Tribe’s Success Doesn’t Help Dolan’s Image With Fans

There is no question that in the past few months, both the Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Cavaliers’ organizations have shown to be less than stable.

Browns’ owner Jimmy Haslam has replaced his head coach, his CEO, and his general manager in a six-week span since the end of the season. In addition, his football has lost ten games or more (the baseball equivalent of losing 100 games) six years in a row, and ten out of the last 11 seasons.

The Cavaliers have been a mediocre franchise ever since LeBron James departed, qualifying for a lottery pick each and every year, and not a low pick either, the wine and gold have had one of the NBA’s worst five records each season.

And recently Dan Gilbert fired his GM and replaced his head coach following last season.

Yet, the least popular owner in the city happens to own the franchise that has had the most success. That would be Indians’ owners Larry and Paul Dolan.

There are several reasons for the lack of popularity, the first being Gilbert and Haslam come off pretty well in press conferences, showing people, whether or not it can occur, that they are determined to bring a championship to Cleveland in their respective sports.

The Dolans probably shouldn’t talk to the media because when they do, they say things like the best fans can hope for is contending every once in a while due to the economic restraints in baseball.

That really doesn’t give fans a great deal of confidence.

To be fair, the Indians have the most stable front office in team president Mark Shapiro, who has been here for 23 years, and GM Chris Antonetti has been with the Tribe since 1998. And they lured Terry Francona, a two-time World Series champion as manager to the same post with the Indians.

So again, why the lack of love for the Tribe ownership, particularly in comparison to the other woebegone franchise on the North Coast?

There is a lack of trust for the Dolan family, even though they are from here, while Haslam and Gilbert aren’t.

Part of that comes from the article in Forbes showing the Tribe was making large amounts of profit. While the number may not have been accurate, the magazine should be regarded as a reliable source. After all, the figure didn’t appear in the National Enquirer.

Fans should understand that owners need to make a profit, but they would still like to see more money poured into the product on the field too.

The fans don’t feel like it’s a priority for the ownership to win a World Series for the city. The other owners talk about it, they may not really mean it, but they have enough sense to communicate the desire to the fan base.

This off-season is a perfect example of what we are saying.

Interest in the Tribe, dormant for a while, picked up in September as the ballclub was making a push for the post-season. The wild card home game sold out very quickly.

Yet, some of that momentum has been subdued due to a relatively quiet off-season in which the Indians have lost more (starting pitchers Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir) than they added.

That’s the problem in a nutshell.

Had ownership opened up the purse strings even a little and allowed the front office to make a good acquisition, and there were some decent values out there, some trust would have been gained.

Instead, Tribe fans are muttering “same old Dolans”, and counting on Francona’s expertise to return to the post-season.

If they accomplish a playoff spot again, it will help the ownership’s cause. If they don’t, the anger toward them will like get more intense.

To Tank? Or Not to Tank?

The usual sports season in Cleveland goes as follows: Training camp, followed by exhibition games, the excitement of Opening Day, and then deciding if and when the old home team should go into full tanking mode.

Yes, there are exceptions, such as last year’s Indians, when the season concludes with a post-season berth, but even the Tribe went through a discussion about whether or not the team should start selling off assets.

It seems that anytime a Cleveland professional team reaches the halfway point in the season and are more than three games out of a playoff spot, the knee jerk reaction of many people is that the team should look toward next season.

Even in the NBA, it is beneficial to make the playoffs, especially if you have a young team whose future is ahead of them.

There are several things at play in determining whether or not a team should throw in the towel, and the relative age of the squad is first and foremost among them.

The only thing worse than being a bad team is being a bad, old team.

While we all know the Indians made it to the wild card playoff game last season, but in late July, Terry Francona’s team was sitting at 52-48 and had just the eighth best record in the American League.

The July 31^st trade deadline was coming up, and there were plenty of fans and people in the media who felt GM Chris Antonetti should think about dealing Asdrubal Cabrera and others for more prospects.

Obviously, they were wrong.

Now, you have people longing for the Cavaliers to get back in the draft lottery even though they were five games out of the playoff spot. That was a week ago. After four straight wins, they are 3-1/2 games out.

