From the tip, the gameplan was different for Matta’s guys. The ball wasn’t sticking and there was not a reliance on forced and contested jump shots. Instead, there was dribble penetration from Aaron Craft that fueled it all. One of my biggest criticisms of the Buckeye offense in recent games has been their lack of attacking the defense via the dribble drive. Tonight, Craft gave a flashback to late last season when he was consistently in double figure scoring and probing the defense regularly. The sophomore point posted 11 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals. OSU jumped out to a 28-8 lead in the game’s first nine minutes, hitting 11 of their first 12 shots, and the game was never in doubt after that.

I said last night on Twitter that William Buford shouldn’t take another shot this season that didn’t come from a curl off a pick. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how effective he is off the curl and how he seems to forget about that shot when he’s struggling from the perimeter. When Buford does get the ball on the perimeter, he seems to have greater success off the slip screen handoff from Craft than when he’s sizing up a defender 1-on-1. Buford finished with 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting, and to his credit, he played within himself.

It appears that Coach Matta changed his rotation up a bit tonight as Craft and freshman Shannon Scott played about 15 minutes together. Scott took some minutes from Lenzelle Smith Jr. as Craft slid over and played primarily shooting guard with the two on the court at the same time. Scott’s 3 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 steal helped the cause in 22 minutes, but his shooting (0-for-5 last night) is holding him back as teams increasingly ignore him on the perimeter. Sam Thompson still got 11 minutes and squeezed in an alley-oop slam in the first half along with a power rejection in the second half. He played more small forward minutes, however, as his minutes came at the expense of Buford, who was on the court for 26 minutes. Given his recent struggles, I think it’s a good idea to prevent Buford from playing 35+ minutes if at all possible.

The surprising result of more aggressiveness out of the guards, three point shots falling (7-of-15 on the evening), and Deshaun Thomas’s effortless inside out scoring (he led the team with 19 points on 6-of-8 shooting) was a surprising lack of touches for Jared Sullinger. I’ve been quite criticial of the Buckeyes for not giving their best player the ball more often. In this game, Sullinger had just 3 first half points and finished with 9 points (a season low, with the exception of the South Carolina game where he left due to injury) on 7 shots. Sully played 27 minutes, and he fouled out for the first time this season with five minutes to go. His third foul was of the flagrant one variety, coming after video review determined that the bucket he scored included a vicious elbow to Meyers Leonard’s jaw. Solely a basketball play with no malicious intent, the referees completely whiffed on the interpretation of the rule there in my opinion. Immediately following that, Sullinger picked up an offensive foul by sealing Leonard on a lob pass for his fourth foul with 11 minutes remaining.

Leonard was the lone consistent threat for the Fighting Illini. He was the beneficiary of multiple garbage baskets and a couple of easy baskets over Ravenel and Williams. Meyers finished with 21 points on 7-of-12 shooting and 5 rebounds. Brandon Paul had nowhere near the 43-point explosion he did in Champaign, finishing with 9 points on 2-of-9 shooting. The Illini made just 3-of-18 three point shots, and the two things that kept this game within 20 points were 12 offensive boards for Illinois and the 17 Buckeye turnovers, several coming in the final minutes.

Finally, freshman swingman LaQuinton Ross logged five minutes of garbage time at the end of this game. In that time, he had two impressive buckets as he created in the open floor and swooped one underhand bucket in as he was fouled. He added five quick points so effortlessly, and it’s the reason why I wish the circumstances were different and Ross could see meaningful playing time. Ross could truly help the Buckeyes on nights when Buford, Smith Jr., etc. aren’t hitting their shots, playing much of the same role that Deshaun Thomas played last season as a spark of instant offense off the bench. It remains to be seen if Thad will pull out all the stops, including Ross, if his back is up against the wall in an elimination game.

The Bucks will look to avoid a third straight weekend loss when they host Bo Ryan and the Wisconsin Badgers Sunday afternoon for Senior Day.

–

(Photo: Jay LaPrete/AP)

A three-ball from the top of the key. A cross-over move from the left elbow that found fellow rookie guard Brandon Knight wondering what the heck just happened as the ball fell through the nylon. And an Alonzo Gee steal turned into a 360-degree, over-the-shoulder, no-look pass back to the athletic wing for the unabated dunk.

