Tribe Needs To Get Better…At Accomodating Crowds.

The Cleveland Indians have a growing problem.

No, it’s not a willingness to improve their team, which currently resides at the top of the American League Central Division, although the issue is a result of their success.

The problem has to do with attendance, and we aren’t complaining about the club’s rank among major league teams in getting fans to show up.

The current homestand has seen a sellout on Monday, the fourth of July, and a crowd of 24,000 plus for a noon start on Wednesday. This weekend’s four game set against the Yankees promises more large crowds at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario.

Who could have figured that winning baseball is the best marketing plan?

The problem is handling these larger crowds. It doesn’t seem like Progressive Field is equipped to accommodate the growing throngs of people who want to be part of Indians’ baseball.

Keep in mind that the ballpark holds approximately 8,000 people less than it did two years ago, and when 42,000 fans regularly showed up at then Jacobs Field, there didn’t seem to be the problems there are today.

Maybe our memory betrays us, but that is our perspective.

At the games we have attended over the last month or so, we have noticed long lines waiting to get in the park, and we have confirmed with several other fans that this is not unusual.

If you arrive at the park at least a half an hour before the game starts, or any event for that matter, you should be able to be in your seat by the time the contest starts. We don’t believe that is in unreasonable request.

The lines getting into Progressive Field 15-20 minutes before the first pitch should be a concern to the front office. They simply have to have a better way to get people in the seats.

Once in the stadium, we have noticed restroom doors locked and poor staffing at concession stands. The latter means standing in line 15-20 minutes to get something to eat or drink. That’s unacceptable.

The Indians are finally getting good crowds going to Progressive Field, and they must improve the customer service.

Fans shouldn’t be expected to have to arrive an hour before a game begins in order to be in their seats when the first inning begins.

After this homestand, the Tribe will be on the road again because of the Republican Convention and won’t return until July 26th. This gives them plenty of time to fix the problem.

Because in our estimation, the crowds are going to continue to increase as the season progresses because the Indians are a very good team.

Our guess is that there will be more attendance figures over 20,000 the rest of the year, than there will be smaller crowds than that figure.

In fact, for many games, they would probably be able to sell more than 34,000 tickets, something we thought about when they put the storage containers in the right field upper deck.

What the organization doesn’t need is fans finally deciding to go to an Indians’ game, and having a bad experience due to standing in lines for extended periods.

The front office has done the hard part. They’ve put a team on the field that people want to see. Now, they have to make sure fans can be in their seats to watch it.

There’s A Long Way To Go, But C’Mon Tribe!

Baseball’s winter meetings are a beacon in a long winter without the sport we love.

The meetings are filled with activity, rumors, and teams trying to cure weaknesses for the upcoming season.

Except if you are a fan of the Cleveland Indians, who seem to view the conference as a necessary evil.

To be fair (please don’t jump on us Indians’ social media), there is plenty of time for president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti and GM Mike Chernoff to do something to improve the product on the field for the Indians, but it would be nice to get something done now.

The Tribe is trying to sell some six pack tickets for the 2016 season, and to be sure, it would be easier to move some seats if the ballclub generated some excitement.

Instead, we have another year of hearing about improvements to Progressive Field, which the real fan doesn’t care much about.

Look, although baseball is a sport and success is shown in the standings and getting to the post-season, the Tribe is also in the entertainment business and nothing sells in Cleveland like winning.

It is no secret that the Indians need to improve the offense, especially since it appears Michael Brantley, their best hitter, will miss at least the first month of the 2016 season.

And while the front office and Terry Francona have pointed out they don’t want to move one of their starting pitchers, unless they sign a free agent (unlikely), how else will they get the stick they need.

Yes, if you make it to the post-season, you need to have lockdown pitching, however, unless you can score runs, it is difficult to make it to the playoffs.

The Giants have won three World Series in the last six years, but in two of the three other years, they didn’t make the playoffs because they didn’t score enough runs.

They ranked last in the NL in 2011 and 10th in the National League in 2013 in runs scored.

