USA Today: MLB Attendance Issues Reach Beyond Cleveland
April 15, 2011Down and Out With Internet Negativity and John Steigerwald
April 15, 2011
Justin Masterson takes the mound tonight for the Indians, looking to improve his record to 3-0. He has given up just 2 runs in over 13 innings of work this season, for a 1.35 ERA, with a 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio. Carlos Carrasco bounced back from a bad first start, and has pitched well enough to win his last 2 starts, even though his defense let him down against the Angels. He is second on the team with 13 strikeouts. Michael Brantley will be leading off and playing centerfield, with a .311 batting average and an OPS of .773. Matt LaPorta has struggled to begin the season. He has struck out more times (9) than he has had a base hit (7).
Why bring those players up? Because they were of course the centerpieces to the deals that sent Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez out of town. Their performance on the field will determine if the deals made were ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Regardless of contract status, public perception of the trades necessitate that these players turn into shadows of Sabathia, Lee and Martinez and lead the Indians to the World Series.
I say it has to be a World Series, because I believe the trades of Victor, Cliff and CC will never be viewed as ‘good trades’ otherwise. I think that sports fans are conditioned to believe that the only ‘good trade’ is the type where my team fleeces your team.
Felix Fermin for Omar Vizquel is a good trade. Kenny Lofton for Eddie Taubensee is a good trade. An aging Joe Carter for Sandy Alomar and Carlos Baerga is a good trade.
Peyton Hillis for Brady Quinn is a good trade.
Casey Blake for Carlos Santana is a good trade.
But giving away something of value (even extreme value) to get something of value back doesn’t seem like a good trade to the sports fan. A good trade in any other aspect of life is when both parties get something out of the deal that they prefer or need. Perhaps it is parting with something you have an excess of in order to get something not quite as quality, but that you need more.
This scenario just doesn’t apply to the Indians recent deals. While the Indians may have appeared to have an excess of Cy Young winners, you can never have enough quality, major league ready pitching. Factor in the emotional investment that fans had with Sabathia, Martinez and to a little lesser extent Cliff Lee and the expectations resting on the shoulders of the new Indians is quite heavy.
The Indians have told us over and over again that this is life in a small market. Almost warning us that this is the way they will be doing business from here out. If that is the case, Tribe fans really have just two options. They can learn to evaluate trades a little differently, or they can choose not to support the team.
23 Comments
Rick,
Please stop being so level-handed regarding Indian’s trades… JK
Hey, they could have thrown $184mil at a player like the Twins did. That would have satisfied the fanbase and it’s not like anything could ever go wrong by doing that, right?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/tom_verducci/04/15/harper.clemens/index.html?eref=sihp
Rick, there is a third option. Go to games, buy apparel, watch the games, and stay in the Cleveland area. Great supporting fans equals more money and more money makes those small markets seem a little bigger (much like St. Louis).
Thank you mgbode…I am going to ride the absurdity of the Mauer contract until it burns the Twins to the ground…everything they did right they got blinded by a hometown guy and it will destroy the franchise.
A bag of used baseballs is a better deal than letting them walk off in free agency. What did we get for Manny Ramirez?
@5garry, we did get compensatory draft picks for manny:
Dan Denham (Indians-1) – Pick from Red Sox as compensation for Free Agent Manny Ramirez
J.D. Martin (Indians-1s) – Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Manny Ramirez
here are the other comp picks. charles nagy and a bag of balls sounds about right.
*Compensation Picks
David Huff (Indians-1s) – Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Bob Howry
John Drennen (Indians-1s) – Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Omar Vizquel
Brad Snyder (Indians-1) – Pick from Phillies as compensation for Free Agent Jim Thome
Adam Miller (Indians-1s) – Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Jim Thome
Matthew Whitney (Indians-1s) – Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Juan Gonzalez
Micah Schilling (Indians-1s) – Supplemental pick for failure to sign 2001 No. 1 choice Alan Horne
Mike Conroy (Indians-1s) – Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent David Segui
Derek Thompson (Indians-1s) – Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Michael Jackson
Jason Fitzgerald (Indians-1s) – Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Albert Belle
Samuel Hence (Indians-1s) – Supplemental pick for failure to sign 1989 No. 1 choice Calvin Murray
Charles Nagy (Indians-1) – Pick from Giants as compensation for Free Agent Brett Butler
Jeff Mutis (Indians-1s) – Supplemental Pick for loss of Free Agent Brett Butler
Alan Horne (Indians-1) – Pick from White Sox as compensation for Free Agent Sandy Alomar
(see: http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?query_type=franch_round&team_ID=CLE&draft_round=1&draft_type=junreg)
mgbode and ben,
This is a couple of quotes from one of our esteemed contributers who will remain nameless at this time. These quotes are right after the 8 game winning streak:
“I love my Indians, sure, but that doesn’t mean I have to like the fact that we let Victor Martinez go or TWO Cy Young winners. TWO. If the Twins could keep Mauer we could keep ONE of those players, and don’t tell me otherwise.”
