New Minority Owner For Guards, New Hope For Fans

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced it Thursday, the Cleveland Guardians have a new minority owner in David Blitzer, who reportedly owns about 25% of the team.

This should be good news for baseball fans in northeast Ohio, although it did bring out a number of the Dolan defenders on social media.

Let’s face it, for most of the time the Dolan family have owned the team, they have been run on a shoestring budget. And since we are firmly in the camp that no Major League Baseball team is struggling to stay solvent, that means the Cleveland owners have made a lot of money having the Indians/Guardians as an asset.

Does the family have some positive attributes as owners? Of course. They are notoriously great in hiring good management and letting the baseball people run the organization. Team president Chris Antonetti and his front office are the envy of many teams, and recently, other organizations have targeted the Cleveland baseball people for high management roles.

You have to think the owners do step in when it comes time to pay the better players who were drafted and/or developed by the baseball people when the time comes.

Since the Dolans’ have controlled the purse strings, the franchise has traded C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Victor Martinez, and Francisco Lindor because the team would not pay the going rate for talent like theirs.

Defenders point to the Jose Ramirez deal as proof the owners were willing to spend, but as we have said before, we can’t give the Dolans credit for Ramirez staying. They were lucky that one of the best players in the sport decided to leave a considerable amount of cash on the table to stay with the franchise.

No doubt the atmosphere, created by the folks the owner hired, was important to Ramirez, but if Ramirez had wanted to be paid like the superstar he is, he’d be wearing a different uniform today.

It isn’t just spending on players’ salaries that has been lacking by the current ownership. Hopefully Blitzer, who has been involved in professional sports for some time, talks to the controlling owners about doing a better job promoting and marketing the Guardians.

The Dolans have complained about attendance, but it has seemed for years that their belief seems to be winning is the only thing that matters. The local television ratings have been among the best in the sport, but it doesn’t translate to putting folks in the stands.

Has anyone ever bothered to find out why?

There are also reports that Blitzer has plans to develop the area around Progressive Field in order to bring in money from other areas. This is similar to what the St. Louis Cardinals’ ownership did.

Quite frankly, it seems like a great idea.

We would also like to see a more fun gameday experience at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. Professional sports are entertainment and going to a game should be a fun time and affordable for families.

Get fans in the park, show them a good, fun time, and they will come back, particularly if the team in winning, that’s seems to have been ignored for some time with the Cleveland franchise.

So, forgive us if we aren’t holding a parade in honor of Larry and Paul Dolan. On the other hand, here’s hoping having a new minority owner means the pocketbook will open up more often.

At least, it is encouraging off the field news for the Cleveland baseball franchise. It’s been a while since that could be said.

2005 Tribe: A Missed Opportunity

In the wild card era of Major League Baseball, the Cleveland Indians have certainly had a great deal of success.

They’ve won three American League pennants (’95, ’97, and 2016). They advanced to the AL Championship Series twice more, losing in 1998 and 2007.

And they’ve went to the post-season more than any other American League team, save for the big market behemoths New York and Boston.

Of the team’s that didn’t make the post-season, the one team that kind of gets overlooked is the 2005 edition of the Indians, managed by Eric Wedge.

The Tribe finished the ’04 campaign at 80-82, and their biggest move of the off-season going into ’05 was probably inking Kevin Millwood as a free agent, although the veteran right-hander was coming off an injury plagued season with the Phillies, throwing only 145 innings.

GM Mark Shapiro also traded OF Matt Lawton to Pittsburgh to fortify the bullpen, getting LHP Arthur Rhodes.

It was the fourth year of a rebuild that started following the 2001 season, when Shapiro dealt Roberto Alomar to New York. By this time, the last remnants of the great 90’s teams were gone via free agency, Jim Thome to Philadelphia following 2002, and Omar Vizquel over the winter.

So, there weren’t big expectations on the Tribe coming into the 2005 season.

And that was confirmed early in the year, and the Indians closed April at 9-14, while the Chicago White Sox started red hot, opening at 17-7.

On May 8th, Cleveland was sitting at 12-18, 11-1/2 games behind the front running White Sox, and the defending champion Central Division champions in Minnesota were also playing well at 19-11.

Wedge’s squad started to play better at this point, going 35-23 to the All Star break, to sit at 47-41, still 11 games behind Chicago, who went through the first half on a torrid pace (57-29), but the Indians were clearly in the wild card race, just two games behind Minnesota.

At the point, Baltimore, Texas, New York, and the young Wahoos, who only had two players over 30 getting substantial playing time (Aaron Boone and Casey Blake), were very much in the race.

Cleveland was paced by their pitching, they wound up leading the AL in ERA, mostly a five man rotation that made all but four starts all season.

Millwood led the league in ERA at 2.86, but he, Jake Westbrook (15-15, 4.49 ERA), C.C. Sabathia (15-10, 4.03), Cliff Lee (18-5, 3.79), and Scott Elarton (11-9, 4.61) took the mound every fifth day.

