not bother trying (sort of…). But people do, and some (admittedly small fraction of) people succeed. And I’m guessing those people didn’t spend a whole lot of time worry about how unfair it all is. You just have to do it. You can worry about the justice of it later.
by APV on Apr 4, 2010 10:53 PM EDT up reply actions 8 recs
This needs more recs
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Apr 4, 2010 11:48 PM EDT up reply actions
Just because I’m angry and have a proverbial chip on my shoulder doesn’t mean I’m going to lay down and give up. That said, comparing baseball to life has to have its limits. Working to transcend poverty and hoping the Indians do well are not great parallels.
It’s much more sane to say “baseball is supposed to be entertaining and because the powers that be have decided not to provide a reasonably fair system for competition I choose to look elsewhere for my entertainment” than it is to say “life is supposed to be rewarding and because the powers that be have decided not to provide a reasonably fair system for compensation I choose to look elsewhere for my family’s well-being.”
Actively seeking inspiration for a new handle
I’ve tried like hell to move away from this since the end of last season. The economics of the MLB is killing the fan in me. Knowing that the deck is stacked against 95% of the teams in the league and in particular against your team 8-9 times out of 10 is just horrid.
I just wanted to believe.
Yep. That’s me too. I wish I had hope that the system would change. But I don’t have that confidence right now and the F’in Yanks winning last year was a pretty big spike in the coffin of my baseball fandom. But I’m not ready to quit on the Tribe.
-Erik
I’m not ready to quit, nor will I ever be, but it grows increasingly difficult to conjure up any excitement about baseball. I’ll watch the Indians because it’s summer, it’s baseball, and they are a part of my life. I’m a Clevelander (though not a Real One) and I love my Indians. That said, I can’t say that I’ll flip over to the game at 2:05 tomorrow with any more expectation than to hear Tom Hamilton. Hope no longer springs eternal.
by Brad D on Apr 5, 2010 1:07 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
In
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Apr 4, 2010 11:48 PM EDT up reply actions
Thanks. Hearing you talk of dealing with all of the terrible teams back in the day puts things in the proper perspective.
If you’ve lived through this:
You can survive anything.
STBNL
by emd2k3 on Apr 5, 2010 11:23 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Now this is funny. I too remember the “bad old days” of sitting in Muni with 2000 others, half of whom were drunk, the smell of reefer in the air (not me, btw) and all you could hear was some clown yell “J-u-l-i-o-o-o-o-o” for nine innings as the Tribe got clobbered by the some other insignificant team.
Agree with the assessment of others that this team resembles the early 90s Indians. Here’s hoping for fruit ripens on the tree.
by masmark on Apr 5, 2010 12:10 PM EDT up reply actions
Me too.
"Lotta heart in Cleveland." - Ian Hunter
by Denver Tribe Fan on Apr 5, 2010 2:03 AM EDT up reply actions
Right there with you. In as always… and I’m bringing my glove.
I'm emotional about my glove...
by JimmyAB on Apr 5, 2010 11:04 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
This is really well-put all around. I think the low expectations make this season a lot easier to prepare for — I figure they’ll win somewhere between 70 and 80 games and I think I’m OK with that. Not worrying about who’s going to get traded after the all-star break & what type of haul we’re going to get for them, or how far out of it we are by mid-May (which is not to say that I don’t think anyone’s going to get traded, but somehow I can’t imagine it being as bad as last year). And hey, it’ll be fun figuring out what Acta’s all about & watching some of the young guys take their knocks & beating the %&*)$# out of the Yankees a few times.
I figure we haven’t yet reached the Pirates or Royals level of despair, so it could be worse, right?
*sigh*
As a general response to this, I completely respect what you’ve written here and understand it. I get the objective analysis and fair critique of the FO. They need to figure out how to truly develop pitching – especially with the wealth of pitching talent they currently have coming up. And as I’ve mentioned previously, the economics of baseball is truly upsetting.
That said, I reject your dark prognostication of what’s to come both this year and in the most immediate years to come. While there’s no revitalization of the franchise coming around the bend as in the 90’s, I refuse to believe that this team which is being built has no more hope than to have a bounce back year for a few ‘stars’ or a handful of All Star appearance for our up and comers. To say that in our specific circumstance – current players, contracts, cumulative salary for the next few years, minor league talent, coaches and Front Office and coupled with/against those within our division that we don’t have a hope of winning? If we were Baltimore or Toronto or Tampa I would completely agree. But we’re not – we play on a more level field, even at our over all disadvantage. I think its wrong to lose sight of who our real competition is – and just as importantly, who it isn’t.