The entire sequence took roughly one game minute, but it was just the momentum the Cleveland Cavaliers needed to extend a lead against the Detroit Pistons, a lead they would never relinquish thanks to consistent defensive efforts across the board coupled with timely conversions on the offensive end. A lead that would ultimately end in a one-point win at home — their second consecutive win by the narrowest of margins.

“I feed off the energy of my teammates and the crowd,” said Irving. ”When you have the confidence of your teammates going down the stretch, it’s easier to make those plays.”

It was an Antawn Jamison three-pointer approximately two minutes earlier would be the bucket needed to cap the comeback. The Cavs trailing by 17 at one point in the contest, down double digits heading in to the fourth quarter, needed everything to fall their way. A relatively sloppy contest otherwise, it was Jamison (29 points in the first three periods) who would be credited with keeping the Wine and Gold in the game, only to have Irving and Gee finish the sandwich in the fourth.

Thirty combined points were delivered from the 19-year-old point guard and a kid who was floating about the NBDL just 15 months earlier. As he has in several other games this season, Irving was relatively shy with his shot, only taking a handful of attempts over the course of the first three quarters only to unleash the hounds once there were 12 minutes remaining. He did it from all angles; lay-ins — including the one described above as well as a beautiful conversion where the guard leapt from the right hash, changed hands in mid-air and dropped it in behind the rim with his left — three-pointers and free throws. After three quarters of otherwise uninspiring play, Kyrie Irving took advantage of every single fourth-quarter possession, “willing” the  Wine and Gold to the win.

“I just wanted to control the game the best I could,” said the Cavs’ top draft pick. ”I tried to get open shots for my teammates. As many shots as I would’ve like to of gone in, it didn’t happen tonight, but going into the fourth, I took what the defense gave me and it worked out.”

Worked out it did. This young team won it’s fifth contest of the season after falling behind by double figuires. Irving, who is well beyond his years from a leadership standpoint, played the fourth quarter as if he was harnessing injured teammate Anderson Varejao. Wherein the Brazilian big man can keep things electric for 48 minutes, it appears that Irving has the ability to merely flip a switch and take over.

“Kyrie said he was gonna turn it up, and he did,” said Gee. “He turned it up. He picked it up for us, and we’re gonna follow him.”

It’s easy to say that the Cavaliers should not be winning these sort of contests due to draft position, similar to the Browns squeaking out a 6-3 barnburner against the Seattle Seahawks — coming out the victor merely reflects relative superiority. But had the Cavaliers not won in the matter in which it did, with key contributions from would-be integral members of this team’s future, it would signal warning signs that could not be rectified by adding another 19- or 20-year old ingredient into the pot. You can’t draft chemistry.

Irving taking this unit, with the help of Gee and a couple key defensive plays by Tristan Thompson (some that won’t show up in the box score, including forcing a would-be Ben Gordon game-winner to the baseline), on to his still-developing shoulders and carrying them to a win is a very, very good thing. Give a fist pump when an Irving three-ball finds the bottom. Sit back and smile when he subsequently makes the fourth-overall pick leave his ankles at the free throw line.

Accept the losses, but desire the wins. Even if they do have to come in the final seconds against one of the worst teams in the NBA.

–

(Photo via David Liam Kyle/Getty Images)

Inside linebacker hasn’t been a position of strength overall for the Browns since 1999.  They’ve had some solid players and some very good players, but they’ve lacked a superstar.  Still, in Browns fans minds the choices were pretty clear.  D’Qwell Jackson scored over 2700 first place votes while Andra Davis came in a distant second with 661.  Davis crushed the competition with 1568 second place votes with Jackson taking 720 and Chris Gocong scoring 485 votes.

Third place was closer as Browns fans tried to sort out the best of the rest.  Gocong had the most third place votes with 898.  Andra Davis had 560.  Dwayne Rudd had 547.  Wali Rainer beat Earl Holmes 409-404.

Outside linebacker was also a pretty clear choice for Browns fans.  Jamir Miller crushed the competition for first with 2280 votes compared to Wimbley’s 528.  The second place voting was clearly taken by Wimbley with over 1200 while Fujita (690,) McGinest (473,) and Matt Roth (466,) tried to catch up.  Third place votes went to Fujita, Roth, Wimbley and McGinest in that order.  In the end, if you were starting a team with these players in their prime, you could do a lot worse than having Jamir Miller and Kamerion Wimbley pressuring the QB from the outside.

