May 25, 2013

While We’re Waiting… Ending the Lerner Era

October 15, 2012 by 19 Comments

While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.

“Lerner was one of the few NFL owners who actually seemed to care about the predicament of fans, and went as far as to give them his time to discuss it. He never hesitated to spend money if he felt it would help the club. As it was, Lerner and the Browns fan base endured disappointment after disappointment, until Lerner’s promised time running the team expired, and he got out. Ultimately, his stewardship of the franchise will be remembered without much nostalgia, which is in some ways a shame. Not the least of which is that some of the prime years of my life were wasted watching really, really bad football.” [McBride/The OBR]

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Um. No. [Flickr]

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“Beyond the sheer number of carries, Hyde has impressed me with the versatility. Running the ball, he’s no longer almost seeking contact just because he’s a big back. Instead, he’s showing a little bit of Beanie as he shuffles down the line laterally looking for a seam when the designed hole isn’t there. One particular instance of this occurred on 2nd and 8 of OSU’s 2nd possession of the night when he slid down the line to find a seam and peeled off 12 yards when it looked like the play would be stopped for no gain. (Disclaimer: In no way shape or form am I’m saying Hyde is Beanie-esque (for both good and bad reasons) but this evolving piece of his game is in the Beanie mold.)

Another sign of Hyde’s emergence is how he approaches the second level. Last year, in the event he got through the line of scrimmage, he tried to live up to the big back expectation and just run over guys. Now, thanks to Urban challenging him to be shiftier, Hyde looks to juke the oncoming tacklers and he’s had some impressive results. He showed fine moves on a few big gainers that started between the tackles, including showing some nifty shakes on the 33-yard run just before his one yard plunge made it 45-27 Buckeyes early in the 4th quarter.” [Lauderback/Eleven Warriors]

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“For an ambitious, well-run franchise, a splashy managerial hire would just be the first move of an exciting off-season that gets fans pumped for pitchers and catchers to report in February. But the Indians under the Dolan ownership are not known for such adventurousness, due to their own payroll restrictions and the undeniably unfair financial f***ery of baseball as a whole.

Still, bringing in Francona simply cannot be the Indians’ only major move of the winter. Either open up the vault a crack or blow the thing up to replenish the bone-dry minors. A few Kotchman-esque bandages will not stop the team from bleeding attendance. Nor will it drag the eyes of Cleveland from the dark corner where the Paranoia Monster waits, ever hungry.” [Cleveland Sports Torture]

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“From the get-go, Tristan Thompson was the most impressive player on the floor. He was aggressive on both ends of the floor, putting up 18 points, 10 rebounds (8 offensive!), 4 blocks, and shooting 6-7 from the free throw line. He was insanely active on the offensive boards, overpowering or over-jumping the Wizard boxing him out time and time again. Of course, that probably has something to do with the fact that the frontcourt he was going up against consisted of Jan Vesely, Kevin Seraphin and Shavlik Randolph. But, hey- 8 offensive rebounds is impressive regardless. By the way, I checked it out and Shavlik Randolph, does, in fact, appear to be a real person.” [Socher/Cavs the Blog]

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  • Natedawg86

    Those unis almost made me throw up in my mouth

  • Hopwin

    I thought you guys had a profanity policy? Financial ****ery of baseball?

  • zwrose

    was thinking the same thing…I’m guessing that one slipped through?

  • Garry_Owen

    I’m all for blowing up the Indians and starting over. “Everything must go” firesale (with some minor exclusions – e.g., Kipnis). Not sure that Francona is, though, nor the guy for that job.

  • BenRM

    I hope people don’t wax too nostalgic about Lehner. He wasn’t a bad guy, but his disdain for the day-to-day operations of the team has caused us all to have a very rough decade.

  • mgbode

    i was thinking they looked like “the U” uniforms and then noticed the username is “southbeach”

    yeah, they are terrible and nothing from southbeach is welcome on the north coast.

  • mgbode

    I would be except I am not sure that the Indians fans as a whole would be down with that plan. The 2008/09 trades coupled with the current rebuild being a failure has put the team at a crossroads. In almost any normal scenario, I would be saying to chop this thing to pieces and start over, but I think that bringing in Francona shows the FO realizes the fans want some semblence of success now.

    I fully expect them to go out and spend $20-30mil in FA. It won’t get the payroll any (or much) higher than the past but it will “seem” like they are spending. The key will be what they do with Perez and Choo. If they do trade them, then they need to make sure they get good pieces back that can help the 2013 team. Teams like Texas, SF, and Anaheim might have those pieces.

    We’ll see but it should be a “loud” offseason (either from the fans, FO, or both)

  • mgbode

    someone will read that line on TT and only think about how his defensive rebounding troubles are continuing.

  • The_Matt_Of_Akron

    “Ultimately, his stewardship of the franchise will be remembered without
    much nostalgia, which is in some ways a shame. Not the least of which is
    that some of the prime years of my life were wasted watching really,
    really bad football.”