I am a firm believer that anything can happen in a short series in October. Inequalities can be masked. The key is to play October baseball. And with the current division set up, this should be an achievable goal.
It the night before the first game of the season. We’ve got a team who’s going to hit and maybe even show some flashes of being able to pitch. We’ve got an exceptionally young team with a load of talent and one which will continue to grow throughout the season. To be frustrated and sell them short just feels wrong and embittered.
Its the night before the start of the season and I, for one, want more than a couple of bounce back years for Westbrook, Hafner, Sizemore and Carmona. I expect more than an All Star appearance by Cabrera and Choo. Its the night before the start of the season and I expect my team to fight and hopefully get a playoff spot. Come June or July reality might come in and smack me around a bit, but its the night before the start of the season and hope springs eternal.
To do anything else but believe just feels wrong.
I just wanted to believe.
by mjmarble on Apr 4, 2010 11:03 PM EDT reply actions 2 recs
I am a firm believer that anything can happen in a short series in October. Inequalities can be masked.
Part of my points was that this isn’t just true for a short series, it can also be true for the entire season. The difference between a team’s victories and how many games they “should” have won can be huge.
i just deleted about 6 paragraphs of typing. not sure what i want to convey. basically boils down to a shoulder shrug.
i’ll be at the game tomorrow, watching baseball, having fun, rooting for the indians, and not thinking about my real life problems.
the yankees get to cheat and james cameron is an overrated hack. doesn’t mean i’m gonna stop enjoying baseball and movies.
Good, strong, powerful piece, Jay. Thanks for writing it.
The optimist (or realist, perhaps) in me tends to think that the current economic structure of MLB is simply unsustainable. No other major league sport allows for such a yawning divide between a few top franchises and the other 90%. Now, to be sure, a lot of things are going to have to change – with owners, with the player’s union, and with the administration – in order for major structural alteration to take place. But at some point the fact that having the vast majority of franchises turn into irrelevant economic sink holes is terrible for the overall economics of the business is going to sink in.
And Let’s go Tribe.
Anyway, the answer to your question Jay is that our odds to make the postseason will be around 20-25% every year. I truly believe that we’re at that this year, which should surprise people, I guess.
I know we’ve got some bigger payrolls in the division, but I honestly believe that as long as our front office is good enough to make up for that.
So the question is: if our odds to win the division is 20% a year, is that a good enough for a person? If not, well, i’d say that person is front-runner, by definition. I understand that there was a time that many of us thought our FO was special enough to beat those odds. It’s not, but we haven’t fallen back to the Royals. We’ve just fallen back to the baseline.
by dgcambridge on Apr 4, 2010 11:19 PM EDT reply actions 1 recs
It is what it is. I will be a tribe fan for life. I do have hope. I love the game of baseball. I think this years team could be fun to watch/listen/follow. I do not see us winning much anytime soon, but I know that Chief Wahoo will be on my head and chest most days. I live in Wyoming, only know a couple tribe fans in “real life”, and they are old men. I will, like them grow old rooting for this team, my team.
I don’t know, Jay.
Sigh.
I don’t know, man. Give me a day or two. I’ll be at opening day tomorrow, sitting in 75 and sunny in free seats.
Give me a day or two to decide what this feeling is.
by afh4 on Apr 4, 2010 11:43 PM EDT via mobile reply actions
What we get, we earn.
Nice piece, Jay. Carl, you can get up now.
by YoDaddyWags on Apr 4, 2010 11:47 PM EDT reply actions 3 recs
I’m just excited to see the clothing stripped off of a posterboard Larry Dolan.
by Matt in LA on Apr 5, 2010 12:03 AM EDT reply actions 3 recs
I’ve been thinking about this piece for awhile. Actually reads pretty much like old school Cleveland baseball fan. Except it’s missing two things. One is anger. We Clevelanders never get past the second stage of grief – anger. Why no fury directed at Selig? or the “have” owners? or the Steinbrenners? or the Yankees and Red Sox? I’m sure you’ll come around to it, but anger is a really, really good emotion. And two is defiance. OK, so we don’t have the resources of the top tier teams – so what? We’re gonna out work ‘em, out hustle ’em and out think ’em. We’re gonna show those snot nose, silver spoon cheaters that we can still kick their ass, salary cap or no.
