Here's some national takes on the Indians trade of Cliff Lee.
General consensus is that though the Indians got some talent, they didn't get enough for the reigning Cy Young winner, whom they traded for the second year in a row. Ahem.
SI was positive about the trade. "Those four players should quickly help the depleted Indians retool in what has been, along with the NL West, the most mediocre division in baseball in recent years (both of those divisions have placed four different teams in the postseason over the past three years)."
ESPN's Jayson Stark said the Phillies did not even ask about Lee until this week and were surprised at the Indians interest in trading him. That is quite a change from the previous statements that the Indians had to be bowled over to make a trade. Wrote Stark: "The Indians have done extensive studies of deals like this and found that teams which concentrate on 'big league-ready' prospects as the centerpieces of these trades often make out the worst. Cleveland aims for upside — and it ranked 18-year-old smokeballer Jason Knapp as having the highest ceiling of any arm in the Phillies' system, including (Kyle) Drabek's."
Meanwhile, the Phillies players gave their General Manager a standing ovation when he walked into the clubhouse Wednesday night.
Fox's Gerry Fraley, one of the best baseball writers in the country, wrote: "Ruben Amaro Jr., Philadelphia's rookie general manager, earned the National League executive-of-the-year award Wednesday." He adds: "For Cleveland, Knapp is the key to the deal. Knapp has unharnessed power, but he is also 18 years old and in the low Class A South Atlantic League. Many potential pitfalls await in his development."
And letsgotribe.com offers this about these kind of trades that we in Cleveland have become all too accustomed to seeing: "They work, and nobody in the business does them better than Shapiro. The Indians have problems, maybe systemic failures, maybe incurable incompetencies. But this isn't one of them. There is no question that deals like this have been highly effective for the Indians, even if little else has gone right."
Finally, fangraphs.com states simply: "Sorry Cleveland – you got hosed here. This is just not a good deal for the Indians in any way, shape, or form. Ruben Amaro just cleaned Mark Shapiro’s clock on this trade."
For crying out loud.
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"There is no question that deals like this have been highly effective for the Indians, even if little else has gone right."
that could be one of the dumbest sentences i've ever read.
"rookie general manager"… wow.
What was that about 18 years of experience?
Terje,
I agree…but it is a blog, so what can we expect. Not that blogs are bad, but Pat at least has credentials. What is letsgotribe.com's creator's credentials? And if they are publicly known, and/or posted on the site, sorry, but I don't care, not linking to it ever.
How revealing was Shapiro's comment that his bosses asked the correct question, "Do you feel we can contend in 2010?"…..and his answer became the impetus for this trade. The team that Shapiro has spent a decade in assembling, grooming, touting….a full year away, he is able to say, NO, we are not close to being a playoff contender in '10; let's trade away our #1 pitcher.
I don't fault anyone for this mess besides Mark Shapiro and the men he has hired to develop our talent, both at the major and minor league level. The talent evaluation is non-existent. Otherwise, we'd never have had Dellucci, Shoppach, Marte, Lawton, Gutierrez, Jason Johnson, Mota, Rhodes, Michaels and other castoffs on this roster. And the re-signing of Hafner to the mind-boggling contract, when he had not hit for over a YEAR, is grounds itself for immediate termination.
Great points Jason…
I would not say Shapiro got his clock cleaned. It is not a great deal – now. Who knows in a year or two what the results will be. The Tribe, by virtue of their terrible season and the tight margins in which they operate, have little margin for error. Shaprio helped get us in this mess and it attempting to get us out of it. I would rather see a new manager at this point than call for Shapiro's head.
Jason, go back and read the various columns from the various local columnists when those big contracts were signed. They echoed local public sentiment. When it comes to this stuff, folks seem to have selective memories.
By the way, for some reason, Shapiro's very own peers voted him Executive of the Year in both 2005 and 2007. That guy would be hired within two days if he was fired. Stupid trade, but I'd really like to have been a fly in the wall in Dolan's office when he gave the order.
I meant I would have liked to have been a fly ON the wall. If a fly was in the wall, then it's probably dead.
hell, if i'm an mlb executive i'd give shapiro the vote too! keep em' coming markie. i'll gladly sell you a bag of schwag for your gold wristwatch! who knows, amaro might give him a series ring too!
I guess I have a slightly different perspective about these trades. I understand about Cleveland being a small or mid-market team that cannot afford to keep players who are going to command high dollar contracts. At least they got something in return. Remember – Belle, Thome, Rameriz?
What bothers me the most is the lack of hustle I have seen this year. I went to two White Sox games at the end of June and only Choo was running out ground balls. Heck, even Grady was dogging it. He hit six grounders to second in those two games. One was kicked by the 2nd baseman who still had time to throw him out! Perlata, Shoppach, Francisco – all of them were not hustling.
To me that is a direct reflection on the manager and coaches. Fundementally this team is very lax. Shoppach throws the ball into the OF on steals, misses balls at the plate and strikes out 1 out of every two times up. He still plays!
I have been a fan for 50+ years, but if Wedge and the coaches come back next year, I won't go to any games. Something has got to change!
Terry, *of course* he runs out ground balls, his name is "Choo."
