Occasionally you stumble across a story or column that prompts thought. So it was with Joe Posnanski’s story on SI.com about Pittsburgh’s 17 consecutive losing seasons. Maybe I’m prejudiced toward Posnanski, because he’s a Cleveland guy. He and I also sat next to each other a few years back while covering a Ryder Cup in Valderrama, Spain, (sat next to each other when we weren’t stalking the course, of course). This was an assignment that on many levels was wonderful but in some ways was hell on earth because of logistics, etc. Long story.
In his research, Posnanski discovered that the Orioles have had 12 losing seasons in a row, and that the Reds were on the verge of their ninth. The Royals have more losses the past 17 years than Pittsburgh, and one winning season the past 15. He found several other teams that broke long streaks of consecutive losing seasons, and points out that there have been “20 streaks in baseball history where a team finished below .500 for 10 or more seasons in a row — and a quarter of those have come in the last decade.”
What to make of this?
His key point is this: “The truth is, there just aren't as many ways for a Pittsburgh or Kansas City or Cincinnati to turn things around. They can't compete for the best players in free agency — and what's worse is that because they can't compete for the Sabathias and Teixeiras and Beltrans, it becomes tempting to overpay for second-tier free agents like Jose Guillen or Danys Baez or Jeff Suppan. Those kinds of mistakes can devastate a small-revenue team. The draft is a pretty expensive spin of the roulette wheel. The richer teams spend more scouting and signing players all over the world. For those small-revenue teams, the walls are always closing in.”
Nobody likes to hear about market size and all that kind of stuff, but it’s reality. Especially in a system like baseball’s that encourages so much disparity.
Perhaps the Indians sufferings of the past two seasons should be taken, then, in a broader perspective. Yes, things have been bad the last two years, but this team has had 10 winning seasons while Pittsburgh has had none. Eight of Cleveland’s winning seasons came in the run of the ‘90s. But in the last 17 years, the longest streak of non-winning seasons was three, which came during the rebuild of 2002-04. That resulted in a winning seasons in 2005 and ’07.
Unfortunately the collapse of the last two seasons followed. It would seem like a lot of jobs will ride on how the next rebuild goes.
This not to say that the Indians deserve praise because they haven’t stunk like Pittsburgh or Kansas City. There’s no joy in saying: “Hoo hoo, we don’t suck!”
But … the reality of the situation also can’t be ignored.
Think these facts will shut up the local whiners? No chance. Too bad we can't ship them all to KC, Pitt, or Cincy. They'd soon realize that they've had it pretty darn good for living in the 2nd poorest city in America.
Okay, okay, so it's not all that bad when you look at the big picture. But, on a personal level, my anger is based on the 2008/09 collapses following the inexcusable 2007 playoff fold. Even if the Indians had gone on to lose the 2007 World Series, at least we would have the satisfaction of leaving the revenue-rich Yankees and Red Sox eating our dust. It didn't happen, and then things fell apart.
It's a lot easier to cope with a rebuild when you've got the golden glow of a recent playoff success to live off of.
Good points, all.
But it's really hard to make it down to blog #3 on the Ohio.Com blogroll when the top one is headlined by "Pup fascinated with underpants"
I just can't get past the fact that we weren't rolling out the big bucks in 2007 and made it to the ALCS. I also can't look past the fact that the Indians are in a mediocre division that could be winnable by any of the five teams that are in it. Everyone in the AL Central is in contention on day one – its just takes some special talent to screw it up bad enough in the first two months like the Indians did this season to ruin those chances.
I do feel bad for the Pirates – because I know someone in their organization – and for KC and Cincinnati. But its never going to change until there's a salary cap and the field is evened out across the board. For me, its just not fun to watch the same teams/golfers/NASCAR drivers win over and over and over again. Even if I have a hometown team to pull for.
