Great Moments in Exciting the Fan Base

MooseinOhio has a friend named Mike, who has followed the Indians for decades and decades. His friend reacted somewhat colorfully to the news of the Cliff Lee trade, and all involved were gracious enough to share that reaction with the rest of us:

Only Cleveland would trade the reigning Cy Young Pitcher who is currently performing as one the game’s best for 2 minor leaguers on the DL and not even asking for the team’s best prospect . . . What crap . . . If folks in Cleveland fall for this, then they deserve crappy teams . . . Charlie Manuel has discovered how to get what he wants from Shapiro, put on another team’s uniform! Did somebody put a gun to Shapiro’s head . . .

This is like Cleveland and Philly had a joint picnic . . . Cleveland brought ribs chicken steaks and baked beans . . . Philly brought some red kool-aid, generic potato chips and a quart of potato salad from Wal Mart, with a bad date.


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George
14 years ago

I think that was the exact same sentiment in cleveland when they traded Bartolo Colon for some no-name prospects a few years ago.

But as a Phillies fan, I’m thrilled with the trade.  Marson is the only guy that I’m really sad about losing.  He’ll be a good, but not great catcher for a lot of years.  It’s not that he’s the prize of the trade, but there are, what, 8 good catchers in the majors, he has a chance to be one.

Ron
14 years ago

Welcome to baseball, Kansas City Royals-style.  Prepare to endure 15 losing seasons, 100-loss seasons, and no hope of every actually being competitive again.

Brad
14 years ago

George is right about the sentiments in Cleveland.  Fans complain every time a “name” player is traded for prospects no matter who the player is or who the prospects are.  You’d think after years of watching Shapiro fleece other GM’s for prospects they’d give him the benefit of the doubt, but I guess not.

Jake
14 years ago

Until that !&#$ ugly mascot is gone, I have no sympathy.

Brad
14 years ago

Besides the Colon and Broussard trades, he also got Travis Hafner for Ryan Drese/Einar Diaze and Asdrubal Cabrera for Eduardo Perez.  Those are four quite lopsided trades, which is why Shapiro’s reputation on trading for prosepects is very high.  That doesn’t even include last year’s trade of two months of Case Blake for Carlos Santana, probably the best catching prospect in the majors.  And time will tell on the CC trade, but LaPorta and Brantley are already looking good.

Shapiro hasn’t been nearly as good drafting, of course.  You’ll get no argument here.  But a list of players he “missed”, like you made above, can be made for every single GM in baseball, so you’re not proving much there.  We all know drafting is an inexact science.

And the Indians have won 90+ games two of the past five years, which is pretty good for a mid-market team.

RJK
14 years ago

Shapiro has been fleecing other GMs around the league?  I’m not so sure on that one.  The Colon deal was a nice one, but he fleeced Minaya, which increasingly appears like a relatively easy task.  Other than that, who has he fleeced?  The Choo deal was good since he is clearly more useful than Broussard, but under Shapiro’s watch I don’t exactly the Tribe being loaded with talent.  Shapiro essentially gave Brandon Phillips to the Reds. 

With Shapiro at the helm, the Indians have made the postseason once.  In that time, they have had two winning records.  Finally, the draft (since ‘02) has yielded one everyday (sort of) major league pitcher- Jeremy Guthrie and one marginal player- Ben Francisco.  That’s hardly a dominant track record.  By the way, in Shapiro’s ‘02 draft, after he took Guthrie (#22), Matt Cain, Jon Lester, Joey Votto, Brian MCann and Jon Broxton were all drafted in the 2nd round.