Yes, this is a good draft, but there doesn’t appear to be a LeBron James type player. So, you might get a player who will be an all-star one day, but he likely won’t be at that level for a few years.

Moreover, the Cavs are already a very young team. Does it make sense to add yet another young player? Or would they be better off getting some valuable playoff experience?

Since making the playoffs would be a step forward for the franchise, they should go for it. If they were stuck in a quagmire of first round losses over a three or four-year span, then they might be better off getting into the lottery.

So we come to the rules for when to tank and when not to. In football, since there are only 16 games, and virtually no trades are made, you can’t really tank. However, you can decide to play young players and hope they get better for the future.

In baseball, when it is clear you are out of the race, let’s say you are 15 games out of a playoff spot at the All-Star break, then you should trade older veterans and potential free agents for prospects to help with the club’s future.

If you are within five or six games of the last spot, why not try to improve the team and take a shot at getting in the post-season? Once you are in the playoffs, you have a decent shot at winning. That’s the way the sport is. Heck, the Cardinals won 83 games in the regular season a few years ago and won the World Series.

In basketball, again, if a team is clearly out of the playoff race, then they should try to get in the draft lottery. If there is a franchise player available and you probably can’t advance if the post-season, then you should tank.

However, if you are a young team on the way up and there’s no elite player in the draft, why not take a chance and try to make the playoffs.

We realize that younger fans lean more toward looking at next season, while older fans want to win now.

However, if you have a chance to make the post-season, you should take it. There are times to blow everything up and there are times to push forward.

In Cleveland, the reflex action too often is to tank a season.

Is Haslam the New Snyder?

Just when you think the Cleveland Browns are acting as a normal, professional football team, they throw a huge wrench into the mix.

They announced today that Joe Banner and Mike Lombardi are out as CEO and GM, with Ray Farmer replacing the latter as general manager.

The obvious point to be made is owner Jimmy Haslam was so disgusted by the season and seemingly bungled coaching search, that he couldn’t take the Banner/Lombardi combination for one more day.

Still want to tell everyone that these aren’t the same old Browns?

Look, this is not to say we thought Banner and Lombardi were doing a great job, in fact, we feel quite the contrary.

Banner seemed to be a “me-first” guy, a person who really wanted to coach the team as well as run it, and he didn’t seem to be satisfied with any person who wasn’t Joe Banner.

However, remember that the league recommended Banner to Haslam, the owner didn’t seem to seek him out.

Lombardi comes across as someone who still wants to sit on the lap of Bill Belichick, waiting with anticipation for every word that drips off of the Patriots’ coach’s tongue.

It seemed his solution to every problem was to go back to the Belichick tree.

Farmer helped put together a Kansas City team that had a bushel of Pro Bowlers on a 2-14 team in 2012 and made a major leap forward to the playoffs last season. The fact that Miami was very interested in him shows how respected he is throughout the NFL.

So do we assume things are better in Berea because Farmer and team president Alec Scheiner are more likeable to the fans and media alike?

As with the new coach and his staff, we can’t evaluate how the newest new regime will perform until the Cleveland Browns start playing football games that count in September.

The more disturbing aspect of all this is the growing Snyderization of Jimmy Haslam.

We felt all along that it was Haslam who pulled the trigger on Rob Chudzinski after one season in charge. Could it be that part of the reason Banner and Lombardi aren’t employed here anymore is they told the owner he was being impetuous?

Now, Haslam just fired two people he claimed were part of the solution just 18 months ago.

The Browns’ owner is looking more and more like his counterpart in Washington, Redskins’ owner Daniel Snyder.

Does anyone think that organization is well run?

Since 2000, Washington has gone through six coaches and have amassed three playoff appearances, a boatload compared to Cleveland.

He’s brought in college coaches (Steve Spurrier), veteran coaches with histories of winning (Marty Schottenheimer, Joe Gibbs, and Mike Shanahan), and offensive coordinators (Jim Zorn and new coach Jay Gruden).

They’ve gone 86-122 in that span. While that’s better than Cleveland’s record (72 wins) over the same time period, it’s hardly a winning franchise or something to be aspiring to.

