Cavs Top ‘Cats, May Not Finish With Worst Record in NBA After All
April 6, 2011Lessons Learned from Out of Town Announcers
April 6, 2011
One of the worst parts about LeBron James leaving Cleveland was for season ticket holders. As everyone knows, Cleveland Cavaliers fans needed to be speculators and try to guess if LeBron was going to come back or not and make a decision whether to re-up before free agency completed. I’ll give Cavs fans credit. For such a raw deal, I haven’t heard a ton of complaining. Make no mistake though, it was a raw deal in terms of value. Many of those fans who dutifully trudged to the Q this year to watch the Cavs will make or have made their decision whether to keep supporting the Cavs with season tickets next year. Has their bad experience with Cavs tickets ended up costing the Indians as well?
Don’t think for a second that this is one of those “LeBron James is responsible for every negative thing in the world” types of posts. I want to look at this more like a scientist. The fact remains that other than the Browns who are immune to everything, the Cleveland sports fan landscape is inter-related. As a community of sports fans there is tons of crossover between Cavs fans and Indians fans.
When I lived in Boston it was different. You had some sports fans who were religious about all the teams like any other city. At the same time there were fans who were definitely Bruins fans first. In fact, before Tom Brady became one of the best quarterbacks of this generation there weren’t really that many Patriots fans other than the die-hards. The town had enough fans to have almost distinct die-hard fan-bases for each individual sport and then the people who were fans of all the sports filled it out.
Obviously in Cleveland I think the Cavs and Indians end up fighting for a lot of the same disposable income year in and year out. It just makes me wonder if Cavs fans who ponied up all that money are less likely to buy Indians tickets this year because they got burned. For some people, the economy dictates the number of tickets they can buy and many probably spent it all with the Cavs already. Beyond those people though, I wonder if are there some that are feeling burned by sports tickets in general.
The Indians themselves obviously have the primary hand in this. I would never try and say that trading the heart, soul and guts of the team over the course of a couple seasons wasn’t a primary catalyst as I grasped to find another way to throw darts at LeBron James. Then again, the Indians are setting records for low attendance since Jacob’s Field opened. Announced attendance last night was just over 9,000 and I don’t know anyone who believes there were that many people there. Come to think of it, where was “Red Sox nation?” They are usually jumping at the chance to take over an empty Cleveland ballpark.
I don’t have any answers here. I am just curious. If the Indians continue to play well, I am sure attendance will pick up over the course of the year as it did in 2007 when the Indians started to contend. I can’t help but wonder how many Cleveland fans were soured by their ticket-buying experiences this year and were gun-shy about committing more money to another team of questionable quality heading into the season.
If you want to weigh in, please visit the poll on Facebook for me.
(Photo by TD WFNY)
47 Comments
I just want people to start going so I don’t have to see newspaper articles, articles on here and jokes/polls on ESPN about the attendance. I don’t really think that many people are staying away because they bought Cavs tickets. I think people are staying away because they think the team sucks, the weather is cold and they say “What’s the point because we will trade away all our good players anyway.”
“Red Sox Nation” is already abandoning ship 🙂
The Browns and Cavaliers also locked people in to buying tickets. The Indians are probably paying for that too. Browns have the PSLs and the Cavsliers made people buy tickets before they knew whether James was staying or leaving.
Let me say this… It annoys me to no end that the Browns, whose institutional stupidity and incompetence over the last ten years overwhelms the Cavs and Indians mistakes, continue to get a pass from the fans.
I was there opening day, but won’t be back until it warms up. I can afford to go to 15 or so games this season. If I know that I can get tickets in late May, June, July, August and September why would I bother wasting my income going to a game where I spend the whole game freezing my butt off? I’d rather wait till June and enjoy myself. For now I’ll catch the game on either the TV or the radio.
It always surprises me when people look at the LeBron situation and don’t carry that over to baseball.
The Indians have been avoiding a “LeBron” situation with Lee, CC and the others . They know these guys are leaving and just try to get anything.