“And that is a problem with the MLB and yes, larger than the Indians. Although, again, the amazing gigantic media powerhouse of Minnesota was able to figure out how to…”
Come on Cleveland, everyone on board. Not only can’t Cleveland throw 100 million dollar contracts around, but they shouldn’t want to.
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I take it that “good” is your highest praise? If Casey for Carlos is just good, what is great?
@5KMD – anytime that someone brings up Mauer, you can always retort with Pronk. I mean, we did sign him to a longterm deal when he was among the most feared hitters in MLB that would take him into his mid-30s. But, that has worked out well too, so I don’t know what I am saying.
@ jimkanicki:
That’s good data. Thanks. I had obviously forgotten about the “compensatory” picks. Looks like we got a couple of bags of balls.
By the way, I loved Brett Butler. Too bad “Jeff Mutis” didn’t work out!
mgbode,
I have been on the Tribe’s FO for years on this particular matter. I would have loved them to be able to sign CC or Cliff for about 3 years, but big time free agents want their guaranteed 7-8 years. I don’t want the Tribe to buy out the back end of players’ careers, let the big boys do that.
@ 5KMD — Hey, I’m right here. I’ll own the quotes because guess what, they are right. If J. Mauer remains the player he was, then you have nothing; its all a roll of the dice, I would never suggest otherwise. If he bats .300 and with 35 homers for four years in a row he’d be worth every penny. So he failed, so what? That happens, they took the risk. That’s the problem; the Indians kept Hafner…Travis Hafner. Not a Cy Young Winner. Not an AL batting champion. He is a perpetual DH/sometime 1st baseman. Mauer is a major position player. CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee (who just threw a gem) are No. 1s on each and ever single MLB team in the nation.
Think about it from the other side: suppose we you know of a small market team who happens, by chance, to draft well and obtain two Cy Young winners…wouldn’t you expect them to run after those two to keep at least 1 of them?! Wouldn’t you think it was ludicrous for them to just let them fly?
The Indians didn’t even enter into the race for these guys. It’s a sham-mockery and honestly, as said, if the Twins can throw a gigantic contract at Mauer which, sad for them, didn’t work out, then we could have too.
Some things no one has mentioned about Mauer/Twins:
1) He’s homegrown and is the reason the casual Twins fan goes to the game or buys apparel. I lived there for 4 years, and no one loves homegrown talent more than they.
2) Their owner has more money than God. Pohlad has the controlling interest in PepsiAmericas.
3) They have a new stadium to fill and politically needed to demonstrate investment in the team as much as they asked the public to fund their (gorgeous)downtown stadium.
So yeah, they can afford to roll the dice on the homegrown, fan pleasing, all-american boy who will probably make them a return on that investment.
It was a smart move signing Mauer to that contract.
@oribasi – “That’s the problem; the Indians kept Hafner…Travis Hafner. Not a Cy Young Winner. Not an AL batting champion. He is a perpetual DH/sometime 1st baseman. Mauer is a major position player.”
Yes, the Indians kept Travis Hafner. Yes, he was known to be a DH. But, let’s not get all revisionist history just because he wasn’t a “batting champion”
His OPS+ in seasons 04/05/06 were 162/168/181. That is ridiculous. He was hitting over .300 and hitting over 70+ extra base hits each of those seasons (his OPS+ went up in 06 because doubles were becoming HRs). And, let’s not forget that OBP is more important than BA and Hafner’s were great in that run: .410/.408/.439
In comparison, Mauer has gone over 160 in OPS+ once in his career (170 in ’09). 2009 was also the year he hit his most extra base hits, which was 58. His BA is always high, which gives him praise, but his 3yr OBP was right in line with Hafner’s before each of their extensions (.413/.444/.402)
Also, through 2007 (season his last extension was signed), he did not have the injury concerns that Mauer has and as a DH they were not expected.
