"Did you even have a plan?!"

Johnny Damon was just one of the Indians Front Office's
mistakes in personnel "upgrades" for this season.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

How did it come to this?

That's what I found myself thinking as I watched the Yankees beat the Indians 4-2 on a sunny Sunday afternoon in a Progressive Field full of the visiting team's fans.

How in the wide world of sports did the Indians go from a team on the brink of contention to one that's on the road to 90 losses?

You can say players have underperformed, and you'd be right. But the real problem was that this team was not built to win a World Series in the first place.

Before the Indians game Friday night, general maneger Chris Antonetti spoke to reporters and some of his comments speak volumes about the way the 2012 Indians were put together, along with how the front office thought the team could be able to contend.

"Our plan was to try to win as many games as we could," Antonetti said. "That was our focus, to try to maximize the resources we had to win as many games as we could. Obviously, it hasn’t been a successful year to date." 

Maximize the resources we had. What an interesting phrase. I don't want to read into it too much because these weren't planned, written, thought out remarks, but what other team would say "maximize the resources we had" in their plan to contend? The Rays, maybe? But when you talk about resources, that kind of sounds like a money problem—which would more than implicate the Dolans in this disaster. 

But, of course, that wasn't Antonetti's only curious remark. 

"We talked about this at the start of the season, in order for us to have the year we wanted to have, we needed a lot of things to go our way," he said. "We needed to stay healthy. We needed to have our best players perform. We needed to have our young players take the next step in their development. And we needed to get key contributions from some of the veteran guys we brought in to have bounce back years. And I think you can go through that list and a number of those things didn’t happen—certainly not at the level that we needed them to for us to be the team we wanted to be."

That's a laundry list of four variables that the Indians were depending on in order to contend. And sure, the Rays, A's, and Pirates might say the same about three of those four, but if you look at teams that contend year in and year out, they're not depending on young guys and washed up veterans to "bounce back."

That's not even mentioning the fact that the Indians went into the season featuring an all-lefty lineup, and an all-righty rotation. I've asked this question before, but when was the last time anyone saw a World Series winner without a right handed hitter? And that's not even taking into account the fact that fans have been clamoring for a big right handed bat since 2005.

But because Antonetti talked about players needing to stay healthy, one reporter asked what the GM would say to fans who think the Indians wasted $5 million on Grady Sizemore. 

"In retrospect, obviously that’s certainly true," Antonetti said. "We were hopeful that Grady would be able to rebound and play, and obviously that has not happened. So we knew there was a risk obviously when we signed him, and it didn’t work out."

No, Chris, it didn't work out. Neither did any of the other moves you made in the offseason—Casey Kotchman, Derek Lowe, Jose Lopez, Kevin Slowey, and Johnny Damon (who was signed in season, but you get the point). 

I think everyone would agree that the front office severely failed in putting together a roster that would seriously contend for the division. Even when things were going "well," the Indians were either winning 4-2 or getting blown out—which is why they've almost always had a negative run differential this season. The high water mark for this team was May 24, when they beat Justin Verlander and the Tigers to get to eight games over .500 at 26-18. 

Immediately after that, they got swept by the White Sox and lost a series to both the Royals and Twins. 

Now I'm on record as saying the Dolans need to send a message to the fans that mediocrity isn't good enough by firing Antonetti, but at some point they also have to look long and hard in the mirror and ask why are they even in this business if they're not making money and all they do is lose? It can't be fun to be the whipping boy of every fan and sports radio host in Cleveland. 

But whatever happens, the entire Indians organization needs to realize that whatever the "plan" was to contend this year failed miserably. And they'd all be wise to never try to implement a plan like that again. 

~MAS

The Indians must suspend Chris Perez

Hey Chris Perez?
Stop.Talking.
Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

I wanted to write a post about the Indians falling into fourth place in the AL Central.

FOURTH PLACE, BEHIND THE KANSAS CITY ROYALS in a year during this absurd "Window of Contention."

I wanted to write about how the Dolans simply can't ignore this colossal failure much longer. I wanted to make a point about how firing Manny Acta won't solve all the problems, but it's going to be necessary when a new GM comes in to so he can hire his own manager. And I also wanted to ask the question, when will it be time for the Dolans to cut their losses and just sell the team, if they're losing so much money?