If the Browns go 6-10 this season and Haslam keeps Farmer and Mike Pettine in place seeing some progress, then we can ease off on the Daniel Snyder comparisons.

Until that happens, he appears to be another owner who wants success, but either doesn’t know how to get it, or doesn’t have the patience to attain a winning team.

Either way, no matter how they spin it, it just looks like more chaos at Browns’ headquarters.

Tribe Off-Season Strategy is Bounce Back Seasons by Veterans

Although it doesn’t look like it outside your window if you live in the Cleveland area, baseball is just around the corner. Pitchers and catchers report to Goodyear, AZ on Tuesday.

The Indians are coming off a surprising season, going from 69 victories in 2012 to 92 wins and a berth in the wild card game at the end of the season.

The question is simply this: Can the Tribe do it again and remain the one beacon of hope in the darkness that is professional sports in our city?

Right now, most fans we speak to feel the same way, that the Tribe isn’t as good right now as they were at the end of the 4-0 loss to Tampa Bay on October 2nd.

Now, to be fair, there still is time to improve the ballclub, remember that Michael Bourn wasn’t signed until shortly after the Tribe was already in camp, but it appears the Indians will lose two starting pitchers (Ubaldo Jimenez and Scott Kazmir) to free agency, and haven’t done anything to replace either.

Wouldn’t it be nice if just once, the Indians’ management said they were going to go the extra mile and add let’s say $15 million to the payroll and go for it? Using that money to bring in another proven top of the rotation starter or a proven bat to put in the middle of the lineup would be a refreshing change.

As of right now, Baseball-Reference.com lists Cleveland as having the second lowest payroll in the division, ahead of only Minnesota, and only slightly ahead of them.

Instead, they went with the usual low risk, high reward signings. Players who have good career track records, but are coming off poor seasons and/or injuries. After all, it worked last season with Ryan Raburn and Kazmir, so why not try the same thing with Shawn Marcum and Jeff Francouer?

This year’s strategy appears to be hoping that players who have performed well at the big league level, but had off seasons in 2013 will rebound to their normal levels. The players in this category would be Nick Swisher, Bourn, Asdrubal Cabrera, and newcomer David Murphy.

Swisher, who will be 33 this season, hit .246 with 22 HR and 63 RBI (763 OPS) last season while battling a shoulder injury. His career norms are .255 with 28 HR and 88 RBI (820 OPS), playing half of his time in the bigs in hitter’s parks (Chicago and New York). He figures to be slightly better because of the shoulder and perhaps pressing a tad with the new contract.

Bourn is 31 and hit .263 with 6 HR and 50 RBI (676 OPS) in 130 games a year ago, stealing 23 bases. His average season numbers are .271, 5 HR and 43 RBI (700 OPS) and 48 steals.

We have said this before. Unless Bourn changes his game to more of a contact approach (he struck out 132 times in ’13), it is doubtful he will improve. His career best OPS is 739, which is about the average major league regular.

Cabrera might be the best chance for a rebound since he is 28 years old and is eligible for free agency. However, he is two years removed from his best year in 2011. He hit .242 in 2013 with 14 dingers and 64 RBIs (700 OPS), compared to his norms of .273, 14 homers and 73 RBI (748 OPS). With a higher batting average should come more runs driven home.

Murphy will be 32 this season and hit just .220 with 14 home runs and 45 RBI (656 OPS) compared to usual numbers of .275, 16 HR and 69 RBI (778 OPS). However, he is moving from a great hitters park in Texas to a pitcher’s park in Cleveland. In fairness, he doesn’t have the extreme splits other Rangers’ hitters have at their home park.

It will be interesting to see which, if any, of these hitters can bounce back in 2013 because it seems the Indians’ off-season strategy for success is based on them being better.

Again, wouldn’t it be nice if they actually just spent a little more cash one year?

Grant’s Flaw Was Not Building A Team

Over the past few weeks, we have been critical of the roster mix for the Cleveland Cavaliers, calling them and their roster of point guards and power forwards the “island of misfit toys”.

Today, GM Chris Grant paid for that roster construction with his job, being fired by owner Dan Gilbert after another disgusting loss to an undermanned Los Angeles Laker squad last night.