Offensive Line - Left Tackle | Left Guard | Center | Right Guard | Right Tackle

Pass Catchers - Wide Receivers | Tight Ends

Runners - Running Backs | Fullbacks

Special Teams

Defensive Line - Defensive Ends | Defensive Tackles

Secondary - Cornerbacks | Safeties

Linebackers

“Asked by one reporter if the team could go back and analyze that 30-15 start to find out what was working for the club, Acta cut off the question and replied: “We’re talented. We have some talent here. It wasn’t anything different that we did in Spring Training or anything like that. Our focus is to win and when you’re in a rebuilding process you can see it from year to year. We’re talented. It’s not a fluke when you spend as long as we did in first place.”

Injuries or not — and that certainly took a toll on the Tribe in 2011 — Acta would’ve preferred to see more consistency over the course of the entire season. That is what the manager is hoping to witness in 2012. “Everybody would like to win right off the bat,” Acta said. “It’s what comes after that. How many teams start 30-15? You’re not going to see that very often. We’d still like to have a goodstart — that sets the tone. But it’s such a long season. That’s why we downplayed allthat all the time. It’s 162 games.” [Bastian/MLB.com]

–

“While we are still intrigued by the idea of the Browns weakening Pittsburgh by signing restricted free agent Mike Wallace, we have to admit to having some reservations after reading Ed Bouchette’s latest in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Bouchette points out that Wallace caught 43 passes for 800 yards in the first eight games of last season, but only had 29 receptions for 393 yards in the final eight games. He closed out the year with three receptions for 26 yards in the Steelers playoff loss to Denver. Was that just a slump or did defenses figure something out?” [Red Right 88]

–

No surprises here- “A half-century later, Brown’s devastating combination of speed and power remains arguably the best in NFL history. For his career, Brown averaged 5.2 yards per carry, and his 12,312 career yards in just 118 career games still ranks ninth all-time (as of the end of the 2011 season). Remember, the NFL regular season was only 12 GAMES for four of Brown’s nine years.

In all Brown only carried the ball 2,359 times while all-time leader Emmitt Smith had 4,409 carries, and Brown is the only runner to AVERAGE 100 yards per game during a career. Retiring for good at just age 29, Brown is ranked No. 1 on the Pro Football Reference EloRater, No. 2 on the NFL Network’s list of the top 100 players ever, and No. 4 on ESPN’s SportsCentury list (all athletes) in 1999.” [Allen/Midwest Sports Fan]

–

“So what has happened? While points were certainly hard to come by in the loss to Michigan State, Buford had 4 points in 36 minutes, shooting 2-12 from the field. In the loss to Michigan on Saturday he had 6 points in 40 minutes, shooting 3-12 from the field. Yes, these are just a couple of select and alarming stats but it does help put into perspective what this team faces when he struggles. Personally, the only thing that I can see from a fan standpoint is that he rushes shots all too often, but the same can be said about the entire Ohio State offense. He tends to have a bad shot selection and, coupled with that, he oftentimes shoots very early into the shot clock instead of letting plays develop and come to him. We can be spoiled because, when he hits those shots and gets hot, all is forgiven as it is a thing of beauty to watch and see develop. Unfortunately, those games seem to be far a few between for one reason or another this season as he’s averaging less than 9 points per game against the top four B1G teams.” [Buckeye Battle Cry]

–

“On a cinder-block wall adjacent to the front entrance of the Indians’ training complex, a large script “I” has been replaced this year by a block “C,” which, of course, stands for Cleveland. The Indians would like to believe it also symbolizes that they’re contenders.

However, just being in the hunt or near the top won’t be enough for closer Chris Perez, sporting a full beard and longer hair this spring. He’s done with rebuilding, second-place and any talk about waiting until next year. Perez wants more for the Indians in 2012.” [Withers/Yahoo.com]

Did you not see the game? [Kyrie] Irving and [Alonzo] Gee, they kicked our tail. They willed it back for them. It’s two competitive teams. We’re not 34-0. I mean the other team wants to win too. I thought they took it from us. You have to give them credit. I don’t think we gifted them the win. I don’t think we didn’t compete and didn’t play hard. I don’t think we gave them the game. I think you have to give credit to Irving and those guys.