But then everyone's favorite closer had to open his big fat mouth yet again.

If you haven't watched this video of Chris Perez laying into an Oakland A's fan, it's cringe worthy.

You know what? It's actually a whole lot worse than that.

Let me say this--I know the guy who instigated the whole confrontation is a jackass, and I also have no idea what happened before the video started rolling. The guy could have been saying all kinds of nasty things about Perez, his family, the Indians team, his father, his wife--but it doesn't matter. They were both wrong.

Perez is a professional athlete, and--as I've written before--needs to start acting like one. And since Perez refuses to learn anything from his previous experiences with confronting fans, whether it's through the media or through Twitter, the Indians need to start hitting him where it hurts.

His paycheck.

The Indians should suspend Perez without pay effective immediately for six games. That means he doesn't play tonight in Seattle or for the rest of the week.

Tell him to go home to Tampa and think about how he's embarrassed his teammates, the front office, the organization as a whole, the fans, and the city of Cleveland. It's not like the Indians are playing meaningful baseball games anyway. If a save situation comes up, Vinnie Pestano or anyone else in that bullpen can be the closer--I don't care. This type of behavior is undeniably unacceptable, and it's time the organization stopped messing around with him and started sending a message.

Again, Perez is a professional athlete. Do you think this is the first time those fans have tried to heckle an opposing player? I guarantee you it wasn't. Those fans baited him, and Perez swallowed the worm whole.

I mean seriously, going over to those guys and talking about your salary? Saying f-- this and f-- that about eight different times? And then the kicker, "Get your d--k out of your mouth!"

Are you kidding me?

Yes, it's a free country and Perez has a right to defend himself and all that. But remember earlier this season when Miami Marlins Manager Ozzie Guillen opened his fat trap and said how much he loved Fidel Castro? The Marlins suspended him for five games, and with good reason.

To me, this situation is worse simply because of the language Perez used and the manner in which he used it. The precedent has already been set this year for organizations suspending its members for their words. It's high time the Indians followed it.

I've seen this point brought up a couple of different times today, and I think it's worth repeating. When Jackie Robinson broke MLB's color barrier in 1947, can you imagine the types of heinous remarks he had to endure? And how many times have you heard about him lashing out at those racist fans?


Very few, if any at all.

To bring it into a more contemporary time, I wrote a few weeks ago in my previous post about Chris Perez that Colt McCoy handles the hecklers incredibly well. He goes over to the crowds at training camp waiting for autographs, ignores the words of the ignorant, signs his name and says, "Thank you for your support."

I know Chris Perez is a fiery guy who is not afraid to express himself, but at a certain point, he's just got to be reigned in. With the video all around the internet through posts on Deadspin, Bleacher Report, and The Big Lead, the Indians organization has been publicly embarrassed--even more so than they had been with their abysmal 10-26 record since the All-Star break.

Now is not the time to be soft. Suspend Chris Perez.

Now.

~MAS

Why the Dolans Are Soft

What if...Indians ownership wasn't okay with
being mediocre?
Photo from brianpenzone of Flickr

Let me start out by saying that if you haven't read Terry Pluto's interview with Paul Dolan on Cleveland.com, read it now. It will give you all the context you need for everything I'm about to lay on the Dolans.

Perhaps I shouldn't say the "Dolans" though, since Pluto's interview was only with Paul. But my opinion still remains—the Indians ownership needs a serious attitude adjustment if it intends to make the organization one that can contend for World Series titles.

Let's start with the obvious. Pluto quotes the Indians payroll as $71 million, 26th out of the 30 teams. The average MLB payroll is $105 million. I'm not going to argue that the Indians payroll should be over 100 million, since that's just not going to happen, but there really is no reason in the world the Indians payroll can't be $80 million. I've been saying that since the last offseason, and I still believe it's true.

And yet, Dolan said to Pluto that "there is no expectation the payroll for next year will be substantially different from prior years."

I don't think anyone is asking for something unreasonable. Fans just want the payroll to be competitive with the rest of the league.

But what really, truly frustrates me is what Dolan said about the trio of Chris Antonetti, Mark Shapiro and Manny Acta. Keep in mind that this Indians team was supposed to compete for division titles in 2012 and 2013. The Antonetti-led front office made that clear by trading for Ubaldo Jimenez at the deadline last year.