As Cleveland fans, LeBron should have made Indians fans MORE sympathetic to the Indians’ situation.
The team has spent no money on players and there are no expectations. They traded away 2 Cy Young award winners. What other team would do that? It’s cold and the economy is awful. What other reasons does anyone need? Also, why does EVERYTHING have to be about LeBron? All I want is ESPN and every other sports outlet to stop talking about LeBron and Cleveland together and that definitely isn’t going to happen if writers who write about Cleveland sports keep bringing it up.
I think that there was good attendance in the 90s because the Tribe was a consistently good product.
The fact is, we the fans know that our best players are going to leave or be traded before they can leave. It has been accepted as inevitable in our collective psyche. Thus, we don’t get attached to our players. I honestly can’t name a single player aside from that sin shoo choo (sp?) guy, and I can’t even tell you what position he plays.
Getting emotionally invested is what fans do, and if you can’t provide that, then you may as well just sell or move the team.
If the Dolan’s could put together a winner and show dedication to building something, fans would come, but it’s not an easy fix. To use your own words, Craig, the ’07 Tribe was a red-herring that means less than nothing. Look at our standings year over year* and you see the occasional “1st” lost in years of 4th place finishes.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cleveland_Indians_seasons
Get me excited about something, as is, in ’07 all I could think about was how we were going to trade off all our good players that off season.
Now, I’m not saying this is all the Dolans’ fault. It’s hell to compete in the MLB when you can just be outspent by the big markets with no limit. So if the Dolans want to blame someone, they should be blaming the league.
Low expectations + crappy weather + weak economy = poor attendance.
I don’t know if there is really anything more to it than that.
“Hey we have played 4 games this season come support us after our back to back 90 loss seasons, the weather sucks, we might not pay our better players or might get rid of them. Also we have one of the lowest payrolls in AL”
I watched the Cavs game instead. Didn’t flip to the Indians once. I understand the economics are completely different. However, there is a different feeling about cheering for an organization that will pull out all the stops to gain extra draft picks, over an organization that will trade championship caliber players for pennies on the dollar in order to rebuild.
On a separate note, as long as Indians fans don’t turn into this guy, I think we’ll all be better off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmv6YyBiuOc
@Narm
After all, the first “LeBron situation” was Albert Belle.
And then Manny Ramirez…
And then Jim Thome…
The Indians have learned that lesson and have conducted business accordingly. It makes people upset that we trade the Sabathias and Lees and Martinezes of the world, but I think we’re all now very familiar with what the alternative looks like.
I do think there’s a lot of credence to the argument that the Indians compete with the Cavs for a share of customer’s wallet. And have long made the point living in Cincinnati (ugh) that the Bengals need to shape up their ownership, because as the Reds have righted their management ship, and attendance hasn’t necessarily followed course yet, soon it will and that will mean less disposable income to spend on football.
Thanks for the article Craig, interesting read.
@Narm The irony here is that the hindsight-enhanced Nostradami now argue that the Cavs should have shipped LBJ off in a trade to get what they could for him, rather than stick with him and wind up jilted by our superstar–you know, do the smart thing. Like the Tribe did. Which was wrong. I need someone much smarter than I to explain that to me. My guess? Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
All this hysteria over Indians attendance both local and national. Is it really a surprise when you consider:
1.) It’s April and it’s dreary and cold.
2.) Downtown occupancy is at an all-time low. People have to make an effort to make the night games during the week.
3.) Cleveland’s population is half what it used to be and is the smallest market to host 3 teams
4.) Economy still stinks relative to the ‘booming’ 90’s. Ticket prices and vendor prices continue a relentless march towards pricing out core-supporters
5.) Indian’s brass waved the white flag 2 seasons ago for the foreseeable future. The 14-0 game 1 debacle quickly stripped away any feel-good spring training vibes…
It’s easy to blame this on the Dolans but it’s not entirely their fault the system is totally broke for small/mid-market teams. They’d have to hemorrhage cash to even be in the game with the big markets and even that is no guarantee. And we can rally around Dan Gilbert and his free spending ways, but y’all basically gave him a monopoly on a downtown Casino to help offset any small losses on the Cavs. Spending on the Cavs is the least he can do for you..
