February 22, 2012

STO, Slush Funds, and MLB’s TV Problem

February 21, 2012 By 40 Comments

In August of 2010, Deadspin.com got a hold of a few MLB teams’ internal financial statements.  This was kind of big deal, since baseball teams are private companies, and private companies do not typically go around disclosing their financial activity to anyone and everyone with an internet connection.  We were finally going to get to see things like total revenue figures not just for home attendance, but for revenue sharing deals, broadcasting rights, and stadium naming contracts.  On top of that, we’d get to see various expense items as well as bottom line figures like net profit (or loss).  In other words, we’d be privy to a bunch of stuff that MLB and its teams hoped to keep hidden.  Yes, this made the voyeur in all of us very happy.  It also made MLB very mad; Selig petitioned a New York judge to “help plug its leaks”.  Gross?  Maybe.  Fun?  Absolutely.

It turned out that despite my most ardent wishes, the Indians were not among the six teams whose private finances were leaked.  Oh, the times we could have had, Internet!  The Pittsburgh Pirates weren’t so lucky, and their dirty secrets were particularly dirty: in 2007 and 2008, the Pirates averaged $51 million per year in player salaries (that’s low), yet they had some of the biggest profits of any revealed team—nearly $22 million in 2008 alone. [Read more...]

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Acta Answers The Questions – I Take On the Answers

February 21, 2012 By 10 Comments

Pitchers and Catchers have reported to Spring Training!!! Wahoo!!! Rejoice!!! Man I love baseball. Man I love me some Tribe action!!!

With Manny Acta and his coaching staff arriving in Goodyear to get things started, the media had their first crack of the spring to ask the questions they’ve been working up in their minds all offseason. [Read more...]

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Looking Forward to Baseball Season with Jim Rosenhaus

February 16, 2012 By 17 Comments

I had the opportunity through 93.1 The Fan in Lima to sit down for a few minutes with Indians radio broadcaster Jim Rosenhaus. It was my first opportunity to meet him and I came away impressed.

Rosenhaus was named Tom Hamilton’s partner for the 2012 season back in December, replacing the retiring Mike Hegan. Rosenhaus has been involved in production for the Indians for the past five seasons, including hosting Indians Warm Up and filling in for Hegan on longer road trips. Before his time with the Major League club, he worked for the Buffalo Bisons for 11 seasons as their play by play broadcaster. Jim was inducted into the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame for his work with the Bisons. He was the play by play broadcaster for 3 AAA championships in Buffalo.

Rosenhaus recognizes the irregularity of having two play by play men in the booth, particularly when both have no MLB playing experience. His baseball playing days ended at little league.

“The team looked for a former player with some broadcast experience and background in the off-season” said Rosenhaus. “We’ll continue to have special guests in the booth.”

Guests like Mike Hargrove, Brian Anderson and Joe Borowski who all appeared in the booth for the Tribe last season. (Borowski was amazing. He would make a great color man someday in my opinion.) [Read more...]

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On Mountains, Molehills, and Indians Under Long-Term Contracts

February 14, 2012 By 47 Comments

When news broke last week that Asdrubal Cabrera had avoided arbitration by signing a one-year contract with for 2012, I was mostly happy.  I entered the week fairly certain the team wasn’t going to let the process play out through an arbiter—a rather nasty process—so there were really only two options.  Either sign Asdrubal to a long-term deal or kick the can down the road and sign him to one-year deal.  The team decided to do the latter.  Of the two choices, I think it was probably the wise one, but we’ll get to that later.

My blasé reaction was evidently not universal.  Not long after the news broke, there appeared a great deal of concern on twitter and elsewhere that the Indians now had no players on their roster signed beyond the 2012 season.  This note was mentioned with great consternation.  Without anyone under contract, how can they even field a team?  Is this an omen that the Dolans are looking to sell?  Is Rachel Phelps going to move our beloved Wahoos to Miami?

Well.  No.  It doesn’t mean any of that.  Not even close, really.  First, do you know how many players on the team’s current 40 man roster are not contractually obligated to play for the Indians in 2013 (if we still want them, that is)?  Grady Sizemore, Derek Lowe, Travis Hafner, Kevin Slowey, and Casey Kotchman.  That’s five players over whom the team will not have control in 2013.  The other 35 players?  If the team wants any of them, they have to play for the Indians in 2013. [Read more...]

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Is the Tribe Down On Jeanmar Gomez?

February 14, 2012 By 11 Comments

Derek Lowe. Kevin Slowey. Now, Jon Garland.

Are the Indians throwing numbers up against the wall and hoping that a couple of them stick? Well, yes, that is exactly what they are doing.