Unless the Indians can get at least one legitimate hitter this winter, Tribe fans can look forward to a lot more 2-1 and 3-2 losses, and folks telling everyone what the team’s record is when they score three runs or less.

All they have done so far is bring in retreads like Shane Robinson (lifetime 615 OPS), Collin Cowgill, who hit .188 last season (633 career OPS), and Joey Butler (742).

That only excites the people who clamor for these low risk type signings, because after all, you might catch lightning in a bottle.

So far, it’s back to the “wishin’ and hopin'” mentality.

That doesn’t sell tickets, and then the front office will wonder why despite three consecutive winning seasons (although last year is kind of an asterisk because of the rainout), attendance continues to wane.

Fair or not, the perception around this city is the Indians aren’t serious about winning.

Perhaps the worst thing to happen to this regime is the Royals going to back-to-back World Series, and going all in to get there each season.

Tribe fans look longingly at the Royals and ask “why not us?” Did they mortgage their future, perhaps. They look at having another 2-3 year window to grab another title.

Why can’t the Indians’ front office look at their pitching staff and realize if they can get to the playoffs they have a good chance.

Instead, they basically do nothing.

Yes, there is still time for the Cleveland Indians to get the bat they so desperately need.

Meanwhile, their fan base, although loyal, keeps getting smaller and more impatient.

Our Experiences and Suggestions at Progressive Field

Last Monday was Memorial Day. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and warm, and the Cleveland Indians were playing the Texas Rangers with a 4:05 start time.

A perfect day to take in a ball game.

13,000 people showed up. And keep in mind, the Indians made the wild card game in 2013, and went to the last weekend of the season in 2014 before being eliminated.

Even in Tampa, a city which probably shouldn’t have a major league baseball team, and hasn’t ever warmed to the Rays, drew 15,000 folks.

In Miami, another city not known as a baseball hot spot, they had over 21,000 in attendance.

And it Pittsburgh, a blue-collar town very comparable to Cleveland, more than 39,000 poured into PNC Park to watch the Pirates.

We understand the fans don’t trust the ownership and front office of the Indians, and although local television rating are high, no one ventures to Progressive Field.

We have attended three Tribe games downtown this month and here are our impressions.

Although we mocked the new bar in right field, it is very nice. Our objection was to taking seats out of the park instead of giving fans a reason to buy tickets for the seats the organization removed.

And there are certainly many, many different foods and beverages to consume. It is very different from when we attended games as a kid and people looked at you weird if you wanted a hamburger instead of a hot dog.

We don’t like how the upper deck in right field looks. Your eyes are drawn to it because it is kind of a monstrosity, out of place with the rest of the park.

We did attend Corey Kluber’s 18 strikeout masterpiece against St. Louis.

What was strange about the game is we really didn’t know how many strikeouts Kluber was racking up. It wasn’t publicized to our knowledge, and we look at the various scoreboards a lot.

We finally went on our phone to keep track of Kluber’s accomplishment.

And when the right-hander fanned his 18th hitter in the top of the eighth, once again, we did not detect any mention that Kluber had tied Bob Feller’s club record for strikeouts in a game.

Very, very strange.

We also bought tickets at Progressive Field the day of a game, which is a ridiculous experience. We paid almost double what the tickets are listed at on-line. This is mind-boggling. It is almost that the front office is trying to discourage fans who may be downtown at the casino or a restaurant from going to the game.

With attendance the way it is, they should be embracing anyone who wants to enter the gates.

We understand the Indians want people to buy seats in advance, but at the very least, they should be the same price as what you could buy them at the day before. You are being penalized for making a last second decision.

Gone are the days you could decide at 6PM to go see the Tribe, we guess.

And if you want to buy tickets from a human being, good luck, they want you to buy from their ticket kiosks electronically. There aren’t many ticket windows open.

The Indians need to do something to get people inside Progressive Field. A good start would be to end this practice.

Progressive Field is still a great place to watch a baseball game. It has excellent sight lines, and great food/beverage choices. Yes, it is a little expensive, but you are a captive audience.

