On winter's doorstep

Last Wednesday, Bob Feller died. Last Thursday, the Sun came up -- as much as it can in Ohio, on one of the shortest days of the year.

Last Thursday, life went on. Just as it went on when Art Modell gave Baltimore a new lease on NFL life at our expense. Just like when we had to suffer the final-straw indignity of watching him win a Super Bowl five years later. Just like when LeBron told us we weren't good enough for him anymore, mere months ago.

There was something of a numb feeling about last Thursday. Like waking up the morning after Game 7 of the ALCS three years ago, Game 7 of the World Series 13 years ago, after the AFC title games in '86 and '87. It's over. It's really over.

Yeah, those were games. This was a life. But Feller represented so much about Cleveland that we want to remember. With his passing, we lost one of our most important links to that past, when Cleveland was the stately lady of the lakeshore, the manufacturing mecca that helped build America into a 20th Century world power on the sweaty brows and strained muscles of the men and women who went to work at the factories and mills each day.

A time when billowing smokestacks were a sign of profit and riches, not an environmental taboo. A time when the Indians were winners, a World Series parade was fresh in everyone's memory, and Cleveland was the polar opposite of the national punchline it would become in the ensuing decades.

Paul Simon wondered where Joe DiMaggio had gone. But even when times became less simple and supposed American innocence withered in the face of social change and war in Southeast Asia, the Yankees still had Mantle. A decade later, they had Jackson and a pair of World Series titles. Then Donnie Baseball, then Derek Jeter and more titles. Now their roster is a monument to excess, even by their own standards. The cupboard was either stocked, or on its way to being stocked.

DiMaggio has been gone for 11 years. But DiMaggio's Yankees never really died. The names just change.

In Cleveland, the days of Feller are truly never coming back.

So it's fitting that Feller left us in December. A moment of silence at 7:05 p.m. before the first pitch of a midsummer home game wouldn't have yanked us out of our charmed summer existence nearly enough. We need the winter to meditate on the loss of Feller and everything he means to us and our history. We need him to not be there to throw out the first pitch of spring training, as he has been for years. We need March to become April, May, June and July, and all of the routines of what promises to be another mundane, non-contending Tribe season have a gaping hole where Feller used to be.

Then, we'll know what we've lost.

Last Thursday, the Sun came up cold and distant, offering little more than filtered light-droplets from behind hazy clouds. Downtown, street grates belched steam that covered salt-encrusted roads and sidewalks. The cold air sliced against open skin at the slightest movement.

If you wanted to pay tribute to Feller at his statue on the plaza by Gate C at Progressive Field, you had to want it. And people did come. At 10:30 in the morning, a few items lay on the base of the statue, which was splattered with salt residue like every outdoor surface in Cleveland.

A bouquet of yellow flowers. A small American flag, draped over itself. A package of sunflower seeds. A red capital A cut from a wooden block, to honor Feller's service on the U.S.S. Alabama during World War II. On the back, a note scribbled in pen:

"Mr Feller, thanks for fighting for our freedom!! Rest in peace & here's your lucky 'A!!'"

Cleveland's only sporting king is gone. Jim Brown wanted to make movies. LeBron wanted to go to school with the cool kids. That leaves Feller. A proud man with a lion's heart and an ego to match. The perfect combination of dominance and cockiness that exemplified our town, our region, in a different time, when you put a baseball career on hold indefinitely to go fight for your country because it was the right thing to do, then came back and helped your team win a World Series a few years later.

Anything was possible, and it wasn't just the hollow bloviations of a local political candidate stumping for votes.

Above the trinkets left at the Feller statue on Thursday morning, a yellow bow hung from Feller's bronze pitching hand. It's frozen in the split-second in which Feller is at the apex of his delivery, left leg airborne, ready to shove a 98-mile per hour heater down the throat of Ted Williams, or buckle DiMaggio's knees with a table-drop curve.

This was Feller at his zenith. Cleveland at its zenith. Something to admire. Something to fear. Something to reckon with. Something that now exists only in black and white and bronze.

Code of honor

We're better in Cleveland. At least we think we are.

No, not the city itself. We're firmly second-rate in our own minds. But when it comes to rooting for our sports teams, nobody can tell us that we're anything but number one.

No fan base has had so little to show for so much loyalty and passion over the years. We stick with our teams like glue, we develop static-cling emotional attachment, we debate on message boards, we read volumes of fact, opinion and stats, we allow anyone who is willing and able-bodied to take a crack at being our Moses, whether it be LeBron James or Charlie Frye.

We defended Albert Belle when the rest of the country hated his thermostat-bashing, trick-or-treater chasing butt. Through voice and volume, we intimidated the NFL into making a replacement franchise for Cleveland a priority.

And despite it all, we've received no championships for our trouble. No lasting moment in the Sun. Just a lot of betrayal and cruel jokes at our expense. And if the outlook for this town's sports teams is as universally bleak as it appears to be, we aren't going to have that itch scratched anytime soon.

At this point, you kind of have to assume that the next legitimate contender in this town might be five years away or more. The Browns, because of the NFL's built-in parity rules, stand the greatest chance of reaching contention first, but regardless of who is running the show, that franchise always seems to make five bad moves for every good move.

The Indians are financially overmatched, with an alienated fan base that might not fill Progressive Field even if the team gets off to a hot start one of these years. Look to the case study of the 2007 season for proof.

The Cavs aren't winning anything until they find another LeBron. Enough said.

Three teams, and nothing but flat prarie (or scorched desert, depending on your outlook) as far as the eye can see. And absolutely no promise that what is over the horizon will be any better.

At some point, even the most steadfast Cleveland fans -- the ones who will proudly wear a 2003 Kelly Holcomb jersey through downtown Pittsburgh as an act of pure defiance -- might start to ask their inner selves if there is a point to it all.