The bullpen was strong too, led by closer Bob Wickman (45 saves) and set up men Bob Howry (2.47 ERA), Rafael Betancourt (2.79 ERA), David Riske (3.10 ERA).

The offense ranked 4th in runs scored, with big years from Travis Hafner (.305, 33 HR, 108 RBI, 1003 OPS), Jhonny Peralta (.292, 24, 78 885 OPS), Victor Martinez (.305, 20, 80, 853 OPS), and Grady Sizemore (.289, 22, 81, 832 OPS).

All of those guys were under 28, and Peralta was 23, while Sizemore was 22.

Cleveland struggled out of the break and finished July at 55-51, 14.5 behind the Pale Hose, and now four behind Oakland, who got hot and seized the wild card lead.

Then, it was the Tribe’s turn to get hot, going 19-8 in August, while the Sox came back to the pack. The lead was seven games heading into September, and the wild card deficit was down to 1.5 behind the Yankees, who were also scolding hot.

The Indians started September 18-4, and after games on 9/24, the Tribe was just a game and a half behind Chicago, and held a game and a half lead in the wild card standings. They had the second best record in the AL at 92-63.

Unfortunately, they would win just one more game the rest of the year.

On the 25th, with the score tied in the bottom of the ninth, and Kansas City had a runner on second with one out, when Paul Phillips hit a fly ball that Grady Sizemore lost in the sun, and the Royals won 5-4.

Chicago and Boston won, so Cleveland trailed Chicago by 2.5 and led the wild card by just a half game, with a three game set at home vs. lowly Tampa coming up.

The Tribe dropped the opener to Scott Kazmir, who was staked to an early 5-0 lead, before the Indians clawed back at trailed 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth with runners on 1st and 3rd with just one out. Ronnie Belliard hit into a double play.

Cleveland was shutout the next night by Seth McClung, 1-0, wasting a great pitching performance by Lee, before Sabathia and Betancourt blanked the Rays, 6-0.

Heading into the final weekend at home vs. Chicago, the Tribe was 3 behind the Sox, and tied with Boston for the wild card.

The Indians mustered just 6 runs against the Sox in the three games, losing by counts of 3-2 (in 13 innings), 4-3, and 3-1. The Tribe tied the first game in the bottom of the ninth, but another double play ball, this one off the bat of Boone, killed the rally.

Cleveland wound up missing the wild card by two games. The White Sox won the pennant and ultimately the World Series.

Another frustrating chapter of baseball in our city.

Big Week For Tribe Leading To Break

The All Star break is a little over a week away for the Cleveland Indians, and it will be a very important stretch for the hometown nine.

First, of the 11 games Cleveland has leading into the break, eight of them are at Progressive Field, where Terry Francona’s team has been mediocre at best, with a record of 17-21 to date.

Second, seven of the contests are against Central Division rivals, the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers are sitting at 34-43 on the season, six and a half games behind the Indians for the division, and six games out of a wild card spot.

Success against the Motor City Kitties over the next two weekends would pretty much eliminate the Tigers from overtaking the Tribe, and it would probably cause them to be sellers at the July 31st trade deadline.

The Indians also have a three game series at home against the lowly San Diego Padres, who are sitting at 32-46 coming into today.

It appears the Tribe is sitting in a good spot to perhaps take command of the AL Central if they can play well going into the break.

However, outside of last year when Francona’s squad went 14-4 against the Tigers, Detroit has dominated the Tribe and has won four of the six games to date this year.

Cleveland scored half of their runs against the Tigers in one game, a 13-6 win for the Indians in April. The Tribe has scored three runs or less in four of the six contests between the two teams this season.

Conversely, Mike Matheny’s team has scored five or more runs in four out of six games.

The middle of the Detroit batting order, Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, and Justin Upton have killed the Tribe, and now J.D. Martinez, who has missed all of the games between the two squads is back.

And long time Indians killer, Alex Avila is back and hitting well for Detroit. He always seems to come up with big hits against the Tribe.

Compounding this weekend’s series is a doubleheader on Saturday, which means someone from the minors, probably Ryan Merritt will start one of those games, and Corey Kluber is pitching today, so he is not available this weekend.

On the other hand, Trevor Bauer, who has been hit hard by Detroit in both starts against them in 2017 will not pitch this weekend either.

Both Kluber and Bauer will probably pitch against the Tigers at Progressive Field right before the all star break.

The other key is to start playing better at home. Cleveland’s record at Progressive Field has been mediocre to date and it is time to start playing better there.

The starting pitching, save for Josh Tomlin, seems to have righted itself, but the offense needs to pick it up, especially against the Tigers.

On this current homestand, here is the number of runs scored by the Indians: 0, 2, 0, 15, 1, 5. It’s tough to win scoring two or fewer runs in four of the six games.

Playing well these next 11 games will put the Cleveland Indians in a very good spot entering the second half of the season, which starts with six games in the Bay Area.

Beating the Tigers is a must if you want to accomplish that.