The question now is who is running the show going into the trade deadline, which figured to be the first step into reshaping this roster. It looks like assistant GM David Griffin gets the gig for now.

You also have to wonder what Grant’s firing means for Mike Brown, because you would have to imagine the new GM would want to hire his own coach, unless someone is promoted internally.

Grant made some solid trades in his tenure, getting a first round choice from the Lakers for Ramon Sessions, trading Jon Leuer to Memphis for three players and another first rounder, and getting Luol Deng from Chicago for Andrew Bynum, a player the team had suspended.

However, it will be questionable draft picks that sealed Grant’s fate.

He operated out of the box on his picks, taking Tristan Thompson at #4 three years ago, which was surprising, and he selected Dion Waiters in the same spot the following year when it appeared he would be picked later.

This year’s use of the first overall pick on Anthony Bennett didn’t help his cause.

The issue isn’t the talent level of Thompson and Waiters, both have shown they can play in the NBA, the problem is the Cavs have become a puzzle whose pieces do not fit together.

Thompson is the same type of player as Anderson Varejao, and Bennett is a power forward, the same position Thompson primarily plays.

Waiters is a player who likes to have the ball in his hands. Unfortunately, so does one of the team’s best players: Kyrie Irving.

So, those two have a problem playing together.

We get that Grant took who he felt were the most talented players at that spot, and really that is the purpose of the draft.

However, a good general manager needs to see that he has duplicated talent and use the excess assets to get people who can play positions where they have needs.

Grant tried by getting Deng, but he didn’t seem to value shooting the basketball as a skill set needed to win basketball games.

Looking at the roster, the closest the wine and gold have to a pure shooter is swingman C.J. Miles, who Grant signed as a free agent.

His coaching hire doesn’t seem to have worked out either, although there didn’t seem to be an exhausting search. Whether that was Dan Gilbert’s decision or Grant’s, we just don’t know.

Mike Brown was a curious choice, not only because he used to coach here, but because he seems to favor veteran players, and the current Cavaliers are a very young basketball team.

Now, where does this franchise go?

The obvious answer is the dreaded “tank” word, but unless the new GM is predisposed to deal a high draft choice, all that will do is bring another “project” onto a team replete with them.

Does the reformation of this basketball team start with another deal before the NBA trading deadline? It’s pretty clear a change needs to be made because they can’t go through another 30 games playing like they have the last two weeks.

However, the new GM will have to act quickly to start getting the Cavaliers on the correct path. He also has to make a decision on who will be the coach.

Firing Grant was a tough move to make, but the direction of this team had to be changed. The guess here is this was just the first shot fired.

Browns Have Coach, Now Need Players

Now that the Browns have a new head coach in Mike Pettine, and a new offensive coordinator in Kyle Shanahan, the next order of business for the team is the roster.

One of the selling points for the coaching gig made by Jimmy Haslam and Joe Banner was the presence of six Pro Bowl players, a large number for a 4-12 team. It’s also one of the reasons they probably used internally to fire Rob Chudzinski.

However, two of those players who were voted to play in Hawaii can be free agents, and you would think that if you are promoting them to coaching candidates, then they need to re-sign C Alex Mack and S T.J. Ward.

Keep in mind; the Browns have a lot of room under the salary cap to keep both players.

They certainly can’t afford to lose two of the better players they have coming off a season in which they earned the fourth pick in the NFL Draft.

There are enough holes already, particularly on the offensive line and in the secondary, to create new ones when money is the only issue.

That brings us to the draft, where the word is apparently out that Cleveland has made no bones about their desire to land Texas A & M quarterback and former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel to the Browns.

The thought here is that if the brain trust really wanted Manziel to wear the brown and orange, they wouldn’t be leaking that to the media. They want people to think they want Johnny Football.

So, who do the Browns really want with the fourth pick?

Here’s hoping they take the best player available, which of course is the purpose of the draft. Too many personnel experts have said there is only one legitimate first round passer coming out this spring.

To us, it doesn’t seem to be a good thing to pick the let’s say, 25^th best player, with the fourth choice.

