Imagine being a regular customer at a department store, say Macy’s, and you go into the store and find they are no longer offering clothing from Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, or Nike.
Think about going to a high class restaurant like Morton’s and finding out the best thing on the menu is now hamburger.
You’d be a little disappointed, correct? That’s how is was for supporters of the Cleveland Indians on Sunday morning reading the team is interested in free agents like Kevin Pillar and Jonathon Schoop.
Talk about generating excitement? Well, this falls about a mile short.
While these guys aren’t bad players, Pillar had a career best OPS in the shortened 2020 season, and Schoop has had solid seasons, but outside of 2019 with the Twins, hasn’t really been a regular on a good team in recent years.
Still, it’s a step down from having a roster that included Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Carlos Santana, Edwin Encarnacion, Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, Carlos Carrasco, and Mike Clevinger. Ramirez is still here and the team still has the current Cy Young Award winner in Shane Bieber, but most of the balance of the roster hasn’t proven much at the major league level.
Once again, we aren’t saying the Indians should have a $170 million payroll, although we do not believe for a minute that any major league baseball owner is suffering financially. On the other hand, we don’t get gutting the payroll to around $40 million, which would be one of the lowest figures in the sports.
Cleveland isn’t the Pittsburgh Pirates. After winning 98 games in 2015 and losing the Wild Card game, the Bucs win total has dropped since then, to 78, 75, 82, and then 69 in 2019. They finished with just 19 wins in 2020.
At that point, a total rebuild is understandable, and probably necessary. The Indians win totals over that same time period are 81 in 2015, to 94, 102, 91, 93, and then a 35-25 record last season. Wouldn’t you want to see how long you can keep the success going?
If fans are allowed into Progressive Field at some point in 2021, our guess is it won’t be long until we hear about attendance issues, and how people aren’t flocking to the ballpark.
This complaint is developing into a game of chicken with the ticket buyers, and it’s one the Dolan ownership will never win. They are insulting the customers, and tell us in what business does that work?
Yes, the number of fans going through the turnstiles has dropped since 2017 (FYI, the Indians don’t tell you they had the second largest increase in attendance from ’16 to ’17), but it hasn’t dropped like a proverbial rock.
The largest drops from ’17 to ’18 was in Toronto, followed by Miami, Kansas City, Detroit, and Baltimore. From ’18 to ’19, the most significant decreases were in Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco, Detroit, and Washington, who by the way, won the World Series that season.
The Tribe’s 2019 attendance (1.74 million people) ranks fourth since 2010 (behind 2011, 2017, and 2018). So, it’s not as bad as the ownership would like you to believe.
What happened in 2009 to cause attendance to fall off then? It was the last salary dump by the organization, trading Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez. Funny how that works.
Since the end of the 2018 season, the Indians have traded Kluber, Yan Gomes, Bauer, Clevinger, Lindor, and Carrasco, and let Michael Brantley and Santana walk away as free agents.
Eventually, that’s going to have an effect in the standings and among the fan base.
It’s a heck of a gamble by the ownership that their front office will be able to cobble together a contending team with that sort of talent drain.
They are also underestimating the intelligence of their fan base.
Cleveland Sports Perspective 