At the end of the 2011 season, The Indians had Justin Masterson, Ubaldo Jimenez, the man formerly known as Fausto Carmona, and Josh Tomlin (I know he was hurt, but the Indians shut him down once they were out of contention) in their rotation. Rookie Jeanmar Gomez took Tomlin’s spot the final month and was a strong. In the first four of his five September starts, Gomez was 4-0, allowing six earned runs in 24 innings pitched. Gomez doesn’t have a high ceiling and looks like a back end of the rotation guy. The Indians have given him shots over the last two seasons and he has been solid, yet unspectacular. Again, just like a fifth starter usually is.

So why is it that the Indians essentially keep signing over Gomez? [Read more...]

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MLB Trade Rumors: Would You Trade Travis Hafner for A.J. Burnett?

February 13, 2012 By 41 Comments

I love Hot Stove talk. Pitchers and catchers report in less than two weeks and it appears as if the Indians are still looking to improve their roster. With Asdrubal Cabrera signing his one-year deal on Friday avoiding arbitration, the Tribe has everyone under contract for the 2012 season….and that’s it.

It’s now the worst kept secret in town, but the Tribe literally has nobody signed past 2012. Of course, they control the rights to many of their young players as well as club option years for the likes of Ubaldo Jimenez, Travis Hafner, and the man formerly known as Fausto Carmona. Many people are viewing this is a bad thing. I say, good for them. Remember all of these years where we have been saddled with the noose that is the Hafner contract, the deal that is considered among the most untradeable on the game.

That contract is finally going to be off the books after 2012 with the Indians surely buying out the remaining option year. But is it as untradeable as we all think? Yes, of course it is. However, GM Chris Antonetti could shed Hafner for the equivalent of the pitching version of his deal – Yankees starter A.J. Burnett. [Read more...]

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Indians, Clippers Set Killer Bobblehead Slate for 2012

February 10, 2012 By 3 Comments

During the 2011 season, the Cleveland Indians bailed on bobblheads, claiming that attendance studies did not support the cost incurred by curating the sub-foot figurines.  While a Mike Hargrove “Human Rain Delay” bobble saw the light of day, that would be it for what would ultimately be a fun year in Wahoo Country. 

But for 2012, bobbleheads are back. And in a very big way.

Trading in nostalgia and recognizing the popularity of the Kenny Lofton bobblehead from 2010, the Indians have decided that the K-Love release required some additional company vis a vis the way-back machine. Throughout the 2012 MLB season, the Indians will provide fans with the opportunity* to take home bobbleheads of Joe Carter (May 20), Carlos Baerga (June 3), Sandy Alomar Jr. (July 4), and Gaylor Perry (Aug 12).  In addition, the team will release an Asdrubal Cabrera bobble on July 18. [Read more...]

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Setting the Lines for the 2012 Indians

February 10, 2012 By 17 Comments

I like very much when people take firm and decisive stands on things.  For example, “I don’t drink. It’s against my religion.” Or “I’m a vegetarian; it’s the only ethical stance to take.” Or “I believe that Gremlins are real and breeding in the sewers of Montreal.”

I bring this up not because I am one of these principled folks—only that I admire them.  For example, as silly as I know gambling to be from an analytical perspective, every time I end up in Vegas I find myself sitting for hours at a black jack table—even though I know it to be an illogical pursuit that will slowly drain my wallet.  I wish I had the fortitude to take a stand, walk past the degenerates, and enjoy the sunshine.  Turns out, I don’t.  I belong with the degenerates. [Read more...]

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Tribe Offseason Review and What Happens After 2013?

February 8, 2012 By 24 Comments

We are so close to pitchers and catchers reporting to Arizona, that baseball starved fans like me can taste it. Football season officially ended Sunday with the New York Giants holding the Lombardi Trophy for the second time in four years. While I am a hardcore college basketball junkie (which in this town is like being a leper), I always have one eye looking towards my first love, the Cleveland Indians.

The upcoming season has a ton of intrigue. The winter leading up to this campaign had so many ups and downs. Everyone looked at the offseason as a time where the Indians would do everything they could to get that middle of the order, right-handed power bat to place between a healthy Shin-Soo Choo and Carlos Santana.  GM Chris Antonetti wasted no time improving his roster. Just after the World Series, he acquired veteran pitcher Derek Lowe from Atlanta presumably as the fifth starter. The thought was that he would stabilize that final spot, throw his usual 200-plus innings, and offer some veteran presence to the clubhouse of this young team. Little did we know how valuable adding Lowe would be. [Read more...]

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The Expanded MLB Playoffs and Plagiarizing Parity

February 6, 2012 By 25 Comments

Can you hear me, Bud?

Bud Selig, despite reaching the age when most dinosaurs are turned into fuel, is not retiring.  Again.

