Hershiser and Gonzalez still significantly contributed to the team. I don't think they were ring chasing, like some of the NBA veterans are doing with the Heat. But they still put up decent numbers. And Robbie Alomar chose to play for the Indians, and not the Red Sox. Both the Indians and the Red Sox offered similar contracts.
Jacobs bought the tribe in 1986 and it took him 8 years to build the team to a power house. I understand the dynamics were different, but I also understand that, on an inflation adjusted basis, Jacobs spent more on payroll than Dolan does right now. And I get it, times are different now and you have to adjust your strategy. But to get back to the orignal debate....the average fan was enraged when Dolan bought the team, gutted the team, and drastically reduced payroll. I'm not sure if you were in the Cleveland area at the time, but Dolan was hated. People still feel this way and it's why attendance is not good. And the Forbes article did not help. Right or wrong, that's just the way it is. But, attendance is higher at this point this year than last year. So maybe things are picking up a bit. I hope so. But the perception of Dolan is that he's not willing to commit to the team. We Cleveland fans have no problem supporting an owner who is committed to the team and the city.
It's posts like this which make me want to stand up and applaud Chris Perez even louder.
And I'm sorry if this seems like a personal attack, I don't want it to come off this way. You're 100 percent correct on peoples disenchantment with the Dolan family or the general managers office, but it's because of nothing but pure ignorance and misinterpretation on their part.
So veiled by the dominance of the 90s that we have people pretending that Juan Gonzalez and Orel Hershiser were major signings to justify their position as Jacobs being some sort of infallible owner who was so committed to his team (unless we're talking about Albert Belle leaving via free agency).
To say that Dolan has "gutted payroll" or even the team is simply ignorant in every sense of the word, adjust it for inflation all you want...He spent more than any owner in Cleveland ever has.
Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez chased more money, I have absolutely ZERO reason to believe if Dick Jacobs still owned the team they wouldn't have done the exact same thing.
Do you think it's some big coincidence that once the Browns came back to town that Mr. Jacobs decided to sell the team? How can someone who wants to come off as so up to speed on what happened be so quick to just look right past this?
"I'm not sure if you were in the area at the time," but people hate Dolan because of pretending the 90s was anything but a perfect storm and what the norm should be in Cleveland.
And the multitude of reasons why that is so has been discussed ad nauseum on this board and I'm not going to do it again. But it's simply fact.
And look no further than your perception of the Jacobs free agent signings to see how jilted your mind is from reality.
Juan Gonzalez signed a ONE YEAR DEAL, coming off the worst season of his career. It's a value deal in every sense of the word, almost no different than the same value deals you saw the Indians throughout the Dolan era.
Orel Hershiser originally signed a 2 year, 3 million dollar deal....Whoa, Jacobs really broke the bank for that one.
To say Orel wasn't ring chasing or signing on with a winning franchise is nothing more than ignorant, especially if the alternative is an argument that it's all about money.
Robbie Alomar was the great free agent signing of the Jacobs era, a guy who signed a three year deal for 21 million. And oh yea, his brother was on the team to help get him to sign here.
If the Indians could get an All-Star second baseman for 3/21, you don't think the Dolan's have those means? You'd be an idiot to say yes.
It's a different era of baseball, where market size and long-term contracts from big city clubs rule free agency.
I'm sorry you're so disenfranchised by the changing era that you need to place your blame on Dolan...I really am.
But don't expect the rest of us to be so blindly ignorant.