@DocZeus (Post #4):
Amen brother. That too drives me absolutely crazy.
The Nats are suffering from a Gilbert Arenas hangover 🙁
@DocZeus-You are absolutely right-We do give the Browns a pass and seem to follow them with Blind Faith, however, I do think the empty seats @CBS the last two home games plus the influx of Steeler fans who turn up had a lot to do with Mangini getting fired. I believe Holmgren even made comments about that when it happened. Plus, you only have 8 chances to see the Browns at home as opposed to 41 for the Cavs & 81 for the Indians.
The Browns have always been number one on the Cleveland sports pecking order and the Indians, with perhaps the exception of the LBJ era, have always been second (discounting the Modell caused sabbatical). As bad as things look for the Tribe at the gate right now, things can only go up for them. Good luck to Dan Gilbert and his sales staff on selling tickets for next season since this seasons ticket holders had to renew before LBJ took his ego to South Beach.
I think the Indians early problems can be blamed on a fanbase lacking excitement going into the season, a lousy economy and bad weather. If you live in the ‘burbs or Columbus are you going to spend $3.80 a gallon on gas, parking, tickets, and concessions just to sit in a meat locker?
@7 – “If the Dolan’s could put together a winner and show dedication to building something, fans would come…”
I’d argue that ’05-’07 shows that this is not the case.
“The fact is, we the fans know that our best players are going to leave or be traded before they can leave.”
I’m not disagreeing that many fans feel this way, but for the life of me I just don’t get the line of reasoning. So winning isn’t important as having a few big name players to cheer for?
#8 – that’s absolutely correct. Not to mention massively shrinking population numbers. I feel like lots of people are trying to over complicate this. If this town had jobs, money, and people you would probably see closer to average attendance numbers.
Are we really surprised by this? All it takes is disinterested ownership who is unwilling to spend. Why should the Tribe fanbase spend money on tickets if the Dolans aren’t willing to spend on players? You have to spend money to make money, and the fans are beginning to see through the charade. I’m almost happy to hear that nobody’s going. I do feel bad for the players, especially when they’re putting in hard work and not getting fan recognition. But, when it comes right down to it, the players only have the owner to get mad at anyway.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m feeling a Major League-esque season coming up.
The Indians will be moved or folded in the next 10 years. The city is shrinking, broke, and aging. I guarantee more than 1/2 of the regular posters on this site don’t live there anymore (in LA myself now). The Dolans frugality has washed away the goodwill of the Jacobs era. However, even if the Dolans did have an average payroll (the best we can hope for) the crowds would still suck. 05-07 were decent years and the Indians were still in the bottom 10 for attendance. Other than the 90s, Cleveland has generally proved to be a poor baseball town.
Those hoping the poor attendance will force the Dolans to sell are ignorant. Who will want to buy a team dead last in attendance two years running and invest tons of money in it in this town? If anyone buys it, it will be with the sole purpose of moving the team.
I don’t think that money spent on Cavs’ tickets affects Indians’ ticket sales – people who bought individually have more money now, and people who bought season tickets likely have more of an ability to go to both. The only exceptions might be those who banked on selling most of their Cavs’ tickets enough to make back their investment, and have not done so this year.
I don’t see why anyone would want to go to a game in 40-degree weather to watch a poor team with no real stars and no players that resonate as guys who will be stars and still be here in three years.
Someone yesterday pointed out the Indians’ last 10 1st round draft picks, and how going “safe” didn’t pan out well, and now they’re investing in bigger stars despite the expense. I think that may be a recognition that to get any fans in the seats, they’ll need a couple real studs coming to the majors to get fans watching before they’re actually good and help them sign pieces they need to complete a team. Call it an extended rebuilding process, but that’s likely the best realistic way for the Indians to go.