Start having different promotions. Embrace their inner Bill Veeck.

Someone on Twitter suggested a “Support Chief Wahoo Night”, something the politically correct front office would never go for, but would draw fans in our opinion.

We know they have bobble head nights, fireworks nights, and dollar dog games. Those are fine. But, they need to start thinking out of the box. Make it fun to go to the ballpark.

In our opinion, that’s lacking right now.

Tribe Should Emphasize Plusses, Not Lack of Cash

Spring training is a little over a month away, and sports fans through northeastern Ohio are starting to think about baseball. The cold, cold winter does that to you.

On Friday, Indians’ president Mark Shapiro was doing a radio interview and when asked about the roster brought up (once again) that the team is financially limited.

Most of the interview was Shapiro talking about what the Indians have focused on most of the winter, namely the construction at Progressive Field. We get that, he’s the president now, not the general manager, so he doesn’t want to steal GM Chris Antonetti’s thunder.

However, it almost seems like a reflex for anyone in the organization to bring this up when talking about trying the add talent to the current roster.

And it is a sensitive buzzword for many potential ticket buyers. As we have said before, like it or not, perception is reality and the perception around Cleveland is the ownership is cheap.

We get it.

Most fans understand the Indians will never be able to have one of the top ten payrolls in the sport. However, there are many teams in the sport who have managed to stay relevant without spending $150 million on talent.

So, we will play public relations/advertising consultant for the Indians. Why not talk about the positives the Tribe has going into this season.

1). The Indians have had back-to-back winning seasons for the first time since the 2000-01 years, and made the playoffs in 2013, and were still alive in the playoff chase until the last weekend of the 2014 season.

2). They have a widely respected manager in Terry Francona, who has piloted two World Series winners.

3). They are the only team in the American League with a player who finished in the top three in both the Cy Young Award voting (Corey Kluber) and the MVP voting (Michael Brantley). Really, the only team in baseball because although a Dodger claimed both awards in the NL, it was the same guy (Clayton Kershaw).

4). The Indians have a good core of young players. Their best players are Brantley, Kluber, Yan Gomes, Cody Allen, and Carlos Santana. All are under 30 years old.

5). They have one of the game’s top prospects in SS Francisco Lindor, who should make his big league debut in 2015.

6). The last two months of the ’14 season were highlighted by excellent starting pitching, led by Kluber, but also with dominant months from Carlos Carrasco (27), Danny Salazar (24), Trevor Bauer (23), and T. J. House (24).

7). The Indians had the sixth best ERA in the American League, and they did it with the youngest pitching staff in the AL at 27.2 years of age. And that figure includes the ageless Scott Atchison.

8). They traded for a left-handed slugger who made the All Star team in 2014 in Brandon Moss, who, by the way, also hit two home runs in the wild card game.

9). Although the players are far away, the ’14 amateur draft was rated the best in baseball by Baseball America.

Those are things to talk about if you want to encourage people to purchase tickets. That, and get rid of the dynamic ticket pricing that most fans dislike.

There are plenty of positives to talk about with the Cleveland Indians that don’t involve money and/or ripping seats out of Progressive Field.

We just wish the front office would talk about these instead of playing the “small market” card.

Why Don’t Tribe Fans Show Up? Front Office Needs to Look in Mirror.

It is an annual rite every fall in Cleveland, especially if the Indians are in contention. Why doesn’t anyone go to Progressive Field?

Last night, they drew just under 10,000 fans for a game with post-season implications because the Tribe is still under five games behind for a wild card spot in the American League.

Certainly, there is interest in the Indians, their local television ratings ranking near the top in all of major league baseball. However, those ratings don’t translate to putting people in the seats.

We are sure that the front office has conducted polls and surveys to find out why fans do not turn out for games, and it appears they respond to some of the comments by making changes to the game day experience at the now 20-year-old ballpark.

However, they ignore the real reason for people staying home and that would be the lack of trust in the current ownership and front office.