I just don’t see how one can say the Hafner signing was bad and the Mauer one is good as they are in principle done for the same reasons in the same way (they already have a 1B, so if they move him from catcher, guess what, he’s probably a DH too). Mauer being a catcher is what gave him a bigger contract than what Hafner got, but I don’t think either one was a smart signing.
Note: Mauers next best OPS+ was in 2006 at 144.
@Vagabond – those are better reasons for why the Twins signed Mauer.
I would never argue that Mauer is not a great player. Mauer is one of the best in the game…the problem in spending that much money is that you are left with Pavano as your ace. I like Carl but he is a 3 starter at best.
There are a lot of good arguments here except for the one that the Twins owner has more money than God. He has a TON of money…he also spends the same amount of revenue on players that Larry Dolan does. All of the owners basically spend right around the same amount of revenue now that George is dead.
I understand why the Twins did what they did. I am simply arguing from a baseball point of view that it is brain dead. The fans will love it, I just hope they enjoy cheering on thier 4th place Twins for the next 7 years.
Ben,
“All of the owners basically spend right around the same amount of revenue.”
Please take a look at the team salaries of every team in baseball.
Twins: 117M
Tribe: 49M.
Unless I’m reading this wrong, your statement is entirely off-base. Heck, today the Red Sox signed Gonzalez to the equivalent to half of the Indians roster, per year.
As for the Pohlad argument, you’re making it for me. Pohlad has SO much money (and for the other reasons I listed) that it’s such a small risk to his franchise. He’s also paying the rest of his roster much better/higher than his father ever did, but I digress.
for the curious, the twins payroll is around 113MM, indians at 50MM.
if you look at these spreadsheets, the indians look to be in much better shape from a talent-to-salary perspective.
@Vagabond
The net worth of an owner is pretty much irrelevant except in extreme cases where there are cash flow issues like Mets/Dodgers right now, and really those don’t even have to do with the total net worth. Just like any other business, the owners are not going to operate at a loss and dip into their own pocket every year. If you think Steinbrenner or anyone else does/did this, you are fooling yourself.
I believe what Ben was trying to say is that pretty much all owners spend the same amount of money on payroll as a percentage of revenues, which is both accurate and the relevant information here.
@oribiasi
“CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee (who just threw a gem) are No. 1s on each and ever single MLB team in the nation”
Is this a joke?
You do realize that Cliff Lee is the #2 starter on his team right?
Thank you Tommy…Forbes did an article on this back in 09. All owners are basically right around the same number as a percentage of revenue.
Of course the Twins are going to bring in 2-3X the revenue of the Tribe…they are still checking out the new park and eating their walleye on a stick.
I think Oribiasi and I have to stop arguing this point because we completely disagree.
The Mauer deal was awful for the Twins and I would never want the Tribe to do that.
CC and Cliff would never have resigned. If the Tribe offerred X amount for X number of years the Yankees or Red Sox or Phillies would just offer 20 million more and another year. Then what do you do?
Happened with Thome long ago and will happen again and again. It’s called a bidding war, and when one of the big boys want the player, they will get him.
And when we are talking about revenue, if no one mentions the Yes network, it’s not worth even talking about.
“wouldn’t you expect them to run after those two to keep at least 1 of them?! Wouldn’t you think it was ludicrous for them to just let them fly?”
Where’s the proof that they didn’t? The reports are that the Indians offered 5/100 to each of them. They made bids before these guys became free agents. The big difference that people here don’t seem to be noticing is that Sabathia and Lee were set on testing free agency. Mauer, Hafner, Westbrook were guys that negotiated in good faith with their teams. Now I have no issue with Sabathia and Lee going for every last dollar they could get, and as they two highest paid pitchers in MLB this year, they got that. But lets not pretend that the Mauer negotiations were similar to the Sabathia/Lee negotations.
I’m a huge fan but not very good with stats and all but if i remember correctly CC and Lee wanted to leave because of slumps… that doesn’t say class to me.
Victor… well i cried when i read everything about his depature, he is a great player… and in my eyes will always be an Indian.
But it’s time to get behind who we have, so far these guys have proved themselves to be solid players. Pitching has been solid, batting has been solid and so forth… maybe Clevelenad fans should stop thinking of what could have been and just back who we have, they seem to be backing Cleveland.
GO TRIBE!!!!