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http://www.ohio.com/sports/61934177.html
Sheldon Ocker: Indians' tear-down, rebuild strategy makes title chances slim
By Sheldon Ocker
Beacon Journal sports writer
POSTED: 06:24 p.m. EDT, Sep 26, 2009
Under the Dolan ownership of the Indians, it has become an article of faith that the way to fame and glory is an unending sequence of tear-downs and rebuilds every six years or less.
With this type of strategy, certain questions arise:
- What constitutes success?
- Once that is answered, does this method of operating a baseball team work? That is, will the general manager and his lieutenants be given the wherewithal to acquire and keep enough talented players to compete with the big-market teams?
- Will fans buy into the plan by purchasing ample premium seating and season tickets; will they turn out in sufficient numbers to keep the ballclub from constantly living on the edge financially?
Having seen this sort of strategy in action, I have to say the odds of the Tribe winning a World Series are slim and slimmer. But that's where the definition of success comes into play.
From what has been said recently and in the past by club President Paul Dolan, whose father Larry bought the team, and by General Manager Mark Shapiro, what the Indians are hoping to achieve is to put together a team that can contend for the playoffs three or four years in a row and actually qualify for the postseason once or twice over that span.
The thinking is — and this was expressed by former GM John Hart, too — ''Once we get in the playoffs, anything can happen.''
I would agree that these tactics might produce a reasonable chance to play in the postseason, maybe twice in a 10-year period, though it's difficult to quantify that with any precision. Where I disagree is the ''anything can happen'' part.
Granted, small- or mid-market teams have won World Series since 1994, when Progressive Field opened and allowed the Tribe to generate enough revenue to be a player: the Chicago White Sox in 2005, the Florida Marlins in 2003 and 1997, the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001.
But on further examination, you can make a case that the Sox and the 1995 Marlins were winners because they had the good fortune to play other mid-market teams in the Series: the Houston Astros in 2005 and the Indians in '97. The only true mid-market upsets occurred when the Diamondbacks in 2001 and Marlins in 2003 beat the New York Yankees.
The boom in stadium construction begun by the White Sox in 1991 has run its course, but for a while, teams with new ballparks had a competitive advantage because their state-of-the-art playgrounds became cash cows. It happened in Cleveland during the Dick Jacobs ownership, when the Indians' revenue was among the highest in baseball.
But once most teams had increased revenue streams from their new stadiums, the competitive advantage vanished, which is one reason the Tribe has not been the powerhouse it was in the 1990s.
There are other reasons. The Indians had their impressive run of Central Division titles in part because Hart took chances in the draft.
Albert Belle was passed over by every team in the first round of the 1987 draft because of his volatile personality. Hart chose him in the second round.
Hart picked Manny Ramirez in the first round of the 1991 draft, even though most clubs were scared off by Ramirez's background and lack of education. And few teams in 1998 were willing to invest first-round money on CC Sabathia because of his girth.
Under Shapiro, the Indians' drafts have not added much to the nucleus of the team, but the GM has done a good job of robbing rival teams of their better prospects: Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips, Shin-Soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, Luis Valbuena, possibly Matt LaPorta and Michael Brantley, who are only beginning their major-league careers, and Carlos Santana, still laboring in the farm system.
But is success — even by Dolan's and Shapiro's modest definition — probable when the Tribe is forced to jettison its marquee players once they reach free agency, which is six years into a player's big-league career?
The odds are stacked heavily against them. It takes most good hitters three or four years to become consistent high achievers. And even the most physically skilled starting pitchers usually don't reach maturity for four or five years. That doesn't leave much time for winning titles.
Teams might make the playoffs with marquee players who have yet to reach the six-year level, but how many clubs win a World Series without star players whose service time stretches beyond their first free-agent season?
Paul Dolan said recently that because of the economics associated with being a mid-market team and because the club operates in a depressed area, the Indians cannot (ever?) keep their own best players when they become free agents.
He proved it by trading Lee and Victor Martinez to help offset a $16 million loss this year and to keep the deficit manageable next season. But does that mean whenever the team sustains a substantial loss, an automatic rebuilding process will follow?
Shapiro has undertaken the second tear-down-and-rebuild of his career. The fans are furious. Season-ticket holders are voicing their disapproval with their wallets. They see inevitable failure in the strategy of these periodic erect-and-destroy tactics. And they might be right. At some point, an owner has to sign a Victor Martinez, a Jim Thome, a Cliff Lee.
A mid-market club cannot be expected to keep all of its free-agent impact players, but that team is doomed to keep company with the also-rans if it never holds on to any of them. It's difficult enough to find players with the talent to win a Cy Young Award, and to trade away two such pitchers — Sabathia and Lee — in consecutive seasons almost defies belief.
Without at least a few established stars to provide both production and leadership, teams are merely rolling the dice, hoping that good fortune will bring them a World Series. And anyone who lives in Northeast Ohio knows that Cleveland franchises have never been lucky.
The Dolans said when they bought the Indians that they intended to preside over several World Series championships. Recently, they blamed the Northeast Ohio economy for keeping them from reaching their goal.
But if they look across the street at Quicken Loans Arena, they will see that the economy is booming. So near and yet so far.