Fun fact: Pretty sure that a year ago, my dad’s shared season tickets were about $42 per, on average. This year, after all the unbelievable discounts: $18.50, with $4 for concessions loaded on the ticket.
I’m hearing “there is no hope” from all of you, except you are all trying to figure out why–how it got to be this way. I think that even 100 more articles and 10000 more comments could not unearth the “cause”. I just want someone to confirm, if they feel it is true, that “there is hope”. I don’t want the Tribe to go the way of the ‘Spos.
Attendance has been trending this direction for years. In ’07 the Tribe was maybe getting 25G a night even when the team got hot. The lack of trust in ownership, whether merited or not, combined w/ the struggling economy are what’s hurting the team now. Even when the economy locally turns around, it will take years for the Dolans to repair the relationship with the fans. I don’t know if it can ever be done.
@Karsten – yeah, I noticed that too. even with the fees for stubhub, I was able to get 2 seats in the lower deck behind homeplate for a Sunday game against the hottest team in MLB for $25 (ok, so that ‘hottest’ team is the Orioles).
gift-giving for me this year looks like it will be cheaper than usual 🙂
You guys are all missing it. Baseball is DYING. It is a sport that simply fails to capture the public’s attention. It’s boring. It’s slow moving. The stats have all been rendered meaningless by the steroid era. We live in an era of instant gratification. This is the twitter, web 2.0 era and baseball doesn’t stand a chance. For god’s sake, baseball playoff games get lower ratings than regular season NFL games. There’s no doubt baseball is heading toward an increasing irrelevance.
@#14, with regards to point 4
Actually, ticket prices have been slashed to ridiculously low prices. You can, right now, go up to the gates and buy two bleacher seats for $10 a pop. Lowest ticket price in the business.
This team is going to be so good in the next couple of years. And I’ll bet that still, the Indians won’t draw much better than 25k/game. This town can’t… or won’t… support this team anymore. I keep hearing this “they trade everyone” point, and I get why it sucks, but EVERY ONE of those trades made absolute sense.
CC Sabathia was offered nearly $20M/year by the team before the 2008 season. He broke off negotiations, declaring his intent to see the open market. They were out of contention by the deadline. It made sense to trade him, since everyone knew he wasn’t coming back and the most they could hope for him was some compensatory picks.
Cliff Lee was never particularly happy in Cleveland, and was never happy with management. Some of that resentment made him the pitcher he is today. In any case, the team was set to lose a lot of money in 2009, and were too far removed from contention. Their rotation was hurt (Westbrook), mental (Carmona) or old (Byrd). Additionally, Cliff made his intentions to see free agency very clear, and that’s why the Phillies and Mariners traded him too. There was no way to keep him. What we got was FAR better than two compensatory picks (which would have been like just getting Donald and Marson).
VMart was aging and becoming less effective. The Indians also had several young and promising catchers. Santana was gaining steam as one of the best prospects in baseball. Shoppach, at the time, was coming off of a season where he honestly looked like a starting-calibre catcher to some. It made sense to deal him, and what they got back was honestly impressive. Hagadone is a top-of-the-rotation potential starter, who at worst becomes an effective lefty out of the bullpen (lefties who hit the high 90s are a rarity). Masterson was a proven bullpen arm that could (and seemingly has) develop into a legit #3 starter. And Price is a guy who could end up being a legit MLB reliever.
What killed the 2007 team, and prevented that team from continuing to be competitive is primarily bad luck. If Adam Miller’s finger doesn’t explode, maybe the rotation is way better in 2008. If Hafner doesn’t regress in ways that statistically should never be expected, if Grady doesn’t become an ineffective Mr. Glass, if Westbrook doesn’t blow out his arm, etc. That team was expected to win in 2008 and 2009, but honestly they were clearly not going to be winners long before CC, Cliff and Victor were dealt.