- Pistons head coach Lawrence Frank following the Cavaliers 101-100 win over Detroit. The Cavaliers fought back from 17 down with Irving and Gee combining for 30 fourth-quarter points.

[Related: Welcome Back, Tristan Thompson]

I remember plenty of LeBron James games earlier in his career where he seemed disengaged and lethargic for 3 quarters only to lead the Cavaliers to wins in the 4th quarter. Kyrie Irving did much the same tonight. He was passive and lacking aggression on the offensive side of the ball for 3 quarters, before finding a way to wake up and score 17 fourth quarter points in leading the charge. These are the kinds of learning experiences you like to see young teams learn. To be a good team, you have to find ways to win games when you’re not at your best or most energetic. That’s what the Cavaliers did in this game. Nice win for the wine and gold.

Detroit

Tribe beat writer Jordan Bastian writes:

“Guzman would become the 62nd player in this spring’s crowded Cleveland camp. He would up the list of non-roster invitees to 22 players, including 13 new additions who joined the team on Minor League contracts this winter. Presumably, Guzman would be a long shot for a bench job, though he might also serve as Minor League depth. Guzman played for the Washington Nationals during Acta’s time as manager of that team. The 33-year-old infielder, who took part in Tuesday’s informal practice at the Indians’ facility, indicated that the plan is for him to see time at both shortstop and second base this spring.”

So there’s another player on the pile.

The Indians traded left-hander Kelvin De La Cruz to the Rangers on Tuesday in exchange for cash considerations.

De La Cruz was designated for assignment on Feb. 13 to vacate a spot on Cleveland’s 40-man roster for recently-signed first baseman Casey Kotchman. The Indians signed Kotchman to a one-year contract worth $3 million earlier this month.

The 23-year-old De La Cruz spent last season with Double-A Akron — his second year at that level in the Tribe’s system. The lefty went 5-6 with a 4.19 ERA in 23 appearances, including 16 starts, in 2011 for the Aeros. De La Cruz struck out 95 and walked 57 over 86 innings.

Samardo punished the Pistons frontcourt last game

Welcome back Manny Harris!

Forget all the other story lines, the big news in this game is the return of Manny Harris to the wine and gold, right? Right?

Basketball is funny. I don’t know why, but there always marginal players out there who become my guys. They come in different shapes and sizes, but there are always certain players that catch my eye and capture my basketball heart.

Manny Harris is one of those players. I’m well aware of his limitations and I know how measured his upside is. I know he’s a Wolverine and I’m a Buckeye. But I like the guy. I like his story, I like his game, I like his attitude, I like his heart. I’m glad to see him back in uniform tonight, and I hope he can have his own Jeremy Lin type story. Well, ok, let’s set the bar a little lower. I’d be pretty happy just to see Manny get some minutes and prove effective enough to earn a permanent roster spot.

So with that out of the way, let’s get down to business discussing tonight’s game between the Cleveland Cavaliers (12-17, 9th in the East) and the Detroit Pistons (11-22, 11th in the East) at the Q.

If we look back at December 28, 2011, the Cleveland Cavaliers were getting ready to play their 2nd game of the season. They opened the year at home, played horrible basketball against the Toronto Raptors, and rookie Kyrie Irving had a forgettable, if not downright horrific, debut. Irving went 2-12 from the field (1-5 from three) for 6 points in his debut.

That next game in Detroit, there was trepidation among the Cavaliers faithful. Had we been wrong about Kyrie? Are the Cavaliers due to give us another season like last year? Is this sadness ever going to go away?

That game against the Pistons, December 28, 2011, was perhaps the most important game of this young season. We all needed to see how Irving would bounce back. We needed to see what the Cavaliers were really made of.

Kyrie answered the call. He shot 5-9 from the field and 4-4 from the FT line, scoring 14 points with 4 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 steals against 3 turnovers in under 20 minutes of playing time as the Cavaliers routed the Pistons 105-89. It wasn’t a massive box score stuffing night, but it was a coolly effective game and it showed us a glimpse of what makes Kyrie Irving the player that he is. Tough minded, confident, and never doubting his skills. He did what he needed to do that night to settle down Cavs fans and give us reason to exhale.