I agree about that underpants comment thing. Newspapers are already walking corpses, but even the Internet isn't going to salvage the little of what's left when they've been reduced to printing pooch porn. No wonder my dogs' paws are always sticky:
"Savoring and chewing over your dainties is as close to you as your dog is ever going to get without becoming you. Just understand your underpants hold scents that are the essence of you — a dear dog's delight. Why should your well-behaved cocker spaniel chomp into your boyfriend's briefs when he can chow down on yummy panties containing secrets of the goddess who rescued him?"
I need a shower. Or a cigarette.
It's so funny how Mr. Dolan is slammed-to-the-max when he just tries to be honest with local fans, telling them that in the last five years, the Tribe "should" have won a World Series in 2007 and came within an eyelash of the playoffs in 2005…and in a market like this, that's as good as it gets. I mean, what was wrong with that logic? Are Clevelanders so stupid that they think playoffs and a World Series appearance "should" be an ANNUAL thing?
Try living in Baltimore, Toronto, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Oakland, Pittsburgh….where the owners could easily say: "Sorry, no .500 season again this year, no playoffs, no World Series, no hope, and no future."
I completely agree with Alan T. when he says that Tribe "fans" are among the absolute worst in all of baseball. And may I just add, the dumbest.
Small-market teams can't afford to scout like the big clubs? Horse apples. Posnanski– and to the degree that you accept his reasoning, you– are both full of unrefined manure.
Scouts cost (counting salary and all expenses) less than the major league minimum. You can get six good ones for the annual cost of one mediocre free agent. If they find you one major-leaguer every three years, they're more than worth the money.
It's even less expensive to run a Latin American operation– you can sign 50 teenagers for pesos. Even if 47 of them bust out, you're still making out.
And yet, the teams that suck, year in and year out, always have the smallest scouting staffs. But they always have money to waste on signing cadavers to big-bucks contracts.
Two years ago, Kansas City signed Jose Guillen $36 million for three years. Two years and $24 Big Ones later, he's hit .257 (702 OPS) in 950 at-bats. That $24 million would have run the finest scouting operation in baseball for 5-10 years.
This year they acquired Yuniesky Betancourt– one of the worst players in baseball. They gave up two prospects–and took on about $7 million in salary until 2011– to get a player with a .690 OPS.
In 2006, Pittsburgh handed Damaso Marte– a 30-year-old middle reliever– $6 million. A year later, they traded for the $11 million contract of Matt Morris (32 and at the point of his career where he was an "innings-eater").
Posnanski's vintage whine dismisses the possibility of teams using the Moneyball approach, because teams like Boston and New York pay better. He fails to mention that Kansas City was the home of Bill James– the guy who started crunching all those numbers.
He fails to mention that more than one Kansas City media outlet suggested that the Royals talk to James (who was a diehard fan) and that the Royals disparaged James's work for close to two decades.
Eventually the Red Sox picked him up for chump change (a lot less than the major-league minimum). And his first recommendation, according to 60 Minutes, was "you guys ought to sign this David Ortiz guy who just got cut by the Twins".
For what the Indians have wasted on Trot Nixon, Jason Michaels, David Dellucci, Jason Johnson, Mas Kpbayashi, et al., they could have scouts in every country in Latin America (where they get most of their good players). For what the Orioles have wasted on overpriced free agents, they could own a couple of those countries.
Yes, it's quite difficult to compete with teams who can outspend you by 5-600%. But when small-market teams don't use the strategies that permit them to compete more efficiently– when they imitate the most self-destructive and useless strategies of the big teams– it's hard to have any sympathy for them.
Maybe Bill James and David Ortiz shop at the same Internet pharmacy, because James was no soothsayer on that one. Lucky pharmaceutical guess.
I have a much better idea than paying some dude to watch some Peruvian kid play stickball. Teams with traditionally lousy pitching should pound the pavement and search Third World hospital birth records for babies born with birth defects. Specifically, extra fingers. Beginning at the age of 4, teach them how to throw a slider and a curveball. By the time they turn 20, they'll be virtually unhittable.
Santonio Alfonso Gomeiquez, the new pitching ace of the 2026 Cleveland Indians, master of the six-finger sinker.