I’m sorry. The small crowds despite contention in ’05-07 were the anomaly not the rule that we should be looking at in the future. If anything that the LeBron-era Cavs have proved is that if you put out a quality winning product in Cleveland, fans will come to support the team. It might not be instanteously after the team’s ship is righted but they WILL come if they win. I have hard time believing that a city so desperate for a championship would turn its back on a winning baseball team simply because ownership sucks.
Part of the apathy problem that exists right now was that management sold us on a rebuild in ’01-02 on the premise that if things were righted, the team would start paying their players and we would be in contention for years. However after we choked in the ALCS in ’07 and had slow starts in ’08 and ’09, management decided to essentially dismantle the team two years after being a game away from the World Series. That’s HARD for fans to swallow.
When we traded Cliff Lee and Victor a year and half before their contracts were up in ’09, it essentially sent the message that the Indians had no interest in competing in the near future so why as fans (who in a weird way were spoiled with the success of the 90s) care to watch an inferior product while the players that management deemed we couldn’t win with enjoy MAJOR succes elsewhere. It was insulting.
On top of that, the haul that we received for our three best players was noticably anemic compared to the hauls that other teams who traded players of their caliber acquired. This was done a YEAR before logic and realities of baseball economic system dictated the Indians had to trade them. The Phillies and the Mariners both acquired better hauls for the SAME player we traded. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?! It gave the impression that Dolan was not only cheap but he was stupid to boot and willing to sell of a valuable asset on the cheap just to match the bottom line.
However, I still remain firmly in the camp that all of that is irrelevant if the Indians just start winning games. If you build a contender, Cleveland will support you.
We did it with the Cavs. We did with the 90s Indians. We will do it again. JUST WIN!
@DocZeus “The Phillies and the Mariners both acquired better hauls for the SAME player we traded”
Umm….really?
Indians got from Philly:
Knapp – considered one of our top prospects; we’ll see. BA #64 ranked prospect last year.
Carrasco – 3rd starter and has best ‘stuff’ of any of them. BA #52 ranked prospect when he was last eligible in 2009.
Donald – Utility IF. BA #69 ranked prospect when he was last eligible in 2009.
Marson – Stop-gap backup C. BA #66 ranked prospect when he was last eligible in 2009.
Phillies got from Seattle:
J.C. Ramirez – 29-34 4.30 ERA in 5 minor league seasons. Not a SO pitcher and hasn’t been getting better. not a top100 ranked player by BA.
Phillippe Aumont – 9-21 4.57 ERA and was so absolutely terrible last year at AA that they demoted him to A+ ball where he was also really bad. More of a SO pitcher at least. was fringe top100 player for BA, after last year, nowhere near it.
Tyson Gillies – non-power hitting OF who has hit .240 in AA ball (240 ABs). not ranked in top100 prospects by BA.
Phillies got fringe BA top100 player that imploded, and 2 outside prospects who have not played well when going up a level.
Yet that is better than the Indians getting 4 top70 prospects, 3 of which have at least been called up to the MLB level? 2 of which have shown they can at least be solid contributors to a 25man roster (Carrasco and Donald)?
Sorry, you lose on this one.
Mariners got from Texas:
Justin Smoak (best prospect returned from Lee trades) – #13 ranked player by BA.
Mark Lowe – non-descript relief pitcher (throw-in)
Blake Beavan – former 1st round pitcher who had been a bust for the Rangers, but still better than either of the pitchers the Phillies got back. non-ranked.
Josh Lueke – decent potential as a middle reliever (AA middle reliever at the time of the trade). non-ranked.
Matt Lawson – middle infielder with some decent speed. not a great prospect but not a terrible one either. non-ranked.
So, the question here is whether you would take Smoak over Carrasco/Knapp as the rest of the players on either side are rather non-descript. I would say you definitely take the chance on that type of power-bat even though Carrasco has shown more at the MLB level and we don’t know what Knapp will bring yet.