This seems mostly a product of inertia.  Bud doesn’t really want to retire, and the owners overwhelmingly believe that his tenure as a steward of the game (read: ‘increased revenues’) has been positive.  It seems like ages ago now, but Bud is the guy who reimagined the divisions after the 1994 strike.  He’s the one who made the All-Star Game “matter”.  He’s the one ushered in a system of revenue sharing, under the aegis of competitive balance.  He instituted semi-rigorous drug testing to appease the masses.  Baseball has changed a lot in the last 20 years, and for better or worse, Bud has been the instigator.

His latest instigation is to increase the number of teams making the playoffs, from four per league (three division winners and a wild card team) to five, wherein two wildcard teams will be pitted against one another in a one-game play-in/off.  The winner of the single game—played after the last game of the regular season—makes the playoffs.  The loser, as losers tend to do, goes home. [Read more...]

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Introducing Your New Big Bat: Casey Kotchman?

February 3, 2012 By 19 Comments

The quest is over! And now we can finally get on with our lives. I wrote about the Indians search for an extra bat for months, and it has finally come to an end.

Two days ago, I flew back home from a business trip. Walking towards baggage claim, I saw a man from a limo company holding up a sign that said “Kotchman.” I then tweeted the following:

24 hours later, Casey Kotchman was your newest Cleveland Indian. [Read more...]

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Illitch Brings the Dolans Back Into the Spotlight

February 1, 2012 By 65 Comments

There are plenty of old bits in Cleveland sports. How could the NFL not force the financially strapped Art Modell to sell, or what if LeBron hadn’t been coddled the way he was, or why didn’t Sandy Alomar go out to the mound and yell at Jose Mesa when he was shaking him off in game seven of the ’97 World Series, or Joel Skinner’s stop sign starting the chain of events which began the unraveling of the ’07 ALCS. But perhaps the oldest of bits and one that was brought back to the forefront last week was a classic; say it with me:

“The Dolans need to sell the Indians.”

I have long been a defender of their ownership in our market, with the emphasis on the “in our market” portion of that sentence. Let’s get the facts out of the way:

[Read more...]

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Tribe On Tour: A Success For the Kids

January 30, 2012 By 1 Comment

The Indians do as much as they can from a PR standpoint to reach out to the community and engage with their fans. Its something they obviously must do, considering the economics of our market. The Tribe was dealt a significant blow this past week when the rival Detroit Tigers decided to replace the injured Victor Martinez with the biggest fish in the free agent pond, Prince Fielder. Nine years and $214 million later, Tribe fans coast to coast felt as though we had been kicked in the stomach. In the meantime, a couple of days later, Manager Manny Acta and some of his players hit the road on a four mall PR run called “Tribe on Tour” and undoubtably be asked about it, and the opening at first base.

Things wrapped up Sunday at Beachwood Place mall. Acta, Josh Tomlin, Jason Donald, Jason Kipnis, Vinnie Pestano, Jack Hannahan, and Shelley Duncan all met the fans for an hour of Q & A followed by an autograph session. [Read more...]

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The Bullpen Mafia Gets Deeper And the Tribe Meets The Fans

January 27, 2012 By 2 Comments

Look people, I know you are all down and out because the Tigers signed Prince Fielder and the Indians would have had to dump payroll had they signed a Carlos Beltran type, but all is not lost. The games still have to be played. Let us concentrate on what we have and stay positive.

(SIDE NOTE – can I also mention that if the Tigers indeed use Miguel Cabrera at third base regularly, their infield defense will not only be the worst in baseball, it could be as bad as we’ve seen in ages. Imagine the statues on the left side with Jhonny Peralta at short and Cabrera at third. I’d be bunting on those two all day long and dare them to get me out.)

While the Tigers will win by mashing the ball around the yard, the Tribe will have to do it they way they did last year during their hot streak – timely hitting and excellent pitching. The rotation should be solid with a top four of Justin Masterson, Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Tomlin, and Derek Lowe. But what will really help carry this Tribe team, as it did last year, is the Bullpen Mafia, version 2012. [Read more...]

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Fair or Foul? City Of Cleveland Giving $5 Million to Renovate League Park

January 26, 2012 By 26 Comments

Cleveland has a historic landmark in its Hough Neigborhood. Many people know it’s there, but other than a quick drive-by, there isn’t much of a reason to stop. I’m speaking of course of old League Park, the baseball field that was the one-time home of the Cleveland Indians and the Negro League Cleveland Buckeyes. The structure sits vacant on the corner of E. 66th and Lexington.

This is the place that saw Babe Ruth’s 500th home run in 1929 and where Bob Feller fired fastball after fastball. Legends of the game played in this hallowed park and then after 1946, it became outdated. Cleveland Municpal Stadium was the spot for the baseball action in Cleveland while League Park just sat there empty, year after year, decade after decade. It was never razed. [Read more...]

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