Maybe Manziel, Teddy Bridgewater, or Blake Bortles will be the next great quarterback in the National Football League. Our question is would you bet your house on it?

Because if you wouldn’t, or Joe Banner wouldn’t, then he should take Clemson WR Sammy Watkins, or South Carolina DE Jadeveon Clowney, or Texas A & M T Jake Matthews with the pick.

All three are dynamic talents and could impact the Browns as early as next season.

The name of the game should be about accumulating talent. And we just saw a team win the Super Bowl without having an “elite” quarterback in Russell Wilson.

Despite what they tell us in Berea, it can be done.

And even if they do choose a passer at #4, would it do any good to start an inexperienced QB at the beginning of next season? Let them sit and watch for at least a few games to get used to the speed of the game.

The only scenario that would be worse is trading the other first round pick the Browns accumulated to move up one or two spots to pick a quarterback. If Andrew Luck was at the top of the draft, it might make sense, but he’s not there.

The Browns have more talent on the roster right now than at any time in the past five years. However, they still have plenty of holes that need to be filled. Taking a player much higher than he’s rated isn’t the way to win, especially a quarterback.

It’s a risk the Browns can’t afford to make again.

Cavs’ Woes Rooted in Several Areas

Proof that the Cleveland Cavaliers have become out-and-out dysfunctional is that you can make a case that the problems lie with GM Chris Grant, coach Mike Brown, and the players.

If it were just a matter of not having talent, then you can blame the GM. However, there is talent, but it is duplicated at certain positions. For the Cavs, it seems to be centered at the point guard and power forward spots.

While Grant may have picked the most talented players that were available at the slots they were taken, and you can make that argument at the time of the draft, he didn’t follow through on dealing the excess of talent at one spot to fix a hole at another position.

There is no question that Kyrie Irving, Luol Deng, Anderson Varejao, Dion Waiters, and Tristan Thompson can play in this league. Unfortunately, they clearly do not fit together on the court, and dealing one of them for a shooter would be in the best interests of the wine and gold.

When Byron Scott was fired as Cleveland’s head coach after last season, Grant brought back his friend, Mike Brown to handle the reins.

Brown got the job despite having no real track record of developing young talent. The teams he coached in Cleveland and Los Angeles were veteran laden squads.

He returned to the north coast based on his reputation as a defensive minded coach. His offensive schemes were poor in his first go-round here and there is no evidence that anything has changed.

So, predictably, none of the Cavalier young players, most of the roster is made up of second and third year players, have shown any progress from last season. Even Irving, rookie of the year and an all-star in his second season, has seemed to have plateaued this year.

And remember, the Cavs had the first overall pick in last summer’s draft. Brown has never showed any inclination to play rookies, so Anthony Bennett has been anchored to the bench for much of the season.

Brown’s offensive set is for players to take their man off the dribble and force the opposing defense to help. That worked when the best player on the team is LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, both of whom are significantly bigger than Irving.

There is little screening away from the ball and virtually no movement away from the ball on many possessions.

This morning, The Plain Dealer’s Bud Shaw opined that the front office needs to show Brown is in charge. While that’s true, it would also help if Brown showed he was in charge.

We wrote earlier in the season, that with the coach being fired twice, he should have come in with a “doing it my way” approach. He seems too nice of a man to be the hammer the young Cavs need.

Which brings us to the players. Yes, they are young and inexperienced for the most part, but it doesn’t appear they are all that upset with all of the losing. It has come to light that this upsets newcomer Deng, who must be shaking his head at the lack of interest his teammates show from night-to-night.

The players are feuding in the locker room, and there seems to be an individualistic approach to the game for many of the young players.

Shouldn’t that have been thought of when they were drafted?

That brings us back to Grant, the beginning point of this vicious circle.

There is plenty of blame to go around for this edition of the Cleveland Cavaliers. How it gets fixed will be very important for the future of this franchise.

There will probably be changes in all three phases of the organization.

In Retrospect, Cavs’ Problems Started in Summer

The Cleveland Cavaliers are not only a mess on the court; their front office is now sticking its collective head in the sand.

Yesterday, GM Chris Grant met with the media (a noble thing because it’s easy to meet with them when things are going well) to talk about his basketball team, who came off a 3-2 west coast trip for a five game home stand, and went just 1-4.