So, yes I would say Seattle got more from Texas than we did from Philly. They can thank the Yankees for helping push the Rangers to putting Smoak on the table.
“Cliff Lee was never particularly happy in Cleveland…”
Maybe it had something to do with how we boo’d him off the field in ’07. But come on — the guy had only pitched 200+ innings in each of the previous two years to win us 32 games. What had he done for us lately?
Should read all the posts before responding…
re: trading Victor – Shoppach was studly in 2008 w/ 20+HRs, 128 OPS+.
@29 – “The small crowds despite contention in ’05-07 were the anomaly not the rule that we should be looking at in the future.”
What makes you believe this? Not being snarky, just curious.
Personally, I see the mid-90’s Indians and Lebron as the abnormalities. In one, you had a perfect storm that won’t exist again and in the other you had the most popular (and supposedly dominant) prospect in the sport (something that doesn’t really exist in baseball imo).
I don’t doubt that people will turn up if we make the playoffs, but sadly that kind of short term support just won’t cut it if you expect ownership to spend $100+M yearly on salaries.
As for the Lee trade, I agree with mgbode’s assertion that we got the better haul. But even if we didn’t, are you really saying fans can/should turn on their team just because of a bad, ill advised trade or deal? Seems overly harsh to me.
@Doc
Everyone says baseball is dying while basketball is growing and already taken over 2nd place in popularity, but I don’t see it.
For example, the 2009 NBA Finals and 2010 World Series each went 5 games. The NBA finals had the Lakers and Magic which isn’t bad considering the Lakers draw big ratings and the World Series had Texas and SF, neither of which have huge fan backing like the Lakers. Both Series averaged about 14 million viewers and the NBA game 5 gathered 14.2 million viewers while the WS game 5 gathered 14.95 million viewers. Despite having a more favorable matchup than MLB, the NBA still failed to draw a larger crowd.
Or an even more striking example would be the 2007 NBA Finals. The series averaged only 9.3 million viewers which was a record low despite it being LeBron’s first title appearance. The fewest viewers to ever watch a World Series game was 9.8 million and that was in a 2008 World Series which still averaged 11.4 million viewers.
I know ratings don’t mean everything, but MLB still gathers more viewers than the NBA. Maybe in the coming years this will change, but for now there really isn’t too much to suggest it is dying at the rate people say it is. Of course the NFL draws more than a baseball game. America loves football. In 2008, Monday Night Football games averaged a 8.9 rating. That is as high or higher than both the series clinching games in the 2009 NBA Finals (8.0) and 2010 World Series (8.8) I mentioned earlier.
I find all of the posts entertaining.
The Cleveland Metro area is the draw for the local sports teams. Not just the city population stats because people are moving more and more to the suburbs. It is still much larger than many metro areas and much larger than Columbus even though Columbus appears to be much larger in stats. That’s what happens when you annex most of the burbs. Cleveland can easily support all of the teams.
The economy sucks in most of the US. Sure Boston maybe in better financial standing but their ticket prices are out of control high. That should all balance out. So 8,000 fans for a game is a ridiculous number that even Parma could reach if they had the team on their own. Do you really believe that Kansas City or Detroit are in better shape with with possible fans to pay for tickets to baseball than Cleveland? Doubtful.
Seriously out of all of the people posting here know the answer– the real issue is with the team and owner. Cleveland fans are more fickle because of our teams always choking. The tipping point to not support the team was the trades. The Indians fans have been promised developing talent for a run every 7 years or so (the Shapiro plan) and when your at that point and the team dumps the good players too early, your extremely disappointed. What puts it over the top was when the analysts said that we gave away those players for almost free, your pissed.
Not a problem if the Indians can prove the analysts wrong. Who cares if they’re the #64 prospect now. The guys we should have received in the trades should have been the top 10 prospects at the time and major contributors now. How did we not get Buchholz from Boston or 8 great players/potential great pitchers for the CY Young guys shows Dolan was looking for value first. You cannot support a team when ownership is overtly cheap. Plus the Tribe is the third youngest team after the “farm clubs” Pittsburgh and Kansas City. We will all support our Indians on TV but not attend games while the Dolans are owners unless they get lucky. Cheap gets paid back with cheap!