It’s April 5th – the start of a new season. Things didn’t go our way last year, but so what? Right now we’re tied for first, we got our best pitcher on the mound and all of last year’s injuries have healed. I feel sorry for those poor son’s of bitches in White Sox uniforms cuz we’re gonna wipe the floor with ’em today.
Resident LGT results-oriented boob.
by mauichuck on Apr 5, 2010 3:11 AM EDT reply actions 10 recs
I thought there was quite a bit of anger in there. He spent a paragraph building a metaphor that taunted MLB and the media for worshiping the Yankees’ crotch. Jay’s put together a good enough piece (no pun intended) that didn’t hit us over the head with the anger, and anger wasn’t the only emotion I got, but I thought it was in there.
Il faut d'abord durer.
I ask myself the following question: If tomorrow, our Tribe became the Tokyo Rice Burners, would I stop watching baseball? No. I would figure out what other team to root for and become as interested in that team as I am in following the Indians. By my way of thinking, that team would probably be the Reds and only because they play in Ohio.
The more important point is that the beauty of baseball transcends the team one roots for. It transcends the rate of success your team experiences. It’s that ninth inning rally, the slick double play, the collision at home plate and the diving stop behind third base. It’s ballet with a stick and ball. And we get to root for the home team. Life is good.
by elsandito on Apr 5, 2010 8:04 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs
Nice piece Jay. You could have easily put out another one of the endless variations on the prototypical “hope springs eternal” opening day piece, but instead you dropped some tempered pessimism on our asses. The contrarian in me approves.
If you don't respect Aaron Laffey, I will fight you.
i’ve taken a bit of a vacation from reading and following spring training since right around the time of the first game. i was all ready to come on lgt and read the annual opening day purple prose piece about all is new, spring has sprung, new life, rebirth, we’re tied for first, etc. which I totally wouldn’t have minded. but this one while, to be sure, was definitely sobering, it also was right and fair and still coming from the right place.
that said, i’m still thinking sh*tburger, no?
Before taking Pro-Acta, please consult your doctor. Do not taunt Pro-Acta.
Since reading this last night, I’ve waffled on my feelings about it. On one hand, there’s renewed anger about how MLB not only doesn’t see the problem but is interested in exacerbating the problem (division realignment), and how the deck is perpetually stacked. On the other hand is the sense of efficacy. I teach in an urban school district, and it is never ok for me to say “well, my students have tougher home lives and didn’t get read to as children, so my professional expectations can be lowered.” It’s a crap hand to be dealt, but as APV wrote above, you try your best with whatever you’ve got.
It is possible to simultaneously fight against the injustices of the system while stubbornly refusing to let the system beat you. If the Indians are not trying their best at both of those, then the Indians deserve our outrage. I look forward to watching them rage against the machine at 2:05 pm today.
I’m thinking that my next D&D character will be a warrior-statistician. With a +5 slide rule and -9 charisma.
"...maybe this year, there's no gorilla" - YoDaddyWags
This team has cast a level 5 charm spell on me.
by cleveland teamer on Apr 5, 2010 1:32 PM EDT up reply actions
After watching the Ten Commandments for the first time last night, I was fully expecting to read an article this morning about how a bearded Jay Levin led the Tribesmen of Cleveland out of bondage and towards a championship. This was just a downer.
ON A BRIGHTER NOTE, IT"S OPENING DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! WE’RE AT .500!!!!!!!!!!!!
Buckeye Brad would like to discuss your last point.
by dgcambridge on Apr 5, 2010 11:26 AM EDT up reply actions 3 recs
It’s hard for me to get on-board decrying “the system” (aka The Man) when I look at today’s lineup and only one guy (Peralta) came from one of our drafts. I know that’s a bit of an anomaly when you consider the type of turnover we have had in the past 2 years, but it also speaks to why we are we are.
2008 was a year we “retained all of our talent” and we stunk. Unlike 2007, they were unable to reach down into the minors and fill in the holes to compensate for their deficiencies. That was a direct result of their horrible drafting from the previous x amount of years.