Instead, they spend a lot of time trying to contradict the opinions of the masses, mostly by pointing out market limitations, etc., and they also have many media people backing them up in regard to the perception of the fans.

They need to realize that perception is reality and they need to do something to change the mindset of the playing public.

Fans do not believe there is any real commitment to winning with the Indians, and they can back that up by the total inactivity of GM Chris Antonetti both at the trading deadline this season, but also during the winter when the Tribe was coming off a 92 win season, and interest in baseball was up all around the town, because of the sizzling September that put the team in the playoffs.

Instead of striking while the iron was hot in terms of interest, the Tribe didn’t make any significant moves this winter (sorry, David Murphy) to show the fans they weren’t satisfied with being ousted in the single game wild card contest.

Then they followed that by trading away two veterans who were key parts going into the 2014 season at the trading deadline even though the Indians were very much in contention at the time.

If Antonetti did make a trade to bring in let’s say David Price at the deadline, would there have been instant sellouts at Progressive Field? Of course not, but there is no question there would have been a buzz around the city, and the talk shows would have been filled with Tribe talk.

Which brings us to another failure of the front office, and this is something we’ve addressed before. The Indians made a terrible short-sighted move in staying with WTAM as the team’s flagship station instead of moving to an all sports stations like WKNR or 92.3.

No doubt both stations would have more Indians’ based programming if a significant amount of their spring and summer programming was Tribe baseball. As it stands right now, the baseball team is an afterthought on both stations.

The continue to misjudge their market. What draws people to game in Cleveland, Ohio is winning and the hope of winning. All the other stuff is nice, but it doesn’t give fans a reason to go to the ballpark. If the Indians make the playoffs again this year, they will start to see fans returning to watch.

Even the Browns have suffered attendance loss because of their terrible record over the last several years.

Is there a solution? A good start would be lowering ticket prices and putting individual game tickets on sale around Thanksgiving Day so fans can buy them as Christmas presents for hard-core baseball fans.

But the Tribe needs to make a splash this winter and show fans they want to win.

Until that perception is changed, there is going to be a problem. The Indians are the third sports option right now in Cleveland now that LeBron James and Kevin Love are with the Cavaliers. That means it could be June before the Tribe has a stage all to itself.

They need to give fans a reason to show up at Progressive Field, but they need to stop ignoring the basic problem–that they aren’t interested in winning big.

Improving the Park is Fine for Tribe, Improving Team Would be Better

If you were looking for someone to write a handbook on how to anger your customers, may we suggest the people who run the Cleveland Indians.

Just one week after not doing one damn thing to help a ballclub who, flawed or not, were in the middle of a race for a post-season spot, the team announced they would undertake a major renovation of Progressive Field.

That’s fine. The stadium is now 20 years old and the Tribe brass doesn’t want it to ignore things so it gets to be rundown like Municipal Stadium, which was basically a dump when the Indians moved out after the 1993 season.

The problem is team president Mark Shapiro said the renovations would be paid for by the Indians. They want to make sure they improve the “fan experience” at Progressive Field.

We are pretty sure that the “fan experience” would be much better in the team won. In fact, if the Tribe ever won the World Series and played at the city dump, baseball fans in Cleveland would be pretty happy.

For a franchise that has a history of tossing around nickels like manhole covers, telling your supporters you are going to spend cash on renovating the ballpark instead of getting better players is tantamount to kicking them in the face.

At the risk of having the Indians tell us it is a different situation because football has a salary cap, the Browns told us the same thing last winter. They were going to make major renovations to First Energy Stadium over the next two years, and supporters of the brown and orange were irritated as well.

Hell with the facility, get us a winning team.

Since then, the Browns have filled a lot of holes through the draft and free agency, and they brought in the most talked about player in college football over the past two seasons in Johnny Manziel.

Suddenly, no one talks about wasting money on the stadium.

It is doubtful the Indians will do the same thing this winter.

The whole removing seats concept also tells you everything you need to know about the Tribe front office.