We could be in first place at the All Star Break, and dead last in attendance. People would say its because “they’re just gonna trade away all the good players”, while in the next breath make plans to spend however many thousands of dollars to watch something called Pat Shurmur lead the Browns to another 5 win season. Its because Randy Lerner cares about us, he spends money so he just has to, right?
Cleveland just isnt a baseball town. It will pretend to be a baseball town when things are going well, but otherwise, nobody cares. And yeah, 455, blah blah blah. It will never happen again regardless of who owns the team. That was a total anomaly and everyone knows whether they admit it or not. I just hope that if the Tribe manages to hang around in the race we’ll see some decent crowds as the season goes on. Be kinda depressing if we’re in the race come September and still drawing 9,000 a game, while people complain about the impending trade of Shin Soo Choo to the Yankees and use that as an excuse not to come out and support a good ballclub. Its because Larry Dolan hates us, so lets all give our money to Randy Lerner because damnit, he loves Cleveland and the fans!
@33
You are correct the 90s Indians and LeBron were two perfect storms that led to a renaissance of fandom for their perspective franchises. It is unlikely they will be duplicated in terms of sheer fan interest.
HOWEVER, Cleveland has not had a championship team since 1964 of any kind. It simply boggles the mind that people think that if you built a true contender in the city that you wouldn’t have fans come to support.
I don’t expect to ever see 455 straight sellouts or “The Q” becoming the center of the basketball universe ever again. But if the Indians were to compete for a playoff spot over a few years, there is no reason, the Indians couldn’t be operating at 35-40 thousand fans a night.
@mgbode
I was under the impression that Cliff Lee was traded in a 3 team deal that brought Doc Halladay to the Phillies. And yes, I would rather have Justin Smoak than a third starter, a serviceable utility infielder and an 18-year old project. It’s reasonable to assume that a deal similar to what the Indians got would be in play the next season if they couldn’t land a blue chipper like the Mariners landed for Lee. There was no reason to execute the Lee deal at that time unless you were being blown away. Lee still had another year on his contract at a fairly reasonable price. At the bare minimum, you hold your ground and look for a better offer at the deadline next year.
“to compete for a playoff spot over a few years”
Ah…. and there’s the rub…. It’s not just “win”, but do it for the appropriate amount of time to appease the fanbase…
Like it or not, to get the fans back the Tribe will have to put together a sustained run of contention w/ the Dolans (as promised those many years ago) re-signing at least one or two top players come money time. Rid the perception of “they’ll just trade away our good players” and at least a segment of fans will come back. It’s up to ownership to make this turnaround happen..it’s not the fans’ responsibility to support an unambitious, spin-doctoring front office.
Please don’t be distracted. This isn’t about baseball or even the Dolans. The economy is a factor, but not the main thing. It’s not about the Browns, nor the Cavs. Though that is related.
It is about our psyche. Buying tickets and being a fan is not rational. It’s psychological and emotional, foremost. We Cleveland fans do not expect success. We’ve learned to expect the worst. Not our fault, it’s pretty much inevitable based on all that’s transpired on our fields and courts, and off. The original article here on the LeBron factor is kinda right – that was the latest (and arguably biggest) letdown in a long series.
We’re still fans to an extent. But pretty much all of us have dialed it back, conciously or not. And who could blame us?
So people will knock us Cleveland fans, as we’re easy targets. And distracting side issues will surface as the causes of small crowds. But we’re at a real critical point. The only solution is winning. None of our 3 franchises have any margin for error any longer. They will only draw if they’re winning, or are exciting as hell and improving quickly. Period.
Losing – for generations, in rough fashion – takes a toll. All other factors are distant. This has really never been seen in pro sports before. Losing as we’ve done is like a cancer (not trying to equate sports to serious health issues….)
