After A Great Season, Guards’ Ownership Cuts Spending

Regular readers of this site can figure out our age by when we started following sports in northeast Ohio. The starting point for us was 1965, and we recently were thinking about our relationship with the Cleveland baseball team in that period.

From 1965-1990, the Indians were poorly financed and poorly run. The ownership and front office wanted to win, but they had no money, forcing management to trade many young players because they couldn’t afford them.

Think about players like Chris Chambliss and Graig Nettles, who became mainstays of a couple Yankee World Championship clubs. They had Dennis Eckersley, Buddy Bell, and Julio Franco who were all either great (Eck is in the Hall of Fame) or very good, but were traded for prospects or the dreaded “we’ll get three average players for one real good one” move.

From 1991-2001 were the halcyon days. Jacobs Field opened in 1994, and attendance was at a franchise peak for a sustained time. The Indians were well run, well financed, and ownership was motivated to break the at the time 40-year drought between post-season appearances.

Cleveland was in the top ten (some years top five) in payroll. Big name free agents signed here, first veterans like Eddie Murray, Dennis Martinez, and Orel Hershiser, and later coveted ones like Jack McDowell, Kenny Lofton, and Roberto Alomar.

And then we have from 2002 to the present. There is no question the team is well run. The front office, especially with Chris Antonetti and Mike Chernoff is charge does a solid job. Financially, in spite of the constant whining and moaning about the lack of money, they are solid, the biggest difference between now and the previous two eras is this ownership doesn’t seem to have an overwhelming desire to win.

One of our tried-and-true theories is the everyone likes to win. Who wouldn’t? It’s fun. However, there is a huge difference between liking to win and hating to lose. Our favorite athletes are the one who will do anything to avoid a loss.

As owners, the Dolans are the former, they like to win. However, we don’t think they are obsessed with ending the franchise’s World Series drought, which has now reached 76 years.

This comes up again because of a report that the Guardians payroll being reduced from the beginning of the 2024 season, after a season where the team won a playoff series and got to the AL Championship Series, baseball’s Final Four, if you will.

Also, attendance was up. After years of the ownership saying they would spend when the fans showed up (that’s not the way it works in business by the way), slightly over 222,000 folks went to Progressive Field in ’24, the 6th highest increase in the majors.

And they are spending less on players.

This is not to suggest the Guardians can spend like the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, and a few other big market teams. But reducing the payroll after a wildly successful season is a slap in the face to the fans.

It’s not like this Guards’ roster doesn’t have holes. Impartial observers see problems with both the everyday lineup and the starting rotation.

Even the staunchest defender the Guardians’ owners should be appalled by this development. We’ve already heard the excuse about the television broadcast deal, but it should not stop them from trying to get to another World Series.

We don’t know what will happen during the ’25 baseball season, and we have been a fan of this baseball team for 60 years. We want them to win. We’ve said it before, but wishing and hoping isn’t a plan. Get the payroll to the level of other teams of this size market, like Milwaukee or Kansas City.

Do something to make another team have the longest span since winning a World Series.

Trading Good Young Players? For Tribe, We’ve Seen How It Works

Since we started following the Cleveland Indians, and we go back to the mid-sixties, one thing has been a constant, trading good young players for a bushel of prospects.

That almost never works out.

So, when people ask us why we are adamant that the Indians are doing the wrong thing by trading Francisco Lindor, we have a boatload of history and memories to support our thinking.

One of the best players on the Tribe’s early 1970’s teams was third baseman Graig Nettles. The left-handed hitter played three seasons in Cleveland, totaling 71 home runs, 218 RBI, and a 750 OPS.

In 1972, one of the Indians’ top prospects (in those days, perhaps their only prospect) was Buddy Bell, who also handled the hot corner. Bell played the outfield in ’72, but the Indians were anxious to make room for him at third, so they dealt Nettles to the Yankees, where he blasted 250 homers and played on two World Championship teams.

Who did Cleveland receive? They got John Ellis, Jerry Kenney, Rusty Torres, and a prospect OF in Charlie Spikes.

Nettles accumulated 44.4 WAR in his career with the Bronx Bombers. The best player the Tribe received was Ellis, who had a 3.2 WAR in his tenure with Cleveland.

Two years later, the Indians had a first baseman who won the Rookie of the Year Award in ’71, and again they dealt with New York, sending Chris Chambliss there along with Dick Tidrow and Cecil Upshaw for four pitchers: Fritz Peterson, Steve Kline, Fred Beene, and Tom Buskey.

Chambliss accumulated 4.0 WAR with the Tribe, but 15.4 with the Yanks over seven years, playing on two World Series champions.

Peterson went 23-25 for Cleveland, Kline 3-8, while Beene went 5-4 with an ERA over 5.00 in two seasons. Buskey was the least accomplished pitcher coming to the Indians (just 12 big league games), but was the best of the quartet going 12-13 with 25 saves in four seasons.

Dennis Eckersley was just 23 years old and coming off 40 wins in his first three seasons with Cleveland when he was dealt to Boston for prospect 3B Ted Cox, catcher Bo Diaz, and two starting pitchers, veteran Rick Wise and Mike Paxton before the ’78 season.

