DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Tribe Time !

Yay, what a good day, the tribe explodes for 7 runs in the 7th innng last night, and we take the first game of the doubleheader today. The matinee will be on foxsports1 tonight for the transplanted fans

Thank You for TV up date !

We needed at least a split in order to stay in the race, and taking the 1st 2 guarantees at least that.

A sweep of the Tigers would be really nice.

Wow. I'll take this. Let's sweep them tomorrow.

BIG thanks to Kluber's CG in the first game. That really setup the bulley for the 2nd.

It seems like it is so hard to sweep a double header ...... so yeah, I will definitely take this! As long as we just win series, we'll be OK .... so we're off to a great start on the 2nd half.

Strong showing by your Cleveland Indians today!

I heard on the radio last night that the last time the Indians swept a doubleheader from the Tigers in Detroit was 1966, 48 years ago. If they had played the Tigers this tough last year, they'd have won the Central. On the other hand, we owned the White Sox last year, and the opposite is true this year. Anyway, its a great time to get hot. We're 4-1/2 out of 1st, and 2 back in the wildcard race. Keep it going today.

That is incredible. Hopefully we make history.

We swept the Tigers in a 3 game series in May. It sure would be nice to get a 2nd sweep now.

Kluber only went 8 2/3, just nitpicking.

I really want the Tribe to go out and get a bat. I would love to get Matt Kemp, with the Dodgers picking up a lot of his salary.

Never again will I undervalue good managing. The Tito effect is in full go right now.

They scuffle, but they never bottom out, and then they slowly start to get going. Along comes the break and they come out of the gate firing in all directions.

Not to mention the pitching at both ends we're getting.

I'm definitely going to purchase mlbtv for the remainder of this stretch run. The next 9 months are going to be wild for Cleveland sports leading into Cavs playoffs. That's right, playoffs.

Nice to see guys like Swisher and Santana pick it up at the plate !

J/C

Antonetti, Shapiro, and the Dolans need to vacate each of their positions this offseason. Take Bob DiBiasio with you, too.

Hopefully I watch an entertaining game on Tuesday night at The Jake.

Eh, we're a .500 team right now. The team is entertaining, but it's up and down. We are missing our #1 starter right now. along with out leadoff man, and are just starting to get 2 of our top power guys back on track. Also, Kipnis hasn't been the same since he injured his oblique.

Face it, we are a mid level team that needs most things to go right in order to contend. We can't afford for our higher priced players to be injured, or struggle ... or for the guys who are considered our top pitchers to pitch as Masterson has most of this season.

On the bright side, our bullpen has completely straightened itself out, and if we can get back to just having competent starting pitching and hitting, we'll get the Wild Card.

Axford got a 1 year deal worth $4.5 million,

Kazmir got a 2 year deal worth $22 million.

Huge difference between the 2 players deals.

Asdrubal is still here because Lindor is not going to be rushed to the Majors.

I think that the attendance is a major problem, and that the Indians may be sold one day and moved. They contended last year, and are a .500 team this year, and are one of the lowest teams as far as attendance, It is disgraceful, and can't continue. The Indians are a .500 team, and in the Wild card race, and can't draw 19,000. Detroit averages almost twice that. No wonder they can spend more. (and still aren't that far ahead of the Indians)

Boston is last in their division, and is 6th in home attendance. Minnesota is in last place in the Central and averages 10,000 more fans per home game than the Indians. Texas is in last place in their division, and 7th in attendance. I wish my back would hold up to a drive to and from Cleveland and a full game, because I would love to go to some Tribe games.

I do agree that Baseball needs a cap similar to that which football has.

People will come if the team consistently wins, avoids the firesale of Cy Young pitchers, and stops crying about small markets . For any of those to happen the ownership group and front office must be replaced.

Don't get me started on our "playoff game" last year. Lofton said it best in regards to that game. It wasn't a postseason game no matter how the MLB or the organization sells it.

They are the most successful Cleveland team from a wins standpoint recently (though this will change, obviously, with Lebron back) but they have the worst attendance. Cleveland just is not a baseball town .... as much as I hate to say that. The only time people really supported the Indians is Jacobs Field was brand new, when they were World Series contenders, and the Browns were gone.

j/c

You have a couple of Ivy League know it alls acting like they are making the best deals in baseball with no money to spend. Owners who care about what number their investment portfolio is at rather than what the attendance number is for the season. You have a roster of players that would only have 2 starting on another major league team. A pitching staff with 1 solid starter and a bullpen with no closer because the set up man is the closer. And a minor league system with 1 valid prospect. Attendance problems, I would think so.

Clearly the Indians need to re-evaluate their front office from Shapiro and Antonetti down to the scouting dept. I think we need to try to lure some talent evaluators away from teams like Tampa, Oakland, and St Louis. It makes you sick to look at the players who got drafted after the Indians first round pick in the last 10 years ... Mike Trout, Chris Sale, Jose Fernandez (now out with TJ surgery), Michael Wacha, Shelby Miller, Sonny Gray, to name a few. There's a lot of pitching on that list along with a budding HOF outfielder. We also can't keep whiffing on FA acquisitions - Swisher and Bourne have been disasters, IMO. Could have used one of those contracts to keep Scott Kazmir, and kept the change.