If they’d just start blasting the hippity-hop and shooting off pyrotechnics at Jacobs Field, everyone would show up and love it.
@Doczeus – they were 2 separate trades for the Phillies.
I agree on Smoak as I mentioned. We obviously felt that the deal was not going to get better as time went on. Philly found the same thing that winter. Seattle was lucky that Texas really, really wanted to show they could compete for the WS and NYY was also trying to obtain Lee. If we held onto Lee and Texas wasn’t there, then we would have potentially gotten less.
Not saying it was right or wrong, but it was a risk. We decided to base our decision on the Texeirra trade (where Texas got more from Atlanta than Atlanta could manage in the final year).
@DC–your explanation does not fit in w/ the Browns…they are the city’s “Teflon franchise” to quote Bill Livingston. Even if they’re not filling every single seat late in a losing yr, they’re still getting near sellouts and will continue to do so, win or lose.
Its like 30 degrees down there, Ill take STO for now
counting on Spring to break sometime early next week, and Ill be there next Sat
@mgbode
The Rangers/Yankees situation is precisely why I believe the Indians needed to remain patient in 2009. The Indians controlled perhaps the most valuable commodity in baseball, an elite starting pitcher, and had the luxury of essentially two years to attempt to make a deal that was favorable to them. In 2009, if it you found a trade marketplace that wasn’t paying full value, the extra year on his contract dictated you always had the luxury of walking away from the table and trying again at a later date. It was the biggest bargaining chip. The same with Victor.
Dolan’s insistence on shedding payroll as quickly as possible fatally compromised that in both the VMart and Lee deals. The Red Sox and Phillies knew Dolan needed to dump salary so they had no incentive to part with a blue chipper otherwise why would they be trading two All-Stars two years away from free agency. It’s why Dolan needed to bite the bullet and walk away.
Bare minimum, you keep your fans happy for a year and recieve a similiar deal the next season.
@mgbode In addition to DocZeus’ comments, every year there are a couple teams that will give away many superstars when they are close to competing for even a slightly above average starter to boost the rotation. The Westbrook trade is exactly one where we should have landed some studs. To think we gave away one of the rarest things in baseball, two young CY Young pitchers TWICE for a reduction in payroll and marginal talent is all on the Dolans.
The NFL is a different animal than MLB because of the salary cap and short player careers. You do not have any Yankees teams buying out the talent and with only 16 games, one star player can turn a doormat franchise into a playoff team the next year. Green Bay is the smallest market and current Super Bowl champs whereas a team like the Pittsburgh Pirates have not been above .500 since 1992.
I disasgree that the Browns are “teflon.” There is no question that it is much harder from them to sell tix, compared to most points in history. And we know that some fans in Ohio and elsewhere departed company with the Browns at some point in the last 20 years (either due to Modell and the move, constant losing, etc.)
The NFL is really popular, so all NFL teams get a break from the fans if the home team shows any signs of life. That much is true. So the Browns have it a bit easier than Cavs or Tribe. But to say that the Browns have it easy and sell the stadium out no matter what is probably no longer valid.
Everything they’ve gone thru (and we’ve gone thru as fans) has eroded the fan base – and we should not feel badly about that. We’re human. That’s my main point. You can say that great fans overcome disappointments and remain loyal. We’re way past that point. Loyalty and support aren’t unlimited, nor should they be. Some fans have left entirely….most have dialed it down. And they’re not wrong or less loyal to have done so, really. Losing – when it’s so extreme and consistent – has a cost.
Not all gloom and doom here. There’s nothing better in sports than a comeback. If these teams can mount a real comeback, they’ll add back the fans faster than they lost them. With all that’s transpired, no Cleveland team can afford to lose anymore. Period. They pretty much HAVE to win (or at least get better and look good doing so.) We’re not less of a fan base – we’re the same great fans as before. We’re not robots, we’ve taken on damage to an extent never seen elsewhere.