Tribe Needs to Look at Ticket Prices

There is no question that the Cleveland Indians alienated their fans for the past several seasons.

After the 2007 season in which they missed the World Series by just one game, they acted like someone was going to tell them it was their turn to win someday, so they could be inactive.

They traded two Cy Young Award winners in C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee, and traded a professional hitter who said he wanted to stay here in Victor Martinez. All three were gone by the time the 2009 season ended.

Later, after a 2011 season is which they were surprisingly in contention until Labor Day, when the Detroit Tigers finally got hot and ran away, they were inert in the off-season following, setting up a 2012 campaign where they were depending on players like Shelley Duncan, Casey Kotchman, and Derek Lowe.

To be fair, they did deal two top pitching prospects for Ubaldo Jimenez at the deadline in ’11, but that move hasn’t worked out the way GM Chris Antonetti wanted. The fact it hasn’t worked out for Colorado is of little consolation.

However, last winter, the ownership seemed to get the message that the fan base was unhappy with the way things were being run. After Travis Hafner’s large deal finally ended, the front office went out and signed Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn to multi-year contracts.

Unfortunately, the people who buy tickets seem to be holding a grudge because the Tribe ranks last in the American League in attendance.

While many fans obviously have a wait and see attitude regarding this team, it is a better team and while they struggled mightily at the beginning of June, they have ripped off eight wins in the last 12 games and currently sit just four games behind the mighty Tigers in the AL Central.

And they are very good at home.

Whether or not the Indians can make the playoffs isn’t the issue because the American League is very strong. Heck, all five teams in the AL East are above the .500 mark.

We said at the beginning of the season that 13 of the 15 teams in the AL had legitimate chances to get to the post-season, and yes, the Tribe was one of those teams.

So where are the fans?

This is a city with blind loyalty to the Browns, a team with two winning seasons since 1999. In that same time period, the Indians have had five such seasons, making the playoffs three times.

We checked the prices for the next home series for the Tribe when they come home from this trip to Baltimore, Chicago, and Kansas City. They take on the Tigers on July 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th.

Seats in the upper deck and the bleachers are being sold for $23.60 apiece for the Friday night game. Meaning it costs almost $100.00 for a family of four to attend.

In order to sit behind home plate, it will cost you $80.00 for a single seat.

If the Indians want families to go to the games, they are making it tough, particularly when the fortunes of the team have soured a lot of baseball fans in Cleveland.

The Tribe did the right thing in lowering the cost of concessions in the off-season, but it doesn’t do much good if they don’t get people to make the trip to Progressive Field.

Perhaps it is time to look at the ticket prices as well. Lower them so people will want to see what the new Indians are all about.

The prices might be lower than many franchises, but apparently they are still too high for the fan base.

Whatever the reason, the front office needs to look at why fans aren’t clicking the turnstiles.

Tribe Needs to Start Over on Mound

When Larry Dolan bought the Cleveland Indians, he and his new GM Mark Shapiro made a statement that would change the direction of the franchise.

They were going to build the team around pitching.

How’s that working out for them?

In the last 11 seasons that Shapiro has run the organization, the Tribe has had a few dominant starting pitchers, including three Cy Young Award winners, two won with the Indians (C.C. Sabathia in 2007 and Cliff Lee in 2008), and one elsewhere (Bartolo Colon in 2005).

Since the trades of Sabathia and Lee for little return (that’s a subject for another day), the Tribe has struggled to find effective starting pitching.

A good way to find an effective starter is to look at his hits to innings pitched ratio and his strikeout to walk ratio. If they’ve allowed fewer hits than innings and struck out twice as many as they’ve walked, then they are good pitchers.

Since trading Lee in 2009, Cleveland has had just two pitchers accomplish this feat, both last season. They would be Justin Masterson and Josh Tomlin.

So, looking at 15 regular starters (five per year for three years), only two hurlers can be viewed as being solid starters.

Keep in mind that Tim Belcher was the Tribe pitching coach in 2011.

So, the Indians don’t have any pitchers that can throw strikes, and they don’t have anyone with good enough stuff to overcome that.

Going forward, would you blame the front office is they cleared the decks and brought it five new starting pitchers?

Masterson looks to have good stuff, and may be worth salvaging, but does he have the mental toughness to be a starter on a good team? Certainly his joking with Tigers’ slugger Miguel Cabrera after allowing a home run to him has to raise some eyebrows in the front office.