We would have to find someone to take those contracts.

As far as the current GM, he's only been in position for a few years now, having taken over from Shapiro at the end of the 2010 season.

The biggest problem for a lower income team is that they cannot make mistakes. Any mistake they make in personnel is magnified to extremes. If the Yankees give a guy a $100 million contract and he busts, then they just go sign another guy. If that happened to the Indians, they would be hamstrung for the length of that contract.

Drafting is important, but in MLB, trades are just as important. The Indians have done well in trades, grabbing guys like Brantley, Masterson, Bauer, Allen, McAllister, Carrasco, Gomes, Santana, and others. That is just as important a piece of the puzzle as drafting is, and the Indians have done well in this regard.

Your list of guys we traded for points out the Indians failure to draft and develop talent. I think a small or mid-market team MUST draft well to keep pace with the big money teams, and we have not done that. Add to that the fact that we are using about half of our payroll on Swisher, Bourn, and Asdrubal Cabrera - those 3 guys are underachieving to the tune of $39M per year.

Trades are incredibly common in Baseball. Many of the players we have traded for were because of us trading players we signed as free agents, but then we fell out of contention.

Regardless, I cannot see the Indians being in Cleveland long term, when they can barely draw 18,000, even when they are in contention for the playoffs. They draw 11,000 more on the road then at home. They are actually 19th in road attendance. Not great, but better than 29th in home attendance.

The weird thing is that the Indians have actually won. They had a winning record last year. They have been right around .500 this year. Imagine what Cleveland would be like if the Browns ever get to .500.

Even last year, when the Indians were in 1st place later into the season, they still didn't draw fans. I just see Cleveland losing the Indians in the not so distant future, and the people will have no one to blame but themselves. No business can stay in business without customers.

What other business says "buy my product if you want it to improve."? It is incumbent on the business to attract customers; you seem to place the onus on Indians fans for being savvy enough to recognize a pretender masquerading as a contender. Indians fans know this team, as constructed, has no shot. Its up to the Indians' ownership to change that.

They did improve though. They were (granted, barely) a playoff team last year. They were still one of the worst teams in fan attendance.

Fans sell out Browns games that they have made the playoffs what .,, twice in 2 decades? The Indians though .... they are held to this different standard, where even the playoffs isn't good enough.

They'll be the New Mexico Indians or something one of these days. The team cannot continue to play decent baseball and draw no fans. They can't spend money that they don't take in. Like it or not it won't work for long.

Fans have hated Dolan, because he mentioned a budget. Jacobs actually lived by a budget too, but he had the Browns out f his way for years, and had a brand new ballpark. He simply had more money to work with, Dolan uses the same type of salary structure, and is hated.

It really makes no sense. There is little difference, except that Dolan was honest and up front about it.

You don't seriously think MLB would leave a TV market in the top 20 for an area with less than half the audience (Albuquerque-Santa Fe).

You also can't equate Jacobs and Dolan. Jacobs' payrolls were usually in the top 5 in MLB, while Dolans have been in the bottom 10. When it all blew up and the mega markets started doubling and tripling the smaller markets' payrolls, we unfortunately had an owner who couldn't afford the price of poker. That may not be Dolan's fault, but it certainly is not the fans' fault. Fans in this town know the score - our management is not competent enough to overcome the economic disadvantage MLB's system has placed upon them.

I just pulled New Mexico out of thin air ...... not necessarily a real option.

It vas just the 1st thing that popped into my mind.

For a large part of his ownership when the Indians had strong attendance, Jacobs' only competition was the Cavaliers. (during the era of sellouts at Jacobs Field) Jacobs Field opened in 1994. The Browns moved in 1995. From 1995 till almost the time Jacobs sold, the Browns were gone. Dolan finished purchasing the Indians in 2000. In most years before Jacobs Field, the Indians averaged 12-13K fane/game. In the final year at Muni, they jumped to 28K, as Jacobs spent money in anticipation of greater revenues.

Once more:

1986: Dick Jacobs buys the Indians.
From 1986 - 1992, the Indians never break 17K in attendance.
1993: The Indians jump to 28K in average attendance. Jacobs spends money in anticipation of higher revenues at the new ballpark.
1994: The Indians move to Jacobs Field. The 1st of roughly 5 years of sellouts begins.
1999: The Browns return to the field.
2000: Jacobs sells the team to Nolan. Attendance starts to slip.
2005: The Indians win 92 games. Attendance falls to 24,000.
2007: The Indians win 96 games. This first place team, drew 28K.


