Trading Good Players, Claiming Not To Have Money Is Nothing New In Cleveland Baseball

We have often said how long we have been a fan of the Cleveland Guardians, we go back to the mid 1960s and the days of Sam McDowell, Max Alvis, Rocky Colavito, and Leon Wagner.

And much like today, those teams were built around pitching while scoring runs was definitely a struggle.

It also dawned on us that for most of the 58 years we have been a fan of Cleveland baseball teams, they haven’t been free with a dollar bill.

Early on in my fandom, it was a terrible park to watch baseball and mediocre teams that drove attendance down. The Indians didn’t draw one million fans from 1959, when they finished 2nd in the American League to 1974, when they were in contention into August.

Their best record in that span was in ’65 when they went 87-75.

Of course, the National Pastime as a sport wasn’t in the great position it is today. There was one national telecast of baseball each week, and as for local TV, maybe as many as 40 games were broadcast on a local station in a season.

The financial situation led to trading many good, young players such as Graig Nettles, Chris Chambliss, Buddy Bell, Dennis Eckersley, Len Barker and others, usually for prospects. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

This went on until the Jacobs Brothers, Richard and David, bought the team from the estate of Steve O’Neill in 1986. The new owners immediately saw the terrible lease situation the team was in with The Stadium Corporation, run by Browns’ owner Art Modell, and set out to get their own ballpark.

When then Jacobs Field opened in 1994, fans flocked toward the new building in record numbers. Of course, it helped when the Indians were good for the first time since the late 50’s, and the sellout streak and more network television cash allowed Cleveland to be a factor in free agency, signing players like Eddie Murray, Dennis Martinez, Orel Hershiser, Roberto Alomar, and Jack McDowell.

Most of them helped the team reach two World Series and qualify for the post-season in six out of seven seasons.

Cleveland baseball attendance figures reached the three million mark from 1995 to 2001 and hit 2.6 million in 2002 when the team dipped below the .500 plateau.

Ironically (or not perhaps), the Jacobs family sold the team to the Dolan family at the end of the 1999 season.

Outside of that stretch when Jacobs Field opened until the sale of the team to the current owners, the folks in charge of running the operation have told us they cannot compete financially.

However, Progressive Field is being renovated, updated if you will, but it is still a great place to watch a baseball game, certainly better than Municipal Stadium. And there isn’t a landlord siphoning concession revenue and the like from the Guardians like there was in the 70’s and 80’s.

And we understand the local television deals for the bigger markets have exploded giving teams in large metropolitan areas more cash to spend, but that shouldn’t affect how much the Guardians can spend.

Various remodeling projects at the ballpark don’t allow the Guardians to draw three million fans anymore. The most they can do if they sellout every game would be a little over 2.8 million.

The conditions are very different from when we grew up with the baseball team in Cleveland, but still, all we seem to discuss is keeping the payroll low. The franchise still has to trade its best players when the time comes for free agency. Only Jose Ramirez stayed, but he left money on the table to do so.

Like it or not, that’s the reputation the Guardians have nationally. It’s why every very good player that plays here is involved in rumors by the national media.

The more things change, the more it has stayed the same, we guess.

Another Heartbreak For Indians Fans

Just because something is expected to happen doesn’t mean it won’t upset you when it does. That’s how we felt when the Cleveland Indians traded all star SS Francisco Lindor and the longest tenured Indian, Carlos Carrasco to the Mets for infielders Andres Gimenez and Amed Rosario, RHP Josh Wolf, and OF Isaiah Greene.

There is so much that irritates us about this deal, beginning with our thought that nothing has changed since the 1960’s through the 1980’s when the Tribe developed several good players, guys like Graig Nettles, Chris Chambliss, Dennis Eckersley, Buddy Bell, and Julio Franco, only to see them move on to other teams, usually contenders.

Back then, the team played in cavernous Municipal Stadium, which was by that time was to put it nicely an armpit. That it had over 70,000 seats made it difficult to sell season tickets.

It might have been easier to be a fan then. There were no expectations. We grew up knowing the Indians were a middle of the pack team, if they were over .500, we were happy.

But in 1994, Jacobs Field was built and Cleveland had its own baseball palace, and started an eight season (1994-2001) period where they were among the best teams in the sport. The place was packed and the owner spent money. We actually signed big name free agents like Jack McDowell and Roberto Alomar.

However, 26 years later, we have returned to those dreary days of our youth.

In the past few seasons, the front office have seen these players depart: Michael Brantley, two time Cy Young Award winner Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, Carlos Santana, Mike Clevinger, and now Lindor and Carrasco.

Tell us what has changed?

Does anyone really believe the Indians are going to make an effort to keep Jose Ramirez in a Cleveland uniform when his club options run out following the 2023 season? Or do you think Shane Bieber, the latest Cy Young Award winner produced by the organization will be here when he can hit the open market?

Since Terry Francona took over as manager before the 2013 season, the Indians have made made five post-season appearances, and played in the seventh game of the World Series in 2016. Cleveland doesn’t have an aging roster and a bloated payroll.

Their best two players (Ramirez and Lindor) were in their late 20’s. Overall, the team is younger that the major league average, and their projected payroll with Lindor and Carrasco was $69 million, at this point, that’s the lowest in the AL Central. Yes, lower than Kansas City and Detroit.

At that level, they could have paid Lindor a market value deal and still kept the payroll at a level where it wasn’t among the top tier in the sport.

Instead, the organization served the fans another crap burger.

Think about it, in addition to losing the players already listed, fans have had to endure the loss of the team’s mascot, Chief Wahoo, and the name of the team will be changed sooner than later.

Now, we understand the reason for those changes, but that doesn’t make it any easier to take.

Could this trade be the key to a quick trip back to contention? Sure, anything is possible, but it’s not hard to envision this deal being the beginning of another trip to baseball oblivion. The one thing we can cling to is having a very talented front office, something those teams of our youth didn’t have.

Usually this time of year has us looking forward to spring training and Opening Day. It will be tough to do that in 2021.

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.