Finally, mercifully, the 2009 baseball season is over. The Grind has stopped. No more “Wedgespeak.” No more Tomo Ohka (please!), Niuman Romero, or Chris Gimenez. What should have been the season of dreams turned into the season of nightmares. Over, and over, and over again, the Indians failed one way or another.
In April and May, it was the bullpen. In June, it was the starting rotation and the bats. By July and August, it was the Grind that got to them, and by September, it was the youth. Month after month, day after day, they couldn’t seem to put it all together.
It was Shin-Soo Choo who put it best when he said in early August “when we pitch well, we don’t hit. When we hit, we don’t pitch.”
That, for the most part, sums up your 2009 Cleveland Indians.
The Eric Wedge era ended with a giant thud in Boston where his team was swept badly over the weekend. The the four losses, the Indians were outscored 32-15. The starting pitchers – Carlos Carrasco, Jeremy Sowers, Aaron Laffey, and Ohka – allowed a whopping 22 earned runs in 13.1 innings of work. To add insult to injury, former Tribe captain Victor Martinez crushed a grand slam Saturday off of Laffey. That was a day after Victor first spoke to the Cleveland media and referred to what is happening with the organization as “pretty sad.”
Victor is right. It is sad. But while everyone is quick to blame the Dolan’s or Mark Shapiro or Wedge, The Stik says it’s on the players. “Like I say, it’s not their fault. It’s a lot easier to blame one guy instead of 25 guys.”
What is so interesting is how many players and media members are now coming to the defense of the Grinder. Said Martinez: “All I can say is ‘thanks’ to Wedgie, the coaching staff and the Cleveland Indians. Wedgie got on me a lot. It was just for me to get better. I appreciate that a lot. I appreciate all the things he did for me.
“I used to lob the ball to third base after a strikeout. He told me: “Throw the ball. Those little things are going to help you get better.” He made me a better player, but not only myself.
“He was a manager who made sure he got everybody ready to play the game. That’s big. He lets the players take care of the things in the clubhouse. When he needed to talk, he talked. Sometimes it’s hard to hear the truth. But he’s a guy who is going to tell you the truth. It’s on you if you’re going to take it or not.”
In a column for ESPN Insider titled “Wedge not to blame for Indians misfortunes,” Peter Gammons said:
News today travels by cell phone or by satellite or over the Internet, and its immediacy demands instant gratification for questions raised. The easy part of the answer, of course, is fault. Mark Shapiro never felt that the 2009 fall of the Cleveland Indians was Eric Wedge’s fault, or that any other manager could have done better with Grady Sizemore and Jake Westbrook hurt, with Travis Hafner declining after shoulder surgery, and with an Ohio economy that after the Indians got to within a game of the 2007 World Series forced ownership to move the contracts of CC Sabathia, Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee, knowing that by the end of the 2010 season all would be gone to free agency.
More From Gammons:
When a team loses close to $20 million, when it struggles to win 70 games, when it sees attendance at The Jake dwindle from close to 43,000 a game during a much different time to 22,144 with staggering declines in both the population and job markets, someone had to go. So Wedge was offered up to the fan base.
For those of you who think Wedge will never get another job again, you are fooling yourselves. The way he handled himself through the adversity and after his firing had him coming through smelling like a rose. The guy that we all saw during that post-dismissal press conference was not the cold, bland Grinder he puts out to the public. It was the guy that the players all saw behind the closed doors of the clubhouse. He was passionate, on point, and stand-up. He took responsibility for his team’s shortcomings and ultimately knew that it was time for him to go. He could have waited until the end of the season and faded off into obscurity after his firing, but instead he chose to take it head-on and meet with the media face to face, sitting right next to the men who fired him. That says a lot about him as a man.
There will be more than one team executive that will see this and say “this is a guy we need to hire.” When Charlie Manuel left Cleveland, I was the first one who said that the country bumpkin would never get another managerial job after his failures here. Now, Charlie is a World Series champion. All it takes is one GM that is into the Grind. You know Shapiro will give him a ringing endorsement.
So the nightmare of the 2009 season is over. A new era of Indians baseball will begin with a new manager and a stripped down payroll. Get ready for a lot of kids and a lot of rebuilding over the next year or two. The good news is at least we have a team!
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We will have more on the managerial search, the positives and negatives of the team, and much, much more in several pieces this week.
Author: TD
TD is a born and bred Clevelander who agrees with ESPN's Scott Van Pelt when he says ""Ranch Dressing makes everything better except for cereal and ice cream."TD has written 253 articles for Waiting for Next Year.
If I was a team looking to hire Wedge, I would wait until May or June.
gone but not forgotten , senior wedgeworth!
Wedge is a good coach, just not a Head Coach. I think he’d be the best guy for bench coach. And, that is likely where he’ll end up.
TD-careful sir about what you say in regards to who’s fooling themselves on Wedge’s regard. You’ve always touted an overblown adoration for the man; don’t let your emotion get in the way of objectivity. You also adament that he wouldn’t get fired. (I won’t mention your projection of Chris Giminez as next year’s “uber-utility man”-why was he even in the lineup long enough to go 3/3 in strikeouts?