Regardless, Pluto reports Dolan had this to say about the three amigos:

"We assess everyone at the end of every season...As painful as this has been, I don't want to get into some knee-jerk reactions."

Oh really? I think Scott Radinsky might disagree with you on that, Paul. Unless he doesn't count as "everyone."

Nevertheless, Dolan also had this to say specifically about Antonetti.

"It's not fair just to judge [Antonetti] on the last year or so...He has been with us for a long time [since 1999] and has been the architect of some deals that turned out very well—long before he became general manager."

You see, the way people in the Indians organization use the term "knee-jerk" makes me think that they don't exactly realize what it means. Does Dolan really think it's unfair to judge a GM over a body of work that extends past two years? I'm talking back into 2010, when it was announced Antonetti woud officially take over the GM role after the season, after being trained to do so for a few years.

Well fine then. Since Antonetti came to the organization in 1999, the Indians have made it to the playoffs twice. Two times in 13 seasons. And really, I don't think the 2001 playoff appearance should even count (the 1999 appearance most certainly doesn't, which is why I didn't even consider it). That was John Hart's team, and if anyone gets an assist it's Shapiro.

From 2000 and beyond, the Indians have a combined record of 1,017 - 1,039. That's a winning percentage of just .495. That, to me, paints a bold picture of mediocrity.

Is that what the Dolans want?

And if even if you don't just want to go from the last couple of years, let's take a look at what the team has done since it finished one game short of the World Series in 2007.

From 2008 and going into Friday's contest against Boston, the Indians have a record of 347 - 413. That's a winning percentage of just .456.

Why is this good enough?

When the GM puts together a team with nine left handed hitters and five right handed starters that he claims he "expects to contend" that ends up losing 11 games in a row, at some point you've got to think about a change.

This is not a "knee-jerk" reaction. A winning percentage below .500 since 2000 and significantly under  .500 since 2008 should not be acceptable. I don't care how many good trades he might have made, he undeniably blew the CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee trades. In fact, an argument could be made that he blew the Victor Martinez trade as well.

And this gets me to why the Dolans are soft. Nancys. Sissies. Wussies. Or another word that you could probably guess, but I won't write it here.

To them, loyalty is more important than results. Loyalty to a team President in Mark Shapiro and a GM in Chris Antonetti that have had one playoff appearance since 2002.

What if...a winning percentage under .500 wasn't good enough?

What if...the Indians had an owner that wasn't satisfied with mediocrity?

If the team isn't for sale, then the Dolans are going to have to show that they actually want to win. Firing Antonetti—and perhaps Shapiro as well—would send a message to the fans that .500 isn't good enough.

And that's exactly the message this fan base wants to receive.

~MAS

"Come out and compete," they said. "It's a competition," they said.

Colt McCoy looking a little defeated. I'm sure "defeated"
is exactly how he felt on Monday

Even if your name is "Colt McCoy," you saw this coming from a mile away.

The first depth charts came out for the Cleveland Browns today, and as Pat Shurmur so eloquently put it, "Brandon Weeden will start the Detroit game, and he'll be our starter going forward here."

Like I said, even if you're McCoy himself, you knew this was coming. Anybody who has attended more than one training camp practice has surely noticed that McCoy doesn't take any snaps with the first team. And that was something the young quarterback seemed to think was important enough to specifically point out to the media as he spoke after practice this afternoon.

"I would like to say that I haven't taken any snaps in walk through or in practice with the first group," McCoy said.

That's right, bud, you sure haven't.

McCoy is a gentleman and a professional. Does he provide material that the media is going to salavate over so they (...we?) can write their (...our?) articles? No he does not.

But to me, that's just fine.

You see, today was the first time McCoy has even voiced any type of frustration to the media over what has happened to the quarterback situation in Cleveland. Okay, so that might have something to do with the fact that it was just the third time all camp he's spoken (when he saw the gathering waiting for him, he said, "You guys wanna talk, huh?"). But even so, McCoy didn't explicitly say he was ticked off because it was obvious he never had a chance.

"Well I thought coming in it would be a competition," he said at one point. And in response to a reporter saying he had a shot at the starting role he quipped, "I did?"