There is no secret that attendance has been a problem basically since the Dolan family took ownership of the franchise. We believe it is due to the lack of sustained success (can’t put two consecutive over .500 seasons together), and the perception of baseball fans of distrust in ownership/front office.

Instead of building a team that will fill the seats (and there is interested in the team judging by the local television ratings, which ranks in the top five in major league baseball), the solution from Dolan and Shapiro is to remove seats that they cannot sell.

The Indians need to realize that yes, they are competing for your entertainment dollar, but they are also in the baseball business, one that measures success by wins and losses. That should be the most important goal for the franchise…winning!

The Tribe prides itself on treating players well, but does that help them attract players to the north coast? No.

Shapiro does a lot of things the right way, he treats his employees well, he is part of the community, if you go to Progressive Field, it is a great atmosphere for the family.

However, the primary objective for a major league baseball team is to win and win consistently. This is where the Tribe comes up short.

The Indians’ organization would be better served spending money on putting better players on the field and giving a facelift to a iconic ballpark.

If they could do both, fine. But once again, the priority for the Tribe seems to be off the field things rather than where they should be.

Things That Make Us Say “Who Cares”

With two sports talks stations in the Cleveland area, there are many times the hosts have to try to create controversy to get people to call in to their shows.

Since the Indians were swept in a huge series and the Browns played their first exhibition game this week, you would think this would be one of those times where the action on the respective fields would have been enough to generate an audience.

Here are four subjects that made us say “Who Cares?”

INDIANS

Neither thing took place on the field, because a real fans would have to be upset at four straight defeats at the hand of the Tigers.

The first was the “Detroit’s bankrupt” chant that offended some people as a response to the Tigers’ fans rubbing it in the faces of Tribe fans during the games at Progressive Field. Why does this bother anyone?

They weren’t chanting the city was morally bankrupt, that might be considered offensive. The fact is the city did file for bankruptcy protection, so there was nothing untrue involved.

Cleveland, the city, and its fans have been taking it from people all around the country for years, and now, we can’t give a little jab to another city who is having it tough? Besides, we have gone to games in other cities over the years, and we aren’t obnoxious in our support for the hometown squad.

Cheer for your team all you want you are a supporter of a visiting team, just don’t start chants rubbing it in the face of the host squad.

Actually, it was quite funny that Tribe fans thought of this. Made us wish we’d have started it.

The second “incident” was the Indians’ players laughing when Ryan Raburn pitched the top of the ninth in the last game of the Detroit series.

No doubt, the players were chuckling over seeing a popular teammate on the hill for the first time. It does not mean that Terry Francona has “lost” the team, nor does it mean the players don’t take the game seriously.

Baseball isn’t a sport where you can say if you try really, really hard in the bottom of the ninth, you could make up the eight run deficit Cleveland was facing. In fact, after the game Jason Giambi held a team meeting to remind everyone there is a long way to go in the season. No one was laughing about being swept or losing 10-2.

There was no reason to make a big deal about it.

Browns

The big debate for football fans was Trent Richardson not playing in the first preseason game vs. the Rams. After all, the second year man out of Alabama has never played in one of these games.

Here’s a big reason that the coaching staff held Richardson out…IT DIDN”T COUNT!!!!

If Rob Chudzinski decides to get his starting running back carries in games #2 and #3, and sits him out in the last exhibition tilt, that would be perfectly fine here. It is better to keep him fresh for the regular season, where he will be expected to carry a large load.

The same goes for any nicked up player held out by the staff. It is better to have them ready in September.

The biggest “who cares” is regarding the results of the first preseason game. Yes, the Browns won, and yes, they looked like they knew what they were doing, in sharp contrast with the past few seasons.

However, the game didn’t count, and the Browns will still be 0-0 for three more weeks.

And yes, we’d be saying the same thing if they would have lost. There were things to be excited about, but the score ranked way down on that list.

Tribe Still Control Post-Season Fate

It’s been a tough week so far for the Cleveland Indians.