However, Grant identified the five game trek away from Quicken Loans Arena as the real Cavaliers, not the 13-27 record they have in all games outside of that trip.

Here’s hoping the GM was just doing media lip service with that comment because right now this season has been a comedy of errors.

First, after firing Byron Scott, presumably because the Cavs blew several huge leads and had a problem defensively, Grant hired his old friend and former Cleveland coach Mike Brown, a guy with a strong defensive reputation.

The fact of the matter is the wine and gold still aren’t playing any better on the defensive end, and Brown’s trouble on the offensive end are once again rearing their ugly head.

Second, Grant used three picks in last summer’s draft on players who aren’t helping the team, including the first overall pick, Anthony Bennett.

Bennett was out of shape in training camp due to off-season shoulder surgery, struggled early, and then fell out of Brown’s rotation.

Sergey Karasev, who has the reputation as a good shooter, is simply too young and inexperienced to play yet at the NBA level, and Carrick Felix, who came with a good reputation as a defender in college, were the other two picks.

For a team who finished in the lottery last season to get nothing out of the draft is a crime, even if it was a weak draft.

Bennett has some ability, but the pressure the coaching staff felt to win right away put him on the bench, or perhaps it is Brown’s inclination to not ever give rookies playing time.

Based on his history, he tends to leave inexperienced players on the bench.

Wasn’t that taken into consideration when he was hired?

The next moves were to bring in some veteran free agents, G Jarrett Jack, F Earl Clark, and C Andrew Bynum. The former’s primary position is point guard, which is manned by the Cavs’ best player, Kyrie Irving.

Jack can play the shooting guard spot too, meaning he does the same things as last year’s first round pick, Dion Waiters.

You can make the conclusion that this acquisition didn’t fill a need it just added a body.

The same is true of Clark, a power forward by trade who plays the same spot as two of the Cavs’ better players: Tristan Thompson and Anderson Varejao.

Bynum did fill a need, a quality NBA center, but he was coming off a knee injury that caused him to miss all of last season. It was a gamble, so it’s difficult to be critical of this move, particularly because Grant moved the big man to get a quality player in Luol Deng.

It’s been a sad, slow trip through the off-season to get to this point in what has been a horrible basketball season.

Pretty much every move Grant made has blown up in his face.

Yes, we agreed with some when they were made (signing Jack) and disagreed with others (hiring Brown).

When you look back, none of them have worked. Now, Grant is faced with fixing the mess he created in order to save his job.

Has Tribe Done Enough This Off-Season?

The last time the Cleveland Indians made the playoffs prior to 2013 was in 2007, when Eric Wedge led the Tribe to the American League Championship Series, losing to the eventual World Champion Red Sox (managed by Terry Francona) in seven games.

After that season, then GM Mark Shapiro basically hibernated. The lone transaction of note was acquiring utility infielder Jamey Carroll from Colorado.

Later in spring training, Shapiro added left-handed reliever Craig Breslow on waivers from the Boston Red Sox.

That was it.

Many fans and baseball experts were critical of the Indians for not following up a Central Division championship season by strengthening the ballclub.

That brings us to 2014.

After a terrific month of September that sort of ignited baseball interest in Cleveland, GM Chris Antonetti hasn’t made a big splash in terms of getting help for his baseball team.

The biggest moves were signing OF David Murphy and reliever John Axford as free agents and trading OF Drew Stubbs for lefty reliever Josh Outman.

That won’t have fans flocking for ticket booths.

Now, we liked the Murphy pick up because it appears that the 2013 season was a blip on years of being a solid hitter, and Stubbs was superfluous because of that signing. Axford’s had some good years as a closer, but didn’t have the job last season. But it isn’t enough to have people excited about the Tribe.

Nor does it offset the loss of starting pitcher Scott Kazmir and the real possibility that Ubaldo Jimenez, the team’s best pitcher down the stretch, will be elsewhere this season.

The organization will explain things away with the usual discussion about the economics of the game, but they won’t tell you where the money from the sale of SportsTime Ohio and the new televsion contract is, and skipper Terry Francona will tell everyone that this team can and will compete for the division title this season.