So, yes, he went as close as you can get without going over in terms of did he or didn't he say, "there was no quarterback competition." But he was adamant about the fact that he was still going out to compete and trying to get better everyday.

Unfortunately, the simple fact of the matter is that Brandon Weeden is just better than McCoy. Weeden is bigger and stronger than McCoy. He's been more accurate in practice than McCoy. He has a better ability to throw the ball downfield than McCoy.

And I don't want to sound too politically incorrect with this, but McCoy just looks slow on the field sometimes. When he goes through his reads it's as if someone is counting, "One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand..." instead of the "one, two, three, boom" you see when looking at Weeden. It's even apparent during 7-on-7 drills, where there aren't any linemen for McCoy to have to look over. He reads the defense slowly and then has no choice but to go with his checkdown. Watching him in practice has kind of explained the offense last year. McCoy is just slow on the uptake.

In some ways, it pains me to write this because I like McCoy a lot. He's exactly the kind of guy you'd like to date your sister. But that certainly doesn't make him a quality NFL quarterback.

The problem is that McCoy was supposed to be a developmental project. Think about it, when McCoy was originally picked in the third round of the 2010 draft, he was supposed to be the third quarterback behind Jake Delhomme and Seneca Wallace. He was to hold the clipboard and learn for a few years before potentially competing for the starting job.

Then Delhomme and Wallace both got high ankle sprains in 2010 and that plan got shot to hell.

We all know how the story has turned out for McCoy. Could he use a fresh start? Probably. Will he get that chance? I'm not sure. Both McCoy and Wallace have looked like backups in camp, and this team just isn't big enough for three real quarterbacks. (And if you think Thad Lewis counts, you obviously haven't seen him in practice.)

In the end, I do hope we're able to keep McCoy and send Wallace elsewhere. Heaven knows we could use a good backup for the next few years that's actually going to put the team first, and won't unnecessarily change a play at the end of the first half.

McCoy's a professional. He can be that guy.

~MAS

This Must Be Rock Bottom...Right?

Like the commercial says,
"What if...it never happened?"
Too bad this 0-9 road trip did happen...
Photo from brianpenzone of Flickr

What can you say after an 0-9 road trip?

What can you say about a team that got outscored 74-28 in those nine games?

What can you say when a team leaves home 3 1/2 games out of first in the AL Central and comes back 9 1/2 games out?

What can you say about a closer that continually runs his mouth, and then goes out and blows a three-run save in a game his team desperately needed him to win?

Surely, it can't get any worse than this.

Can it?

A week ago, I wrote that the Indians should consider trading Shin-Soo Choo. Anyone could see that the Indians had been struggling since the All-Star break and thus had turned from a contender to a team in baseball purgatory. Since then, we had no deadline deals either way, heard the same old, "The players here must play to their potential," garbage from GM Chris Antonetti, and we've seen this team just fall flat on its face.

You know what? I don't even know that "falling flat on its face" is harsh enough for this nine game losing streak.

Remember when they beat Verlander before the road trip started? Yeah, me neither.

Again, the Indians were outscored 74-28. That's an average of 8.2 runs a game versus 3.1 runs a game. That means the team wasn't pitching or hitting. And when you've got that combination...yikes.

A couple of nights ago, the Indians play-by-play voice Tom Hamilton said that you just don't see these kinds of losing streaks in the majors without seeing changes made in personnel. You can say that firing someone now would just be a scapegoat, and that might be true. But the fact still remains, when you have a losing streak like this, something has to change.

And that can't just be designating certain veterans for assignment. Derek Lowe and Johnny Damon are both gone—as they should have been at the very least a week or two ago—as is Jeremy Accardo, and there should be more changes to the roster. I understand that Ezequiel Carrera was hitting over .400 since the All-Star break, but does anyone think of him as more than a fourth outfielder? And how little faith does the front office have in Russ Canzler and Matt LaPorta that they still aren't up at the major league level?

I had a spirited debate with a colleague a couple of weeks ago that firing Manny Acta would be a bad idea. I now have to say that it probably isn't. I get that Acta is a cool, calm, collected guy, and he can only play the players he's been given, but something has got to give here.

The problem is, when you replace Acta with Sandy Alomar Jr, the results are going to be the same because Alomar will have the same crap team.