They lost four games to the division leading Detroit Tigers, two of them in excruciating fashion, losing a 2-0 lead in the ninth inning of the series opener on Monday night, and then losing in 13 frames on Wednesday on a Prince Fielder double, 6-5.

Oh, and they also lost Corey Kluber, who pitched 7-1/3 shutout innings on Monday and was having an excellent season to date, for four to six weeks with a sprained middle finger.

They also designated Mark Reynolds for assignment yesterday. Reynolds hit .301 with 8 HR and 22 RBI in April, and since has batted just .187 with 7 HR and 26 batted in. It has been clear for the past month that skipper Terry Francona lost confidence in the former Oriole and Diamondback, so it wasn’t a totally unexpected move.

Many fans, mostly the fair weather football minded ones, are writing off the rest of the baseball season.

To be sure, if the team doesn’t put this week behind them, the Indians will fall out of the race soon and the rest of the summer will be about the Browns and football season.

However, this isn’t the 2011 and 2012 version of the Tribe and Francona is now the manager, so it is doubtful that will happen.

Why? Because the Indians have a lot to play for, namely a berth in the post-season tournament.

Even after the debacle at Progressive Field the past four days, the Tribe is just three games out of a wild card spot, trailing the incumbent Texas Rangers and Baltimore, with the Royals right on their heels.

Keep in mind there are still 47 games left on the schedule, plenty of time to pass both teams.

The upcoming schedule will be tough to be sure. After this weekend series vs. the Angels, Francona’s crew plays 18 of the next 21 games on the road, playing possible playoff teams like Oakland, Atlanta, and Detroit (ugh!) once again. They also visit Minnesota and Los Angeles too, with the Twins visiting for the only three home games in this stretch.

If the Tribe can pull together and play like they had been playing prior to these four games, and there really isn’t reason they can’t, they will have a good shot at a wild card appearance.

Here are some things that could happen in the next couple of weeks–

First, the Reynolds’ assignment could be a precursor to the addition of a bat to bolster the offense. GM Chris Antonetti is said to be looking for another bat, and could make a move soon. Remember, anybody than can bring more production than Reynolds gave the team over the last three months will help the club.

Zack McAllister has not pitched as well since returning to the rotation after his finger injury as he had before he went on the disabled list, and if that continues, don’t be surprised to see Daisuke Matsuzaka get a shot for a few starts.

The former Red Sox pitcher has done very well in the last month at Columbus, and the front office may want to see what he can offer the big club.

There is no question the Tigers’ series was a huge disappointment, but the Tribe can’t and won’t let it linger. They still have a legitimate chance at the post-season.

Now, it’s just a matter of putting up as many wins as they can.

Tribe Needs to Weather Schedule Storm

Everyone is aware that the Cleveland Indians are going through a tough patch right now, having lost 12 of their last 16 games. Their next nine games are against three teams that going into the season, most experts regarded as prime contenders to win the World Series: the Tigers, Rangers, and Nationals.

That will end a brutal stretch were the Tribe also played the Yankees, Red Sox, Reds, and Rays. That’s a tough schedule for any team.

However, the only teams that really beat up on Cleveland were the Bronx Bombers and their friends from the AL East, the BoSox. The Tribe went 2-12 against them, they are still 28-17 vs. everybody else in major league baseball.

A quick glance at the schedule shows things are about to change, and if Terry Francona’s team wants to stay in the race all season long, they have the opportunity to do just that.

This is not to underestimate any opponent, because at the beginning of the season, we felt the American League was brutal, with 13 of the 15 teams having a legitimate shot at the post-season. We excluded the Twins and Astros because of their rebuilding modes, although the former is in third place, just 2-1/2 games behind the Indians.

Still, have the Nationals visit Progressive Field next weekend, 25 of the next 33 contests are against Minnesota, the White Sox, Royals, Blue Jays, and Mariners. Only two four games series, one vs. Baltimore and the other against the Tigers, are against opponents considered among the best in the American League.

That basically takes the Indians through the end of July (and close to the trading deadline).