In this day and age of spin Shapiro has to be at the top. Who else would say a pitcher with an era of 5.18 in the minors can in short order be a part of their rotation and a position player with an average of .236 in the minors is close to major league ready. At this rate Carrasco with an era of 7.29 should fit in well with the rest of the Cleveland staff in the bigs and Donald can you say batting average .197 when he comes up major league ready. 2010? Ha! With these stats can you say 2012.
What you've just written is all true, but there is absolutely no difference between this and Ferry selecting that guy from the jungle. Total money move with no intention to ever pay them major league dollars. If they ever make it to the majors, it's a bonus.
Of course, if Indians fans didn't suck and actually attended games, we wouldn't be screaming, because this never would have happened. Seems ironic. If the Indians are like most major league teams, and they are, if they ever call them up, they'll bring him up to the majors on or after the 13th day of the season just so they can rob the guy of a year of service time to delay a year to qualify for salary arbitration.
the fans suck???? why would anyone want to see the shapiro/wedge indians??? i'd rather see mtv's real world on ice than watch that twitching fool and his roster of "grinders". wedge has been garbage since day one and the ginger is dolan's drunk monkey.
the hafner signing is the preeminent bonehead signing in the last decade of cleveland sports, eclipsing every stupid move danny ferry has made ten times over. the guy had a bum elbow when he signed that deal. any fool could have predicted trav's demise. a smart g.m. (which shapiro obviously is not because he wasn't even bright enough to wait out the phillies until tomorrow) would have made philly or whoever was bidding take hafner if they wanted lee and accepted much less in return. getting that dead weight off the roster would have been a brilliant move. you could buy a dozen grinders for that kind of dough.
and yes, i know that trav is too much of an invalid to play in the n.l.—making his signing even that more more braindead.
That Hafner signing was a calculated risk calculated wrong. And don't discount the 'roids factor. Hell, you should go back and read Terry Pluto's rah-rah column imploring Shapiro to sign him for whatever it took. Again, it's selective memory around here.
And granted, Wedge's Bugs Bunny rabbit twitch isn't very attractive. But what was wrong with the 2005 and 2007 teams? They were missing the steroid-bloated guys from 1995 and 1997, but that's the only noticeable difference. So why didn't Cleveland's purported Indians fans spend money to attend games to see excellent teams? Answer: Indians fans suck.
Here's what I think is going on, but without the benefit of Jacobs' shiny new stadium. Lower expectations and the payroll to zero for the next three years. Then build for 2012, or so. Just like Jacobs' penny-pinching did in building for 1994.
the main problem with the 2005 and 2007 teams are that they were managed by wedge.
you know i don't ever discount steroids when it comes to hafner. but his elbow was an obvious problem. hmm…let's see. a dh who can't play first because of a bad elbow, a big contract and no chance in hell you could dish him to an n.l. team if you need to move him…..calculated? i get zero no matter how many times i do the math. i was not one of those guys who ever thought that was a good plan. that's on shapiro. one of his many failures as indians g.m. and by far his biggest failure.
i was an indians fan for years (notice the "was" because after the lee trade i'm done with this crap) and although i haven't seen a game in cleveland since 1995 i've seen a lot of spring training. there's a noticeable difference between the way shapiro and wedge do business and the way it was done during charlie and before. i haven't been back to spring training in about three years. why? because the team blows hairy coconuts from top to bottom. eric wedge makes my stomach churn. obviously there are many others who feel the same way as me and i have no doubt that the drop in attendance is at least in part affected by the ginger bast–d and his nervous twitch.
Still, the Hafner signing was calculated. Look at his statistics. Look at the relative absence of any other power hitters on the roster. Power hitters are the guys that sell tickets. Of course it backfired, but there was a method behind it.
And Wedge's ridiculous bunny rabbit twitch or not, it doesn't explain why they can't sell a freakin' seat to see the Red Sox or Yankees. It ain't because of Dolan, it ain't because of Shapiro, it ain't because of Wedge. It's because the Cleveland baseball market sucks, that wild aberration of power hitters combined with a brand-new stadium notwithstanding.
My most enjoyable moments watching Wedge were when he had that porn star mustache. The unintentional comedy meter went haywire for me. When combined with his rabbit twitch, he looked like a friendly beaver sniffing a bullfrog on a log.
Shortly after writing that,Pluto was seen ducking into the nearest bathroom[magazine in hand].
i agree with you that cleveland isn't much of a baseball town. but link that with a turd owner (and his s—heel son who showed his true colors with his "golf" aka "let them eat cake" comment in pittsburgh), the liar ginger who fell in love with travis hafner's elbow and twitch and you've got an ugly combo.
remember when the yankees games were promoted in the stadium days? do they still do that? as crappy as the tribe of yesteryear was i can't get rid of that mangled michael stanley band slogan "tribe 85, this is my team!". yuck.
I'm ashamed to admit I've always liked the songs "Hard Time" and "Highlife" from the "You Can't Fight Fashion" album. But yeah, that thing they did dubbing names of different cities and different sports team names into "My Town" was excruciatingly painful, causing my earwax to shoot straight through my Eustachian tubes, up through my eye sockets, and nearly perforated my brain. I'm lucky to still be alive.
Grady is not hustling cause he's hurt, but our dumbass coaches and Front Office keep playing him!!!
Oh, please. When did Sizemore's elbow travel down his leg and into his feet? If the dude is too bored to run out a ground ball, then he should stay home and watch TIVO'd reruns of "Oprah," just like every other housewife out there.
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