Temper your enthusiasm and love of all things Wedge until you see where he goes, short term and long term. Only then will we see either who’s fooling who, or who has an overblown evaluation of such.
Good post. Clever title, too.
@#3 S-Dub: dead on in your evaluation of Wedge, and that’s where he’ll end up short term and long term. He had no personality, he twitches, he’s nervous, hired substandard coaches-that could only fly with Shapiro.
“and with an Ohio economy that after the Indians got to within a game of the 2007 World Series forced ownership to move the contracts of CC Sabathia, Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee.”
hold on there peter gammons! trying to blame the Ohio economy for why the indians moved those guys is completely off base. what does the Ohio economy have to do with the twins not being able to keep johan santana (or joe mauer soon)? or the rockies holliday? or seattle felix hernandez (soon)? or toronto roy hallyday (soon) or aj burnett? or oakland dan haren? i can go on and on. and is the Ohio economy selective in that it hurts the indians but allows the Cavs to prosper?? give me a break. the reason the indians had to move those guys was because baseball has a broken system that does not allow for teams (except for NY, LA or Bos) to keep the players it develops, and NY, LA or Bos can just cherry pick whichever players it wants from any team no matter the price. of course the economy isnt helping the situation, but the fact is MLB is no longer a ticket-revenue driven league. even when the indians were selling out every game and were in contention they couldnt afford to keep manny or thome or albert belle. MLB is a cable TV market revenue driven league now, and the rest of the teams simply cant keep up with the money generated by LA, NY or Bos. THATS the reason cleveland cant keep those guys, peter gammons.
Love that Peter Gammons still calls it The Jake
gammons also said: “…a game during a much different time to 22,144 with staggering declines in both the population and job markets.”
“Reality is that when The Jake was full every night and the Indians were a nightly bash happening, the Ohio economy was far different. There was no NFL franchise. The Cavaliers played in the suburbs. LeBron James was 10 when the Indians played the Braves in the 1995 World Series.”
first off, cleveland does not have “staggering population losses.” yes the city proper does, but much of that has been population migration to the suburbs. the overall greater cleveland-akron area has suffered population loss, but hardly “staggering.” and he is again comparing the ohio economy then to now. back then, MLB was pre-cable tv revenue and was primarily ticket sales revenue driven. so the indians could do well with hanging with the big boys in spending money. towards the late 90’s, when manny, etc. where becoming free agents is when mlb revenue climate started shifting to cable TV and the indians and other mid- to small markets couldnt hang.
@ Isis -
Can I also caution you not to let your overblown distaste of Wedge/everything color your objectivity?
He has 7 years of managerial experience with a record in the ballpark of .500. He doesn’t have a reputation of having his players revolt against him. He handled himself very well when the national media paid attention to him during his firing this last week (he was far more interesting and engaging in this last week than anything Cleveland fans saw from him in the last several years).
I’m not saying Wedge is the best manager on the planet. I, for one, am glad to see him leave (I’ve never understood how someone who preached about the constant everyday grind of a baseball season could let his team be *so* bad at the fundamentals of the game) but I also have no doubt that someone, somewhere will give Wedge a chance soon.
In fact…I’ll go so far as to say to “book it” that he’ll get another managerial job. Maybe not in 2010, but you can believe he’ll be standing on the dugout steps twitching at some point in the future.
Bring on Bobby Valentine!
Someone correct me if I’m wrong here, but didn’t the Cavs move to the Gund Arena (now the Q) the same year as the Tribe moved to the “Jake” (now Progressive Field)? I thought it was all part of the 1989 Gateway project that raised taxes in Cleveland to help pay for both.
In other words, suburbs my foot. The Richfield Coliseum was empty a good 2 years before the tribe made it to the ‘95 and ‘97 WS.
The Browns being gone didn’t affect the indians…the fact that Dick Jacobs / John Hart finally threw some scratch for the team’s payroll and got some mid-priced veterans (Orel, Dennis, Eddie) and locked up the young talent for 5+ years (Baerga, Belle, Thome, etc) put together the core of those 93, 94 and 95 WS teams…and probably extended even into 97-01 before the explosion that brought in Wedge to begin with.
At least we had the Cleveland Crunch (yup, I went there).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6RvZ86wpIk (Crunch championship celebration)
@ Bill – preach on, brother!
@#7 bill very true/very sad
I like baseball, but it is so depressing to see the Indians give up their star players for prospects that might by good in 3 years (and if they are good they get traded) I stopped watching the tribe this year. Baseball is only good on a regular basis for the top few teams with the highest payrolls.
and how does peter gammons explain 2007? in 2007, the indians were doing really well, they won the central and were 1 game away from the world series. even though these economic issues had yet to really hit nationally in 2007, cleveland was certainly in the middle of its own economic downturn. just because wall street or boston werent having economic crises doesnt mean it wasnt happening in the midwest. despite cleveland’s economy issues, the fans were coming out in droves that year. the fans even bought lots of tickets for 2008 in anticipation of another great year. so the ticket revenue was certainly there. nevertheless, that didnt stop the indians from trading away CC sabathia once the indians dropped out of contention.
i like gammons, but he is WAY off base in blaming the indians’ situation solely on the economy.