That's why I'm saying the front office needs to be cleaned out. President Mark Shapiro and Antonetti should both fear for their jobs at this point—and so should anybody else that is in their corner.

Have they made a living out of fleecing other teams out of their prospects for marginal players? Absolutely yes. That's how they acquired Asdrubal Cabrera (Eduardo Perez), Shin-Soo Choo (Ben Broussard), Carlos Santana (Casey Blake), Zach McAllister (Austin Kearns)—the list goes on.

But who do we have from the CC Sabathia, Victor Martinez, and Cliff Lee trades? Michael Brantley and Justin Masterson. Don't talk to me about any of those other players, because none of them have an impact.

If you look at the haul Kansas City received for Zack Grienke—Alcides Escobar, Lorenzo Cain, Jake Odorizzi, and Jeremy Jeffers—two of those players have made an impact at the major league level, and the rest have at the very least been effective at AAA. That trade rebuilt the upper levels of the Royals farm system, which is one of the main reasons why that team really has a positive outlook for 2013.

What do the Indians have in their upper levels?

Nothing. Not one impact player whatsoever. Why do you think we're calling up 31 year old Vinny Rottino and 28 year old Chris Seddon?

The cupbord is bare and that must fall on the front office. And this is all before we even get into the fact of signing Grady Sizemore for $5 million, but passing on Josh Willingham because of a third year and concerns about his back.

It can't get much worse than this for the Indians and as Hamilton said, changes must be made. These players are trying. To use an Eric Wedge word, they're grinding out there. But they must be put in a position to succeed. Who does that fall on?

Mark Shapiro. Chris Antonetti. To some extent Manny Acta.

Get rid of 'em all. And Dolans, you can sell the team while you're at it.

What if?
~MAS

Welcome to Cleveland, Jimmy Haslam

For those of you who read this blog often, you know that I'm a huge football fan.

And right now, my beloved Cleveland Browns are going through a period of transition and I couldn't be happier about it.

Maybe I'm being an impressionable and naïve fan, but from everything I've seen, read, and heard from Jimmy Haslam III, I think we're about to usher in a fantastic new era of football in Cleveland, Ohio.

Once the sale becomes official—either in October or a at a special NFL commissioned meeting—Haslam will become the fifth owner in Browns history. The first, obviously, was Paul Brown, followed by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Al Lerner was awarded the expansion franchise that began playing in 1999, and once he passed away his son Randy took over.

And I've heard some people talk about this, but the way Randy Lerner just didn't seem to love owning a football team is somewhat baffling. I mean really, can you imagine owning anything better than a football team?

To me, that's one of the best things about Jimmy Haslam. He came out to practice today dressed in Browns t-shirt and shorts to see his team practice. And throughout the morning session, he talked with both President Mike Holmgren and GM Tom Heckert, asking questions about the way things are run on and off the field.

Isn't it a beautiful thing to see the owner actually taking an interest in the franchise?

And that's not to speak too ill of Randy Lerner, but everybody knows he was the epitome of an absentee owner. Mike Holmgren had been attending the NFL Owners Meetings for him for the past couple of years, so what does that tell you?

I will say this for Lerner, though—he was never afraid to spend money. He threw tens of millions of dollars at people so that they would just go away—Romeo Crenel, Eric Mangini, Carmen Policy, Phil Savage, the list goes on and on and on.

But now, the Haslam family from Tennessee is coming in and I believe we're going to see a new period of stability. If Holmgren is right and the team does take "A pretty big jump" this year, I don't see Haslam cleaning house as some have reported he will.

Seriously, if this team wins six games and looks good doing it, why in the world would you blow it up?

This team finally seems to have a direction. It finally seems to have a purpose. It has an offensive and defensive philosophy. We have a premier running back—seriously, if you haven't seen Trent Richardson in person in Berea, just wait until next Friday's first preseason game. The new quarterback might be older, but he looks like a winner as well.

Now you add an owner to this equation who is passionate, driven, and committed to making this team successful here in Cleveland—what's not to like?

I may have drank that Brown and Orange kool-aid too quickly, but man is Jimmy Haslam an impressive man.

And I'd be shocked if he didn't bring winning back to Cleveland.

Here we go Brownies, here we go!
~MAS