Eck spent eight years in Boston, winning 88 games, and of course, later in his career became the most dominant reliever in the game, and was elected to the Hall of Fame.

Cox was brought in despite the presence of Bell (who was dealt the next year for another third baseman in Toby Harrah), and Wise had one good year with the Tribe and one bad one before leaving in free agency. Paxton had a solid year before developing arm problems and was out of the game by 1980.

Diaz, who was kind of a throw-in, wound up being the best player, making the All Star team in ’81 with Cleveland, and was a regular for Philadelphia’s World Series team in 1983 and played until 1989.

In 1985, Cleveland traded another pitcher on the way to Cooperstown, moving Bert Blyleven to Minnesota for SS Jay Bell (who they didn’t really give a shot to) and three pitchers, Rich Yett, Curt Wardle, and Jim Weaver.

That trio won 29 games for Cleveland, while Blyleven won 50 over the next three and a half years, including one that ended in a World Series title for the Twins.

After the 1988 season, Cleveland dealt Julio Franco, who batted .297 with a 752 OPS in his six years as an Indian to Texas and not for prospects, but instead three mediocre big league players in Pete O’Brien, Jerry Browne, and Oddibe McDowell.

Franco hit .307 over the next five seasons with Texas, winning a batting title, and putting up an 822 OPS. Only Browne played more than one season with the Tribe, two as a regular and the other as a reserve.

That isn’t to say all of these deals didn’t work.

In 1983, Cleveland moved Len Barker to Atlanta, and received Brett Butler and Brook Jacoby, both of whom were long time regulars with the Indians, while Barker was finished after the 1987 season.

And dealing Joe Carter after the ’89 season netted Cleveland two major building blocks of the great 90’s teams in Sandy Alomar Jr. and Carlos Baerga.

We also all remember the Bartolo Colon deal in 2002, which might be the last deal of that kind because of the return the Indians received.

The point is trading very good (or excellent) young players is extremely risky. The best bet is to keep them and watch them keep improving into possible Hall of Fame players.

Favorite Player Of The 70’s…Eck

If you were a fan of the Cleveland Indians in the 1970’s, you watched an organization that had a lot of very good players that wore a Tribe uniform.

Some, like Ray Fosse, Buddy Bell, and Chris Chambliss were originally signed by the Indians, and made their Major League debuts with Cleveland. Others, like Graig Nettles, Gaylord Perry, and George Hendrick came over in deals, spent some productive years in town, and then were shipped away.

Some were post-season regulars, which made fans in northeast Ohio wince in pain during the playoffs every year, thinking about what might have been.

Sometimes things never change.

That brings us to our favorite Tribe player of the 1970’s, Dennis Eckersley.

Eckersley was another star young player who came up through the Cleveland farm system and was ultimately traded away to a bigger market, in his case, Boston.

Eck was drafted in the 3rd round of the 1972 draft and spent two years in Class A Reno before moving to the Texas League (AA) with San Antonio, going 14-3 with a 3.40 ERA, striking out pretty much a batter per inning.

There were no Top 10 Prospect lists at the time, so Eckersley was under the radar as spring training started in 1975 under new manager, Frank Robinson. The 20-year-old side arming right-hander made the team out of camp and pitched out of the bullpen.

He made 10 scoreless relief outings, totaling 14-1/3 innings, and followed that by throwing a shutout in his first big league start against the World Champion Oakland A’s.

He finished that rookie season with a 13-7 record, a 2.60 ERA, and allowing just 147 hits in 186 innings. He did walk an uncharacteristic 90 batters.

And his cockiness was appreciated by the younger fans, and opposing hitters didn’t like it so much.

His second year in Cleveland, he went 13-12 with a 3.43 ERA in 199 innings, striking out 200 hitters. He was struggling mid-season, his ERA was 4.93 at the All Star break, and made some relief appearance in July, but in the second half Eckersley went 9-4 with a 2.41 ERA and 138 punch outs in 119 frames.

In 1977, Eck threw a then career high 247.1 innings, and led the AL in strikeout to walk ratio at 3.54. He also authored his only career no-hitter beating the Angels 1-0.

What is forgotten is that in his previous start, Eckersley went 12 innings against the Mariners, and didn’t allow a hit after the fifth inning, so he had thrown 16-2/3 hitless innings.

The start after the no-no came on June 3rd, again vs. Seattle at the old Kingdome. The Mariners didn’t get a hit in that contest until two outs in the 6th, meaning the righty fired 22-1/3 hitless innings. That’s very close to the major league record of 24, set by Cy Young.

And he did it as a starting pitcher.

Unfortunately, the Indians dealt Eckersley to Boston following the season for four players, notably the hot prospect, Ted Cox. The best player the Indians ultimately received was catcher Bo Diaz. Eck won 20 games in his first year with the Red Sox.

GM Phil Seghi felt Eckersley’s sidearm motion wouldn’t hold up long term. And there was the other matter of teammate Rick Manning falling in love with the pitcher’s wife.

Seghi made the wrong choice on which player to move along, and Eckersley wound up pitching until he was 43, becoming a dominant closer. He was elected into the Hall of Fame in 2004 after winning 197 games and saving 390 more.

His stay with the Indians was brief, but we were always a fan. It would’ve been nice to have him with the Tribe a little longer.