As for Ubaldo Jimenez, he’s another who doesn’t appear to be mentally tough enough to be a starter on a contender. Perhaps it is because his mechanics are a mess, so he’s lost confidence, but it’s tough to imagine putting him out on the mound 35 times next season.

Zack McAllister throws hard and for the most part is around the strike zone. He’s probably the only starter who should be in next year’s rotation for sure.

Carlos Carrasco also has a leg up if he’s healthy. Remember, he had a very good run last season before his elbow started to hurt, going 4-2 with a 1.90 ERA in June.

The sinker ball theory this organization has trotted out in recent years leaves too much room for error. Groundballs find holes, and if mixed with walks, allow runs to score.

If you make your living getting guys to hit the ball on the ground, you must have good control.

It’s another failed experiment for the Indians.

Shapiro and GM Chris Antonetti seem to run the Tribe as a 7th grade science project, trying different things that may cost less money and still allow the team to win.

You have to get pitchers who can strike people out. That’s a tried and true way to win baseball games.

Sure, you can have a sinkerball/control type pitcher who can win, but name pitchers like that who are good on a consistent basis.

Whether they get them in trades, or develop them in the draft, the pitching isn’t going to get better unless the front office gets some guys with swing and miss stuff.

Guys like Colon, Sabathia, and Lee.

It’s another case of the Indians’ organization selling the fans a bunch of fertilizer.

Don’t Worry About Chicago Series, Worry About This…

Before the baseball season started, we felt the Cleveland Indians were a fourth place team. This was based on the feeling that the offense hasn’t really improved from last season, and the starting pitching was not up to par.

So, our expectations for this season were not really high. As life long Indians fans, we hope to be wrong. We watch every game with the anticipation of a Tribe win, and no one hopes our prediction is wrong more than us.

It would be the ultimate thrill for the Indians to win the AL Central Division and bring home the first World Series title for this city since 1948.

That’s why it’s funny to read the reaction of some fans after this past weekend’s disaster in Chicago.

Thursday evening, Tribe fans were fired up after a three game sweep against the Tigers that gave Cleveland a 3-1/2 game lead over the White Sox and six games over Detroit. Heck, the Wahoos even beat defending Cy Young Award winner and league MVP Justin Verlander in the series finale.

Today, many of these same fans are wondering if the Indians will ever win another game.

Right now, the Indians rank 8th in the American League in runs scored, and 12th in team ERA. Not exactly the right combination for a team that wants to contend for a division title.

But that’s the beauty of baseball.

The 1987 Minnesota Twins were outscored on the season by their opponents, and arguably are the worst team to ever win the World Series. However, they still have the trophy, and Kent Hrbek, Gary Gaetti, and Bert Blyleven all wear their championship rings proudly.

As for this weekend, it reminded us of a series in 1991 involving the Tribe and the Oakland A’s, then the defending AL champs. The Tribe scored 35 runs against them in consecutive games, with Chris James knocking in nine in one contest.

The Tribe finished that season 57-105, the worst in franchise history. As for the A’s, they won the next two games against Baltimore, allowing just three runs in both contests.

Remember that in baseball, momentum is today’s starting pitcher. If Josh Tomlin gives Manny Acta six solid innings today against Kansas City, the memory of White Sox hitters crossing the plate with frequency will soon fade.

If you want to worry, be concerned about the performance of Ubaldo Jimenez, who leads the league in walks, and can’t get hitters out away from Progressive Field. Worry about how the Indians have the statistics of a team who should be 22-25, not 26-21, because they’ve allowed 18 more runs than they’ve scored.

Question how the team has only five solid hitters in their lineup, when good teams have seven. Worry about the health of DH Travis Hafner, one of those five, whose loss would be significant even if he hasn’t been productive this month.

The left field spot has turned into a “vortex of suck” with Johnny Damon hitting .158 and Shelley Duncan batting .200. And fans can be concerned about a bench that has everyone with a batting average under the “Mendoza line”, except for Jose Lopez.

Series like the one over the weekend against Chicago happen to most teams in a given year. If the Indians can have a good week at home against the Royals and Twins, a week from now, it will be mostly erased from memory.

The Tribe doesn’t play the White Sox again until late September. A whole bunch of players could be changed by that point in time.