    When I diagram this sentence, I keep coming up with “There are some ways we should remember Lerner with nostalgia. One of those ways (not the least one) is because of all the bad football.”

    I hope the author is just terrible at grammar, and not actually promoting: “We should remember fondly all the bad football Randy Lerner gave us.”

  • The_Matt_Of_Akron

    Also, are those uniforms some kind of joke?

  • Garry_Owen

    Maybe most fans see this the way we do? I think anything short of a demolition (or blockbuster acquisitions – which we clearly aren’t going to do) might just give the impression of “business as usual” – which is the basis of the apathy.

    The “major” guys I’m willing to part with right now if it will make us better:
    Choo
    Perez
    Hafner
    Cabrera
    Carmona/Hernandez
    Any/all of the other “hangers on” (Kotchman, etc.)

    That might not be saying much, but I’d get rid of all of them if I though we could substantially improve even our farm system.

    The only ones that I think we “need” to keep:
    Kipnis
    Chisenhall
    Masterson (though I could be convinced otherwise)
    Brantley

    I’d be willing to start with these 4 guys as a base (Ground Zero, as it is) for rebuilding.

  • http://www.waitingfornextyear.com Craig Lyndall

    Whoops!

  • dwhit110

    Keeping in mind that Hafner and Carm-nandez are both under team options and likely to walk since they’re value to the team is not commiserate with the salaries that they’re making…

  • mgbode

    If that is all we are “giving” up, then I think we could potentially do both. As dwhit mentions, there is a good possibility that Hafner & Carmona-Hernandez are opted out of next years team.

    Perez honestly doesn’t affect the 2013 all that much if we get something decent back for him (in fact, it likely would be a net gain as we do have some bullpen depth potentially).

    Choo is our offensive weapon. That one will hurt. But, it’s also a move that we have to do. I am honestly hoping that Boston over-reacts to this season and gives Josh Hamilton silly money. That will open the door for Texas (and their rich farm system and guys on the 40man) to make a move for Choo. SF is the other option if they feel they need to “replace” Melky.

    Asdrubal is interesting. He is a minus at SS defensively. He is a decent bat in our lineup. He wouldn’t be easy to replace, but it really depends on what we get for him.

    ———————————

    if we spend money, then I would expect our main target list to include some guys like this:

    Mike Napoli (C/1B – forms a nice little C/1B/DH rotation with him and Santana and whoever else needs a day off).

    Angel Pagan – under-appreciated guy. Good speed, moves Brantley to LF.

    Carlos Lee – 1B w/ better bat but worse glove than Kotchman. Wait, that’s pretty much all other 1B. Anyways.

    Stephen Drew – if we do trade Asdrubal, then we’ll need a new SS. any A`s FA is a potential guy they have to let go (just like ours in most years)

    BJ Upton, Shane Victorino, Cody Ross – some OFer is going to slip through the initial signing cracks and hopefully we can be “in-play” for them.

    and then the pitchers:

    Blanton – though LAD may keep him
    Maholm – very under-rated IMO.
    Edwin Jackson – we do “need” a fireballer.
    Bedard – not great, but has been decent over the years and is only 34
    McCarthy – hey, I doubt it too, but maybe teams will get scared off by his injury history?

    Anibal Sanchez – I really doubt Detroit let’s him go.

    others suggested Dan Haren but I don’t see it. he had a bad back for the 1st half of 2012, but recovered and looked very good down the stretch. I don’t think there is any way that the Angels do not re-sign him. and, if they don’t. a team like the Yankees would likely swoop in.

    The guy I would “love” and I don’t think he gets enough respect, but I also think that there are enough savvy MLB teams that someone will notice him and properly pay him if not the Brewers themselves:

    Shaun Marcum

  • mgbode

    pitchers to run away from:

    Correia, Baker, Colon, De La Roasa, Harden, Liriano, Jonathan Sanchez, Carlos Villanueava, Fandy Wolf, and Carlos Zambrano (along with our own Fausto-Roberto).

  • Garry_Owen

    Are you sure you want to be the Browns coach? Why not the Indians GM? This is good stuff. Interested in doing both?

  • mgbode

    I will take either job :)

    I would prefer the Indians GM job if it came down to it. The “taking down the giant” in that with the Indians you are fighting both the teams in MLB as well as the MLB system itself is really appealing to the Clevelander that lives inside me.

  • Natedawg86

    Funny of all the nice things to look at in southbeach, this is what made it back to CLE.

  • Natedawg86

    I am afraid that has already happened throughout the last decade my friend… I agree with the later posts though. Blow it up, keep the key pieces, and take some risks in FA. Majority of our prospects are 17-18 and still have a few years before they will be up, and maybe we could find a few more base peices so that we are more competitive going into the window that these guys should be ripening.