So now we fast forward to the present, and the Cavaliers are sitting in 9th place in the East, well within a playoff hunt, and showing signs either way of a growing team. The future is looking pretty bright.

The Pistons, too, are seeing the light these days. After starting 4-20 this season, Lawrence Frank has pulled a rabbit out of his hat and is turning the Pistons around right in front of our eyes. After inserting Jason Maxiell into the starting lineup for Jonas Jerebko, the Pistons have gone 7-3, winning seven of their last nine overall.

Furthermore, Brandon Knight has worked his way into the starting lineup and this has freed Rodney Stuckey from worrying about distributing too much. Stuckey has become the scoring guard we all thought he was capable of being and Knight has been a solid spark at the point for the Pistons.

Frank’s full starting lineup will feature Knight, Stuckey, Tayshaun Prince, Maxiell, and Greg Monroe. Suddenly the Pistons starting lineup has transformed into something worth fearing, a dynamic mix of electric scorers in the backcourt with hard working, physical players in the frontcourt. And Tayshaun Prince, for whatever that’s worth.

Charlie Villanueva is out for the Pistons with an ankle injury while Anderson Varejao and Anthony Parker are out for the Cavaliers. Daniel Gibson will be active and will dress for the game, according to Byron Scott, but no decision has been made yet as to whether or not he will play. Don’t be surprised, then, to see Manny Harris log some minutes at SG for the Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers frontcourt dominated the Pistons last game, with Varejao, Antawn Jamison, Samardo Samuels, and Tristan Thompson all scoring double digits. With Varejao out and Maxiell playing so well, along with the fact Samardo has never matched that effort since, that kind of feat will be tougher this time around.

For the Cavaliers on offense, Alonzo Gee starting at SG has a pretty big size and strength advantage over Rodney Stuckey. Stuckey is not small, but in terms of body type and playing style, Gee has a physical advantage in this game. We’ll see if the Cavaliers offense can draw up some situations to take advantage of this. Brandon Knight is sure to play this game head to head with Kyrie Irving as a personal challenge. I expect this to be a great matchup to watch, similar to the matchup with Isaiah Thomas the other night against Sacramento. Tristan Thompson, coming off a real bounce back game, needs to have another huge night off the bench for the Cavaliers.

Defensively, the Cavaliers may struggle to match up with the speed of the Pistons backcourt. Furthermore, Anderson Varejao was able to keep Greg Monroe in check last game, but Semih Erden may not find the task so simple. With the All-Star Break coming this weekend, both teams will view this as a must-win momentum gaining game. I expect to see a great matchup and a great game with both teams going hard at one another. Hopefully the Cavaliers can gut out another nice win over their divisional rivals from that state up north.

_____

Photo Credit: Allen Einstein/NBAE/Getty Images

First on the competition to be the #1 pick, Griffin sounded pretty confident, yet respectful.  Sure, he claimed that moving his pro day so as not to conflict with Andrew Luck’s was him being “the bigger man,” but I don’t have any problem with that.  There is also some selflessness in that.  By moving his day and not going head to head with Andrew Luck, Griffin is protecting teammates by making sure as many NFL scouts as possible are on campus when his teammates showcase themselves too.

Griffin said that sometimes the best player is denoted by the #1 pick, but not always.  He said if he gets a chance to interview with the Colts he will “cherish” that opportunity.  With answers like that, Griffin really did a nice job of straddling the line of respect, confidence and competitiveness.

When asked if Griffin had a favorite NFL team growing up, he spoke of watching “John Elway and Terrell Davis tear it up” in Denver.  Despite the Browns’ history with Elway, it is tough to pretend that you can hold a grudge against a kid who was watching those Broncos teams win when he was sitting at home as an eight and nine year old.

It was a short interview, but it didn’t hurt the cause of trying to imagine Robert Griffin III becoming the quarterback for the Cleveland Browns.  Griffin spoke correctly about getting drafted by a team that wants him and wants to work with him to be the best player on the best team.

That part is certainly telling as Griffin is the kind of athlete that doesn’t fit into a neat little box.  If the Browns do draft him, they’ll be hard pressed to make him the best QB he can be by trying to force him to be something he is not.  Half the negative talk about the Browns drafting Griffin III seems to me to be a vote of non-confidence in the coaching staff after seeing Colt McCoy’s first year in the new offense.