Sorry, but Cleveland sucks as a baseball team. When the Browns were gone, they drew like crazy. It was a perfect storm of no NFL competition for dollars, and a brand new ball park. Outside of that one bubble, Cleveland Indians attendance has just sucked for the past 30-40 years. Bad teams have had something to do with that, but even when a team had hope, the people still largely stayed away.

We'll just have to disagree. I really think you way overstate the effect of the Browns being gone on Indians' attendance. Those teams would have drawn any time - it was a roster of All-Stars. I would never claim that Cleveland is a baseball town like Boston or St Louis, but it is not the Siberia that you paint in terms of baseball fandom. If ownership would put a team with a REAL chance at a championship on the field - investing / spending big, but also judiciously and well - they would reap a windfall of support from Indians' fans that are starving for a reason to believe.

j/c

Nothing like giving up 7 unanswered runs after having a 5-0 lead. Ugh.

After taking 3 of 4 from Detroit I thought we were ready to make a major move in the Central...then we lose two of three against the Twins and then the first two against the Royals (along with losing that 5-0 lead tonight). Two steps forward, two steps back.

The Royals seem to completely have our number.

Ugh .... as in Ugly weekend so far.

At least we got the win tonight to stop the bleeding. Santana had a monster game and Swisher broke a 1 for 21 streak. Hopefully things are on the way up heading back home. Our road trips have been worse than 4-6 at times.

Al, Randy, and Jimmy spend on a losing product. They're still paying coaches we fired years ago! Make the effort to improve through a bit of spending in the red, stop complaining about fans not willing to come, and win consistently over a couple of seasons.

I'm excited for the game on Tuesday. Maybe we'll finally go on a tear.

They seem serious about winning instead of caring about a cash flow bottom line

I wouldn't be surprised if Masterson gets moved.

Justin Masterson of the Indians may still be working through a rehab assignment, but that has not stopped teams from inquiring as to his availability, Paul Hoynes of the Plain Dealer reports. Hoynes writes that the interest in Masterson suggests both that the trade market for starters is wanting for quality and that teams value players differently, with some potentially willing to bet on a return to the righty’s results from 2013. Of course, as manager Terry Francona notes, a healthy and productive Masterson could also provide a significant boost to Cleveland’s own chances.
•As they peruse the market from the buy side, the Indians are looking for players with future control rather than rentals, tweets ESPN.com’s Jim Bowden. That is unsurprising, given the team’s careful resource management and somewhat long postseason odds.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/justin-masterson

That doesn't make much sense..how much a team spends is relative to what other teams in that sport are spending..82 million is baseball is nothing..its right at the bottom in comparison. As are the browns, but with teams that have caps, its understandable to have more space if you aren't playing well..you save that cap space until you are competitve. Plus you can build in the draft alot easier in nba/nfl than you can in MLB. The cavs during the lebron error were always in excess of the cap and into luxury tax . They were also at the top of the league in attendance and usually wins. It helps when you have the best player on the planet.

The issue with the dolans is they haven't gone out to get that one guy that people will come see. You have to spend money to make money in MLB. You can't have people like shapiro/antonetti in charge...they are morons...all that gets you is people like swisher, axford and bourne... They have to pony up to get someone legitimate here or they will never pull out of mediocrity

The Indians rank 12th in wins since Shapiro took over in all of baseball. Their salary spent during that time is much lower than that. I'm not sure how you can say that Shapiro/Antonetti are the problem.

The real problem is the structure of baseball. Limited revenue sharing (including no sharing of media contracts) and no salary cap means that you have to be so much smarter than other teams when you're in small market. It means that you have to have your competitive windows in 3-5 year spurts and sell off and bottom out to compete again. The Rays and Cardinals have the best organizations in baseball. After that, the Indians are somewhere in that next group. They're competitive and smart with the smallest budget in the division.

Bud Selig will someday, sadly, be in the Hall of Fame, as most commissioners are. However, he has overseen the death of baseball in so many markets. Its incredibly sad. He was a small-market owner and he completely caved in to the Steinbrenners, the Henrys (who was a huge blunder in Miami and then happens to walk into one of the most profitable franchises in MLB) and now the Walters and Kastens of the world. He's turning baseball back into a 10-team league.

You have a valid point with revenue fairness, but talent evaluation and "how to put fannies in the seats" is last in the league. When Santana is your "big" bat for 5 years something is wrong. And when you go out and spend some money, you make a mistake, that is poor scouting, talent evaluation and inexperience. Their main concern is to sign mid level talent for 4 years.

Baseball has never been better when it comes to the bottom line. Revenues have increased dramatically, and you could be sure mostly every single team is making large amounts of cash..It's just more of a regional game, than the nfl..

I really don't have too much of a problem with the system.. There's so many players to find, if you have a competent front office, and an owner that will spend when it's necessary, you should be able to field good teams. The Dolans fail every time to make moves when they have some talent. They never will go all in.. Did we even look at Abreu, or even offer him a contact? Of course we didn't. the Dolans will never spend the extra dime when it counts. it's been proven over and over, and over again..