If you think 2009 would have been any different just because we had CC and Blake, you are only fooling yourself.
Your point is valid. It is still the case, however, that we would have run out of that home-grown talent several years ago, and in an environment where we can afford to keep our stars if we want to, we’d have had even less talent to work with over the past six years.
by Jay on Apr 5, 2010 1:22 PM EDT up reply actions
I generally agree with this sentiment. We need to get our own house in order before we start blaming the system, as bad as it really is.
If you don't respect Aaron Laffey, I will fight you.
by Cap'n Snegiryov on Apr 5, 2010 11:27 AM EDT up reply actions
I’m pretty much on board with all of this. I love the Indians, always have, always will.
However, I will not be spending any money on the team this year. No hats, no tickets, no hot dogs or beers. I have spent untold dollars on all of the above over the past 20+ years, plus trips to spring training and other ancillary costs, but last year pushed me over the edge. I’m planning on making my voice heard by not spending on this team, or this MLB baseball product, until the sytem is fixed. Thats about all I can do at this point, even though that attitude does nothing to help tthe Indians in the short term. So be it.
by millionairesrow on Apr 5, 2010 11:20 AM EDT reply actions
So, we’ll scratch that idea about making LGT a subscription service.
by afh4 on Apr 5, 2010 11:30 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
But you’ve got “millionaire” in your name!
"You are an LGT success story" -- Jay
by Turkmenbashi on Apr 5, 2010 11:35 AM EDT up reply actions
Attitudes like this will cost us our franchise long before any changes are made.
by supermarioelia on Apr 5, 2010 11:37 AM EDT up reply actions
Not one member of the MLB executive board or one member of the Indians FO could possibly care any less how much money you spend. You aren’t making your voice heard, you’re choosing to stick with an old hat.
In no way, shape or form do I think anyone would take note of my spending habits (and I don’t know why you would assume I would be delusional enough into thinking they would), but if you think I’m alone in my thinking, and that the aggregate effect of people like me doesn’t matter, you’re crazy.
Why should I financially support a system that is so obviously flawed? What better options do I have to voice my displeasure?
by millionairesrow on Apr 5, 2010 12:06 PM EDT up reply actions
Is it fair for me to be somewhat optimistic about our bullpen only because there is such tremendous widespread pessimism about it? The last two years I seem to recall a lot of optimism about the pen, and that didn’t work out so well. I assume this year’s pessimism will lead to the opposite result.
I’m optimistic about it because at some point they’ll get lucky. It’s not like that 2005 or 2007 pen was stocked with guys who looked like they ought to dominate.
So, to unexpected and unjustified domination!
This is the least excited I have been for an Indians team in a long time, the pitching is going to be awful. For some reason, it was easier to go through the rebuilding period at the beginning of the decade. It was hard to lose Victor and Cliff, much harder than any of the other guys.
I am out of market and for the first time in a few years, I don’t plan on purchasing mlb.tv, maybe I will go for the audio, not sure yet.
But hey, it’s not like I chose to be an Indians fan. I was born into it and I’m always going to be one. Go Tribe!
Now I’m depressed. But a brutally honest look at the team and what it’s like to be an Indians fan. I echo several others who indicated last year was one of the most difficult times to be a Tribe fan. There is always hope this time of year, but the hope flame is not burning as bright as before.
At what point will agents and players (and owners) recognize that the overall health and strength of the league is more important than the needs of the individual player. For the Yankees to be successful they need competitive teams to play, not just second tier teams. The main stream baseball media makes me ill as they praise the Yankees business model and success. Give any business 2 to 3 times the money of their next closest competitor and I’m guessing they will also be a success.
I’ll still root for the Tribe, I still went to spring training, I’ll still listen to as many games as I can and go to a few. I just can’t help myself. Ah, I’m not so depressed anymore. It is opening day after all.
Here’s Acta’s response:
Everybody has their own opinion and should form their own opinion. I just know our fans are very passionate, and they care about their team. We don’t want to compare ourselves to other franchises, but it hasn’t been as bad here as a lot of people make it out to be. Just a few years ago, we were one win away from the World Series. In 2005, we also had a good year. And this franchise basically was dominant in the mid-90s.
But I understand, everyone wants to win. That’s how the world sees things nowadays, being sarcastic and negative. But we choose not to be. I think we do have enough talent here to bring excitement back to Cleveland.
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