Which makes the over/under (per Vegas Watch) of 75.5 somewhat disheartening. While this total is not necessarily reflective of where Vegas thinks the Indians will finish (as opposed to a line to stir equal-weighted wagering), the fact that the Wahoos currently slate fourth in the AL Central is not a vote of confidence in the court of public opinion.

Also worth pointing out is the 11.5-game gap between Prince Fielder’s Detroit Tigers and the rest of the AL Central, surprisingly represented by the Kansas City Royals.

[Related: Tribe Offseason Review and What Happens After 2013?]

The Browns have struggled mostly to find top of the line starters at the cornerback position.  There’s a reason that Tom Heckert drafted Joe Haden and traded for Sheldon Brown when he arrived in Cleveland.  And for as much complaining as some fans do about Sheldon Brown, he has brought a lot to the table for the Browns in coverage.  It seems that sometimes corners do get beaten, but that just isn’t acceptable for the guy who gets thrown at opposite Joe Haden, I guess.  Anyway, on with the list.

Joe Haden ran away with the first place voting.  He had over 2800 votes and Leigh Bodden was second with 236.  The second place voting was pretty tight between Leigh Bodden and Daylon McCutcheon.  Bodden edged him out with 882 to 788.

One of the biggest disappointments on this list is Gary Baxter.  With his injuries soon after arriving in Cleveland, he couldn’t compete for the top of this list.  By all accounts prior to those catastrophic injuries where he blew out both knees on the same play, he would have easily been able to be one of the best Browns cornerbacks since 1999.

Offensive Line - Left Tackle | Left Guard | Center | Right Guard | Right Tackle

Pass Catchers - Wide Receivers | Tight Ends

Runners - Running Backs | Fullbacks

Special Teams

Defensive Line - Defensive Ends | Defensive Tackles

Secondary – Cornerbacks | Safeties

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.

This was not well-received news in Pittsburgh.  After all, the Pirates’ owners had consistently cried poor throughout the 2000’s when fans and media questioned the club’s exceptionally low payrolls.  How was it that this team, sporting the longest-tenured streak of losing seasons in professional sports history, was making money?  How was it possible especially when teams like the Rangers and Angels, who were spending money and making it to the playoffs, were losing money?

Well, from there, it wasn’t too far of a jump for people to superimpose the Pirates’ finances onto the Indians’ reality.  After all, it’s hard to imagine a team more similar to the Indians than the Pirates: low payroll, low revenue, rust belt city, best days behind them, etc.  And if the Pirates were making profits hand over fist, well, hey, anything is possible, right?  I even wrote a piece wondering about it all.

But really, I didn’t have anything to go on when I wrote that piece.  Sure, I knew that the Pirates were making money, but that didn’t mean all low-payroll teams were making money.  The Marlins, after all, had their documents leaked too.  And they made a whopping $3,900 in 2009.  That’s a used Datsun.

So why bring any of this up now?  Well, a few things happened this offseason that intrigued me and got me thinking about team finances all over again.  The Angels used their new TV deal—worth $3 billion over 20 years—to sign Albert Pujols and CJ Wilson.  The Rangers countered by using their new $1.6 billion TV deal to sign Yu Darvish from Japan.  The Padres recently signed a new TV deal for $1 billion that could provide up to $70 million annually once the deal matures.

The natural question, in light of all this, is to wonder how the Indians are stacking up (or how they can possibly stack up) with these sorts of figures.  The Indians, as I’m sure you are aware, are broadcast on STO, a network that is wholly owned by the Dolans, the same family that owns the Indians.  However, STO and the Cleveland Indians are entirely separate operating entities, so the network actually pays the team a fee for the broadcast rights.  I wondered if there wasn’t anything interesting to find by barking up this tree, despite the private nature of both companies.

A few short searches later, I came across a piece from the Plain Dealer written by Bill Lubinger last month.  Bill does a nice job of establishing the growing influence of TV contracts on MLB revenue streams and the consequent effect on player salaries, but what interested me most were a couple of quotes regarding the Indians’ current TV situation:

“STO has paid the Indians about $30 million a year for broadcast rights since it was founded”

And later:

“STO had about 3 million subscribers in 2011, with $85 million in operating revenue and $21 million in cash flow.”