If you look at the balance of the schedule, there do not seem to be a lot of big bumps the rest of the way. There are three games against the Rangers, seven vs. Detroit, a three game set against the Orioles, and a three game interleague series vs. Atlanta, and three more against Oakland. The majority of the slate is games against the other AL Central teams, along with seven contests against the Astros and Marlins.

The Tribe will also play the Angels six times, but at this point it is difficult to say whether or not people should consider Los Angeles a quality team or not. They were highly touted coming into the season, but currently sit eight games below the .500 mark.

Again, this is not to take any team lightly, because the Indians need to improve the way they have hit and pitched over the last three weeks to start winning again.

And they struggled against the Yankees this season, and we feel they will end the season not making the playoffs based on the injuries and collective age of their team. They’ve been doing it with mirrors, and that likely will end. That said, the Tribe could only beat them once in seven tries.

The point is, after this stretch of games, the Cleveland Indians have an opportunity to play a lot of baseball against teams they figure to have more talent than, at least on paper.

Of course, we all know games are played on grass, not paper.

Still, things could be looking up soon for Francona’s bunch. At least, according to the schedule set up by major league baseball.

On the Tribe’s Two-Faced Lineup

The front office of the Cleveland Indians took a calculated risk before the season, stocking the lineup full of left-handed hitters.

The rationale was that there are more right-handed pitchers than southpaws, and Progressive Field favors hitters who swing from the left side.

They may be right. After all, the Indians have the second most home runs hit by left-handed hitters in 2012, trailing only the Yankees.

The problem is the lineup has no balance, because the Tribe doesn’t have enough good hitters, something predicted here before the season.

A look at a normal Cleveland lineup shows the top four hitters in the batting order have batting averages between .272 (Jason Kipnis) and .295 (Asdrubal Cabrera).

That’s the good news.

The bad news is the balance of the lineup have averages between .221 (Carlos Santana and Casey Kotchman) and .201 (Johnny Damon).

Only the third base platoon of Jack Hannahan and Jose Lopez are in the middle, hitting .250 and .257 respectively.

The extreme split in the lineup was never more on display than it was Monday night against the Angels.

After Kipnis walked, Michael Brantley singled and Santana walked to load the bases, the bottom of the order came up to face LA ace Jared Weaver.

Damon grounded out weakly to third, forcing Kipnis at the plate. Kotchman popped out to the catcher, and Shelley Duncan struck out.

No runs scored in a situation where you have to get at least one, and should get two tallies.

When the bottom of the order hits, the Tribe can score some runs, as they did over the weekend in Baltimore. However, as anyone can see from the batting averages, that doesn’t occur very often.

The front office and the optimistic fans will gleefully point out every time guys like Kotchman or Duncan get two or three hits and drive in some runs.

If this deal were offered, who do you think would wind up on top?

Those fans would get $5 when the player of their choice has a good game, but give up the same amount when they take the collar, or go 1 for 5.

The point is those hitters at the bottom of the order don’t produce frequently enough to continue to play, and the Indians’ front office doesn’t seem to be in a big hurry to replace them.

The season is reaching the half way point on the 4th of July, and changes need to be made in the lineup.

Really, if the Indians replaced Damon, Kotchman, Duncan, and Aaron Cunningham with minor leaguers would they get less production?

In fact, three of them (Duncan excluded) have negative VORP (value over replacement player) meaning they are producing less than the average player at their position.

In a close race, there is no time for wishing and hoping that these players will start hitting at a high level, so GM Chris Antonetti needs to bring someone else in, either through a trade or by dipping into the minor leagues.

Before you laugh at the last comment, check out Matt LaPorta’s numbers in the major leagues in 2011 with Kotchman’s numbers. Don’t say there isn’t someone in Columbus that could help.

Travis Hafner will return to the team today and that should help, but how much? Hafner’s stats, especially his power numbers, have been in steady decline over the last few years.

He’s no longer a middle of the order threat, but he will add a hitter that can draw a walk and has occasional pop.

Something has to be done, because the circumstances that occurred Monday are becoming more and more frequent.