Tag: Tribe president Mark Shapiro

Our View of Shapiro Based On What He Didn’t Do.

Well, the Indians made it official today as team president Mark Shapiro announced he would be leaving after the year to be the president and CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays.

There is no question that Shapiro is an exceptional human being.  He has created a caring atmosphere with the front office employees and players alike.  And all in all, no one can really complain about that.

However, as we wrote last week, baseball (really, all professional sports) is judged solely on wins and losses, and it is there that we find Shapiro’s record lacking.

In 14 seasons where the Princeton graduate has either been the GM or the president of the Indians, there has been only four winning seasons and two post-season appearances.

Our opinion of the executive is based more on what he didn’t do, rather that what he did.

You see, every GM who has been around a long time will make good trades and bad trades.  And perhaps, Shapiro would be judged better if one of his earliest moves, trading Bartolo Colon for Grady Sizemore (all-star), Brandon Phillips (all-star, just not here), and Cliff Lee (Cy Young Award winner) wasn’t so successful.

And maybe he would have more support had he not followed John Hart as GM, and whether you like Hart or not, he was in charge during perhaps the greatest era of baseball in Cleveland history.

But when we said he will be judged here for what he didn’t do, we mean that when the Tribe was in the hunt, Shapiro never made the big splash move.

In 2005, the White Sox got off to a great start, but the Indians were in the wild card hunt at the All-Star break.  The Indians made two in-season deals, the first moving Alex Cora to Boston for Ramon Vazquez, and the last was dealing Jody Gerut to the Cubs for Jason Dubois.

Not exactly blockbuster moves.  The Tribe missed the playoffs by two games, and would have made the post-season by winning just one game during the last weekend of the season.

In 2007, Cleveland was a game out of first at the break, and 1-1/2 out on July 27th, when Shapiro acquired 40-year-old Kenny Lofton for minor league catching prospect Max Ramirez, who was well regarded at the time as a hitter.

Lofton did hit .283 the rest of the season, and contributed, but it was hardly a “going for it” move.

Contrast those moves with those made by Hart at the deadline, who traded for Ken Hill (’95), Kevin Seitzer (’96), John Smiley and Bip Roberts (’97), etc.  Not all of those moves worked, but there was the feeling the front office was doing everything it could to bring a title to Cleveland.

To be fair, we don’t know what deals were available to Shapiro at the time. Perhaps teams were asking for way too much for marginal players. But with baseball being the sport that it is, if you get in the post-season, you pretty much have the same shot as anyone else does.  Market size no longer matters.

We have said this in regards to Terry Francona, there is a fine line between patience and stubbornness and Shapiro’s patience toward some players has hurt the team at times.  Eric Wedge was kept on as manager well after he became a cliché with his “grinding” mantra.

And the franchise kept playing guys like Aaron Boone and the David Dellucci/Jason Michaels platoon after it was proven not to work.  That lack of urgency still permeates the franchise, with Michael Bourn and the non-promotion of Francisco Lindor this season as prime examples.

Perhaps it was lack of support by ownership or maybe overconfidence in his building of the franchise, but people can criticize Mark Shapiro on his trade record all they want.  To us, it was the moves not made which make up his legacy.

MW

Francona Has Success, But He Does Make Mistakes Too.

When Terry Francona arrived here in the fall of 2012 to take the managerial job of the Cleveland Indians, it was considered shocking to many baseball fans, including ones right here on the North Coast.

This is a guy who broke the “Curse of the Bambino”, leading the Boston Red Sox to the world championship in 2004, their first since 1917, and then followed it up with another in 2007.

He took the job because of the relationship he had forged with Tribe president Mark Shapiro and GM Chris Antonetti when he worked in the Cleveland front office in between piloting the Phillies and Red Sox.

The shock turned to adulation when Francona took the Tribe to the playoffs in 2013, winning 92 games and losing in the Wild Card game to Tampa.

There is no doubt the Francona has earned his reputation as a good manager, and his style is forging a trusting relationship with his players.  He never rips them in the media, and he treats them like men, which is how anyone would want to be treated.

He recently pointed out that his patience had turned to stubbornness when he finally removed slumping hitters Nick Swisher and Carlos Santana from the #2 and #4 spots in the lineup.

There is certainly no question Francona has more patience than most fans would ever have, and really, he has to.  Most fans would take players out of the lineup after two bad games.

Still, Tito is a baseball manager and not everything he does turns to gold, nor does it mean that the person who makes the criticism wants the Tribe to have a new skipper.

This was brought to light during the first game in Boston, when with two outs and first base open in a game the Indians were trailing 1-0, Francona let right-hander Josh Tomlin face lefty swinging slugger David Ortiz.

Yes, we know Ortiz was 0-for-10 lifetime against Tomlin, but he also said prior to throwing one pitch, that the right move was to put the big slugger on.

Two pitches later, Ortiz hit a two-run homer and a 1-0 deficit was now 3-0.  And the way Boston starter Jon Lester was pitching, it seemed the game was over.

The next night, Francona brought Cody Allen, who everyone agrees has been a tad overworked this season into a game with Cleveland trailing 9-3.  The thought obviously was to get the closer some work since he hadn’t pitched since the previous Sunday.

Allen gave up a dinger to the first batter he faced and wound up throwing 21 pitches in a game he didn’t need to throw in.

The point is this, even though Tito has enjoyed tremendous success, he’s still a baseball manager, and that means he is not perfect.

This season, he has overused his bullpen at times.  We have no qualms in trying to win any game you have a chance, but there are games the Tribe is losing where he will use Bryan Shaw and even Allen to keep the Indians within one of two runs.  The way his relief corps in set up, he doesn’t have that luxury.

He should use guys like John Axford, Carlos Carrasco, and others in those situations and if they can’t get the job done, they should be replaced.

Francona has also fallen into the veteran skippers’ plight, that is, not being confident in young players.  When Jesus Aguilar was sent back to Columbus this latest time, Tito said thought the rookie never got comfortable here.  Perhaps that’s because he was playing once every five days.

He could’ve played him everyday in place of slumping hitters like Jason Giambi and Ryan Raburn, neither of whom hammered the ball when they were in the lineup, but he felt more comfortable with the vets.

He needs to realize that, yes he won 92 games with these guys last year, but this is a new season, and the way this team is put together, they need production from every player on the roster.

There is no question that Terry Francona is the best manager the Tribe has had in a long time.  However, he’s human.  Not every move he makes is golden.  That’s just baseball.

We hate the second guess, but there are moves that deserve questioning.

KM