Bill cites SNL Kagan—a market research and analytics firm covering, among other things, the media and communications industries—as his source for those figures.  Unfortunately, the company’s materials are buried behind a subscription service and I wasn’t able to look at the numbers or models myself.  Instead, I emailed with Bill briefly to discuss the figures and, if accurate, what they might mean for the Indians.

What I took away from the article and the subsequent emails was, to be honest, pretty troubling on at least two accounts.  First, if STO is actually generating $85 million in revenue and $21 million in positive cash flow, that would make the company itself a fairly profitable enterprise.*  Now, far be it from me to begrudge a private company its hard-earned profits, but pocketing $20 million off of an incestuous TV deal while telling the fanbase that “now isn’t the right time to spend”?  Well, that certainly doesn’t look very good, and I hope these sorts of questions are posed to the ownership group at some point.  Furthermore, despite MLB’s assurances that these sorts of deals are assessed at fair market value, if SNL Kagan’s numbers are accurate then it would seem that Indians are giving STO something of a sweetheart deal here.

*I should mention that in a prior life I worked in market research, and I know firsthand how impenetrable private companies’ financials can be.  Without impugning the integrity of SNL Kagan or its methods, we should at least admit that these numbers are at best approximations and at worst complete fictions.

If, on the other hand, STO is in financial trouble and is up for sale—reported last year by Vince Grzegorek at Cleveland Scene and later by WFNY—then we’re really no better off.*  In the first scenario, the ownership is shifting piles of money from one property to another in order to trim the team’s payroll.  In the second, there’s no money to shift.  Neither bodes particularly well for the team going forward.

* I was not involved in the WFNY report regarding STO and did not speak to the sources discussed therein.

But even more than these particular problems, I was struck by the amplifier effect that TV deals seem to be having on MLB’s growing economic parity problem.  It’s one thing to have trouble selling tickets, where the difference between 2 million and 3 million fans in terms of total receipts is, in the big scheme of things, fairly minor.  The difference in these TV deals is, on the other hand, massive.  The Angels’ new deal will pay the team roughly $150 million per season for the next 20 years.  That’s five times what STO is reportedly paying the Indians.  There is no competing with that, and no matter who pays to broadcast the Tribe games down the road, the team will never be able to generate that sort of revenue stream.  There just aren’t that many TVs in Ohio.

From this perspective, it would hardly matter if the Dolans are using STO to divert some money toward their pockets: it’s all chump change when you compare it to what the larger media markets can expect.  If you think about it too much, you just get depressed and reach for the decanter.  At least I do.

But perhaps this is all a good thing for the sport.  I’m starting to come around to the notion—popular in middle-age, I’m told—that things must get worse before they get better.  As the money from local TV contracts continues to explode, the disparities in revenue will become markedly more defined.  There will develop more entrenched and permanent distinctions between the “haves” and the “have nots”.  Things will become so obviously broken that it will become impossible to ignore: no wallpaper will be able to cover the gap between the rich and the poor, and the fans will start to look away in disgust.

That, of course, is the best case scenario.  There’s also the possibility that we’ll all just have another hot dog and root-root-root for the home team.

Brodney Pool didn’t have an easy time beating out Brian Russell in this voting.  Russell actually beat Pool in first place votes 1168 to 1064.  Pool picked it up thanks to a huge margin in second place votes with 926 to Russell’s 524.  In fact, despite Russell getting so many first place votes, he was beat in the second place voting by Pool, Earl Little, Abram Elam and Chris Crocker.  Very strange results indeed.

Not so close on the strong safety side of things.  T.J. Ward dominated Sean Jones.  Ward scored almost 1900 first place votes to Sean Jones’ 885 and Robert Griffith’s 676.  It pays to be popular and current, I guess.  T.J. Ward is a good player and the Brown missed him desperately when he was out hurt this season.  The Browns let Jones walk and he signed a 1-year $3 million deal with the Eagles in 2009 to replace Brian Dawkins in their secondary.

Offensive Line - Left Tackle | Left Guard | Center | Right Guard | Right Tackle

Pass Catchers - Wide Receivers | Tight Ends

Runners - Running Backs | Fullbacks

Special Teams

Defensive Line - Defensive Ends | Defensive Tackles

Secondary - Cornerbacks | Safeties