Picking the carcass of the Tribe..west coast road trip

• TBone14

  

  ricola;1251397 wrote:I hope you're right--and think they may actually do this. Dolan HAS to know he is the least popular owner in professional sports, and the dislike and mistrust to/for him in NE Ohio is at an all time high. Sounds as though he has no intention of selling (unfortunately), so cleaning up the front office MIGHT garner him some positive feedback and dim the clamor calling for his selling the clu--at least for the time being.
  And i agree, Shpiro and Antonetti's time has passed. Granted their hands are tied becaue they have no money given to them to spend, but their moves/drafts,etc have generally been a colossal failure. Time to call it a failure and start over. We're in full rebuild mode anyways, so bring in someone else to do the building.

  What GM is going to want this job with his hands tied and no money to spend?
• ricola

  

  granted you're not going to get the cream of the crop, but some young mid level exec is always looking to get promoted and hopefully make a name for himself (so he can move on to greener pastures later on). Why not take a chance on some unknown--you have no place to go but up.
• IggyPride00

  

  Granted their hands are tied becaue they have no money given to them to spend

  I am sympathetic to the money thing to a point, but the seeds for this were planted when they got jack shit for CC/Cliff Lee. When you trade back to back Cy Young winners, 3-4 years later you need to see those prospects making a major impact on the team. It just didn't happen. Lee in particular was particularly egregious because he had a year and a half on his deal still at the time which should have brought back a bigger bounty than a 2 month rental.
  
  Those trades set this franchise back at least 5 years.
  
  Couple that with the Ubaldo trade and the talent evaluation in the front office is just really lacking right now. Major misses all over the place on guys.
  
  Not having money hurts for sure, but the lack of funds didn't play a part in them striking out on those deals in terms of getting back blue chip talent.
  
  They are too married to their computer metrics and not enough to the old fashion eye test of whether a guy can play or not.
• ricola

  

  you can win without having billions to spend (see tampa bay, etc), you just can't afford to miss on your trades and talent evaluation. Large market/high salary teams can afford to spend to cover their mistakes by spending in free agency, small market teams can't. when you have the combination of no money to spend and poor talent evaluation, this is what happens...
• HitsRus

  

  I'm not really sure whether you can fault Shapiro/Antonetti if their hands are tied by the owner. The Lee trade seemed to be a salary dump and made no baseball sense, so I'm thinking they were told to trade him and get what they could. One thing is for sure Dolan is not going to fire himself, although the greatest responsibility has to be bourne by him. I have to wonder what goes thru his head.
• HitsRus

  

  Fausto/Roberto going toe to toe with Felix. Neither Hernandez has given up a run, but the Tribe has 4 hits and the Mariners don't have any. I'll have to stay up and see how long that lasts.
  
  The bad news today: Josh Tomlin will undergo Tommy John surgery
• HitsRus

  

  ...and with 2 outs in the fifth....M's get their first hit....into the lower deck in Right field.
• chippy10

  this team quit on acta 3 weeks ago it shows they don't care if they win or not so sad. everyone from top down should be fired its a business.
• Crimson streak

  

  There's the fausto we all love
• shook_17

  

  roll tribe. what dropped 20 outta 25 now?
• HitsRus

  

  I have to admit, the eternal optimist in me did not see this coming. I had my doubts about this team and have been critical of manangement...but in no way did I imagine a collapse of this magnitude.
  
  In other news...Grady is done for the season. meh....what a surprise.
• IggyPride00

  

  In other news...Grady is done for the season. meh....what a surprise.

  When funds are so tight and a shoe string budget would a generous description of the situation, giving $5 million to Grady is a fireable offense IMO.
  
  What a complete disaster that turned out to be.
  
  The sick part is when they gave him the money they publicly said they only planned on him playing 100 games anyway in an optimistic scenario. We can't afford $5 million dollar part time players given the tremendous financial constraints we have.
  
  Where as for most teams (even many small markets) $5 million is a bottom of the order utility type player, that is a major splash for us and a major free agent. To have spent it on a guy you only planned on getting so little out of in the first place (and then to get even less) calls into question the judgement and competence of management as far as I'm concerned.
• ts1227

  

  After today's loss they have now lost 8 in a row, and are 4-17 in August.
  
  and now they play the Yankees Friday, lol
• shook_17

  

  playin for draft position
• Mulva

  

  shook_17;1252495 wrote:playin for draft position

  True that. We need to pick high enough that we can flip whoever we get for a bad starter in 2-3 years.
• wes_mantooth

  

  Rotinaj;1249785 wrote:How about those kipnis over Phillips debates that went on earlier in the year??(not calling you out, I actually don't really remember who all said it.)

  Still don't want Phillips....glad he is decent in Cincy, but I am fine with the youngster.
• HitsRus

  

  Yeah i'm fine with kipnis, but what of the years in between. For as much as we bemoan the front office role in the Lee debacle, We got **** for a guy who is an all star 2Bman.
• wes_mantooth

  

  HitsRus;1252789 wrote:Yeah i'm fine with kipnis, but what of the years in between. For as much as we bemoan the front office role in the Lee debacle, We got **** for a guy who is an all star 2Bman.

  yeah, but honestly...he was ruined when he was hear....wedge ruined him. He would have wasted away in this organization.
  
  On a positive note, we have a legitimate shot at a hundred losses. Has there ever been a team that led the division for at least 40 games and ended up with that many losses? OIC
• Glory Days

  

  http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/index.ssf/2012/08/cleveland_indians_owner_paul_d.html
  
  Cleveland Indians CEO Paul Dolan says there are no plans for front office, managerial changes
  
  

  The Tribe made no significant moves at the trade deadline, when it was 50-53 and six games back.
  "I doubt it was demoralizing to the team,'' Dolan said of the inactivity. "Most teams I know are glad when they're kept together like that. We were very aggressive in looking for something that could help the team. I'm not convinced, given what's happened, that anything we might have done would have made a material difference.''
  
  
  Dolan was asked what he would say to fans who are frustrated with his franchise's lack of success since coming within one game of the World Series in 2007.
  "Over the last five seasons includes teams that have had some success, including the best team in baseball,'' Dolan said. "The fact that we haven't won consistently is frustrating to all of us. But we have been, on balance, a team that has accomplished some things, in contrast to some teams that have done nothing.
  "Our challenge is to take teams and get them to the next level. We thought we were on the verge of doing that this year, which is why it's so much more frustrating.''
  Under the Dolan ownership, which began in 2000, the Indians have reached the playoffs twice and won one playoff series.

  
  
  
• BRF

  

  It all cray.
• OQB

  

  Dolan is making money and until he actually loses money nothing different will happen.....I'm glad we had that window of opportunity though :rolleyes:
• ricola

  

  ^^ wonder what's the minimum attendance cleveland can have and still be profitable. Obviously quite low, if we're last in the league in attendance and he's still making money. And it will be lower next year, when we dump the salary of hafner, Sizemore, and a few others. As long as we don't go out and spend to get free agents to replace them (no worry there), he will probably continue to be profitable with an average attendance less than 10k, given the income from STO, MLB and whatnot. eventually even the other non gate income will dry up (sponsors wont pony up to STO for this product) and he'll start to lose money. By then we'll be so far gone it will take years and years to catch up even with new ownership. The future looks rather hopeless.