CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Lost in all the discussion of the Indians trades and the Dolans' millions of losses is the fact the front office is finally admitting something the fans have sensed for a while -- they aren't just a woe-is-me, small-market team, they have been underachievers in the last two seasons.
Or as team president Paul Dolan said, "We have not been successful the last few years with a team that should be successful."
Dolan is absolutely right about that.
Yes, the front office has had some swings and misses in deals. Yes, some veteran players have been traded to cut payroll. But did anyone expect the Indians to have the worst record in the American League, as was the case until a month ago?
Even now, the Tribe still has the third-worst record in American League. It's 5.10 earned run average is the AL's worst and the second-highest in the last 100 years of the franchise. Only 5.28 in 1987 is worse.
Yes, it's nice that the Indians are 13 of their last 19 after Tuesday night's 5-0 victory over Texas. But what should that mean when it comes to judging the future of manager Eric Wedge?
Absolutely nothing.
The fact is the Indians were supposed to contend, and collapsed when it counted. The fact is the Indians had their fifth losing April in seven years under Wedge. Or that this is the third time in five years they were under .500 at the All-Star break.
Or that there is a sense of "Here we go again," when the team starts poorly, trades veterans, brings up some kids and then wins more than it loses after the All-Star break.
In the last five years, the Indians are 203-209 (.493) before the All-Star break, and after Tuesday's win, 214-155 (.580) after it. But in the end, it's still three seasons out of the last five where they have not even approached expectations.
"I'd say it's an organizational disappointment because I think we've underachieved with the talent we've got," said General Manager Mark Shapiro. "Ultimately, we've done that too many times in the last few years. We've got to look to address why our team isn't achieving up to the level of talent that we think should create wins and losses. Not only us, but other people within the industry, objectively and subjectively, believe this as well."
Why is that?
Shapiro said the bullpen was a major factor, "both construction and usage."
That points to the front office that put the bullpen together, and the manager and coaches who decide who to bring in the game and when to do it.
Shapiro admitted, "Most people in baseball thought we'd have a good bullpen this season."
Especially after tossing $20 million over two years at closer Kerry Wood. Yet, the bullpen bombed ... again ... for the third time in the last four years. This is not about firing bullpen coach Luis Isaac, who was around (but should not be blamed) for the bad bullpens in 2006 and 2008. He should not be blamed for those failures.
It's much deeper.
A few years ago, the Indians were very adept at breaking in prospects. Consider how Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore, Jhonny Peralta, Coco Crisp, Jake Westbrook, Raffy Betancourt and Travis Hafner came up, perhaps rode out some tough spells, but established themselves as solid-to-good big-league players.
Consider this list: Franklin Gutierrez, Asdrubal Cabrera, Jensen Lewis, Raffy Perez, Shin-Soo Choo, Kelly Shoppach, Ben Francisco, Jeremy Sowers and Fausto Carmona. Those nine players came up since 2006, had some degree of success, then floundered.
Choo and Cabrera rallied and have become core players. Gutierrez has been superb since being traded to Seattle. The other six have really struggled. Yes, Carmona and Sowers have been better of late, but something is wrong when it comes to "finishing off" and "fixing" young players.
Wedge has been allowed to pick his own coaches. The front office allowed him to fire Mike Brown, Eddie Murray and Isaac and add others to his staff. But many of the same troubles persist.
At his press conference last week, Dolan said this about Wedge: "We have to understand that fans need and want to hear a different voice and feel a different approach. We have to balance that as we make our decision in the next couple of months."
When Dolan does, he should look at "the full body of work," as he said, not just the last few months of this season.