And truth be told, Antonetti has done a good job bringing some low risk, high reward free agents such as pitchers Shaun Marcum and David Aardsma, and OFs Jeff Francoeur, and Nyjer Morgan.

He did the same last season in getting Ryan Raburn, Kazmir, and Jason Giambi, and those moves worked out pretty well.

We still believe the Tribe will sign another starting pitcher before spring training begins, now that the Yankees have signed Masahiro Tanaka, thus freeing up the market for starters.

That’s why we said it’s a possibility that Jimenez will be gone.

Maybe the attitude brought here by Francona and the veteran leadership he brought in last year will indeed allow the Indians to battle into the playoffs in 2014.

Still, if the team slips back to the .500 mark, people will point to the relative inactivity by Antonetti as the reason for the decline in the Tribe’s win total.

While we agree with not trading the system’s top two prospects, SS Francisco Lindor and OF Clint Frazier, the organization is ranking in the middle of the pack among all major league farm systems, meaning there are players desirable to other teams.

Why not trade one of these pieces to get another proven bat or another starting pitcher, players who could vault the Tribe into the favorite role in the division?

Instead, they have chosen the conservative route once again. The path that doesn’t get a fan base excited.

There seems to be a parallel to 2007. Let’s hope for a different result the season after a playoff berth.

Hold Off on Evaluating Pettine Until Games Start

The search is finally over.

On Thursday, the Browns sent the white smoke out of the chimney and named Bills defensive coordinator Mike Pettine as their new head coach.

Was Pettine a “hot” coordinator? No.

Was Pettine the first name on their wish list? No.

Should the front office be criticized for how they conducted the search process? Yes.

With all of those questions answered, those fans blasting the new hire because he wasn’t the Browns’ top choice and he wasn’t the coordinator for a playoff team are way off base.

We really don’t know what kind of head coach Pettine will be until the games start for real in September. That’s not a cop-out, it’s just he has to be judged by how prepared his team is to play, his adjustments within games, and whether or not he wins or loses. Any thoughts about how those issues will play out are strictly opinion.

And most of those ideas will be based on the critics’ thoughts about Jimmy Haslam, Joe Banner, and Michael Lombardi. And that’s simply not fair.

It has been written before how both Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh, two head coaches on rival teams in the AFC North, were in the same boat as Pettine when he was hired.

Tomlin was the defensive coordinator for one season in Minnesota (2006) when he got the gig in Pittsburgh, and the Vikings finished 6-10 that season. Harbaugh was the secondary coach for one season in Philadelphia after being the special teams coach when Ozzie Newsome hired him in Baltimore.

We all can agree they’ve been successful NFL head coaches.

This isn’t to say Pettine will win because he has a similar background to these men, but it is meant to emphasize no one know what kind of coach Pettine will be until games start.

The thing we will watch is how the new coach of the Browns bases his style of play on the personnel the team has. He talked about how important the quarterback position is in the NFL, which Banner and Lombardi have drummed into our consciousness since they arrived. And we all know those two want to draft a QB with the fourth pick in the draft.

But what if that player isn’t ready?

The Browns can’t afford to punt another season away. So, if Pettine were to coach like he doesn’t have an elite passer and decides the best way to put wins on the board is strong defense and a solid running game, that’s the kind of guy we want to see.

No more trying to put square pegs in a round hole. After all, that is the essence of coaching.

What Pettine and the front office should be thinking is that the name of the game is wins and losses, not style points or a certain way to play the game. Every Browns fans will tell you the team can be the most boring team in the league as long as they win on Sundays.

Pettine’s background with the Ravens and the Jets has him with teams who like to run the football. This is something the Browns didn’t emphasize all season, particularly after the front office traded Trent Richardson.

And with Rob Chudzinski’s firing after one year, Pettine has a little leverage. Here’s hoping he insists on getting quality replacements for injured players and to end the constant turning over of the bottom of the roster, which caused special teams’ gaffes.

Mike Pettine seems like a leader, at least in his press conference. Still, no one knows what kind of coach he is or he will be until the games start being played for real.

Fans cannot and should not judge him until then.