You'd be excused if you did want to ask that question. Going to bed on Sunday with a rope of pain looping your scalp from temple to temple, the result of an evening of quiet seething over another Browns loss -- and the alcohol that probably accompanied it. The mind-numbing college lecture that every Indians season seems to become. The knowledge that LeBron almost certainly quit on the Cavs last spring, knowing full well that he was paving his way out of Cleveland.

And yet, we come back for more, year after year. We fall madly in love with any Cleveland team that shows even a glimmer of potential as a title winner. We're that desperate. We'll suffer to no end, hoping for that final championship-parade payoff.

Not only that, we wrap ourselves in a cloak of righteuosness as we suffer. We're dedicated. We're not like those fair-weather fans in Miami. We're not a city of transplants like Atlanta, Phoenix or Tampa. We were born and raised here. Our fandom was passed down from our fathers and grandfathers. We live and breathe the very essence of our teams. We sacrifice and bleed for them. We identify with them on a DNA-structural level. They are us. We are them.

To which Miami fans answer: "That's nice. You do that. We're going to go watch LeBron and the Heat win by 30, then we're going to the beach."

Those so-called fair weather fans in the Sun Belt? They pick sports up and put it down whenever it suits them. We look down our noses at a fan base that doesn't even think about the Marlins until they're in the NLCS. We're appalled that such lax fan support is rewarded with two World Series titles in the span of six years. Then, Miami was rewarded with an NBA title in 2006, and chances are very good they have more Heat parades coming.

All for a fan base that, save for the Dolphins and maybe the University of Miami football program, really doesn't cling to sports in any meaningful way.

But maybe Miami has it right. Maybe they do deserve the titles they've won because they approach sports in the right frame of mind. They put sports in its frivolous place. They don't look to local sports teams for regional or personal vindication, or to provide a metaphorical sword of justice to wield when assailed by fans of a rival team.

Yes, Miami has beaches, warm weather and points of civic pride that Cleveland quite obviously doesn't have. But it's a state of mind more than anything else.

The fans in Miami and across the Sun Belt know what we in Cleveland refuse to admit: there is no honor in suffering for a sports team. To emotionally martyr yourself, week after week, month after month, coming back for more time and time again, it's about as futile as trying to get anywhere by running on a hamster wheel.

Cleveland has, quite possibly, the most unhealthy fan/team relationship of any major U.S. city. It's a clingy, needy, desperate, one-sided relationship in which the fans keep giving and giving of themselves, in the hope that the love will be requited in the form of that long-sought championship parade that seemingly every U.S. city has experienced in the past half-century except for Cleveland. But the teams always let us down, without fail, and it creates even more emotional baggage.

I've seen the cycle of abuse play out since the days of The Drive and The Fumble, and those older than me have even earlier examples.

Instead of mocking Miami, Tampa and Atlanta, maybe we should strive to be more like them. We should care less about sports in Cleveland. That doesn't mean we stop supporting the local teams, but as a source of joy and misery, the grown men who play games for millions of dollars a year should be far down the list of what moves us.

If for no other reason, change your outlook to achieve this: when a Steelers fan tries to give you the business about the Browns' latest calamity, you can say something like, "Oh, really? I didn't see it. I was at the park with my family on a beautiful fall day."

That is a liberating feeling.

Tradition trumps history

There are few places where the past and future dance around each other more than they do in Major League Baseball.

Few entities combine a strict adherence to the laws of the past, written and unwritten, with landscape-altering gimmicks that completely break from the past.

Baseball is the sport that can't implement a salary cap, thanks to more than 100 years of contentious labor relationships between players and owners, and that baggage it has packed to this day. So while the NFL, NBA and NHL have succeeded to a degree in leveling the competitive balance between small market and big market teams, baseball is still a sport in which the privileged few spend about 90 percent of the time ruling over the less-privileged many.

Baseball is the sport with two leagues playing by two different rules because, roughly 40 years ago, American League owners liked the idea of having a professional hitter designated specifically to take the pitcher's turn in the batting order, with the idea that it would increase offense. The National League decided against it, and since 1973, the designated hitter has been a battle line in the war between new school and old school.

Baseball is the sport that embraced artificial turf first, but it's the sport that loathes the memory of the symmetrical, cylindrical multi-purpose stadiums that kept the artificial turf industry afloat for more than 30 years.

Baseball introduced interleague play in 1997, then counteracted it with the introduction of the unbalanced schedule a few years later. Now, the Indians sacrifice dates with the Yankees and Red Sox not only to play the Reds and Pirates, but also to play the Tigers and Twins 19 times a year.

Baseball is also the sport in which umpires still have virtually unquestioned authority. And Wednesday night in Detroit, unchecked human error crept into the equation in the Tigers-Indians game, robbing Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga of a perfect game.

Replays showed that Tribe hitter Jason Donald was out, and it really wasn't that close. With two outs in the top of the ninth, Donald hit a grounder to first for what would have been the 27th and final out of the game. Detroit first baseman Miguel Cabrera picked the ball cleanly, and delivered a throw to Galarraga covering first.

The throw was a little low, but Galarraga corralled it with little difficulty and put his foot on the bag. A freeze-frame showed Donald's lead leg was about a half-step away from the bag when Galarraga had the ball in his glove and his foot on the bag. But umpire Jim Joyce -- an accomplished umpire with more than 20 years on the job -- called Donald safe.

It was a flat-out blown call. An honest mistake, to be sure, but a major mistake. One that corrupted what should have been a historic night.

It would have been a continuation of one of the great statistical anomalies that make baseball distinctive. Heading into this season, 18 perfect games had been thrown in the history of Major League Baseball. Dallas Braden threw the 19th on Mother's Day. Roy Halladay threw the 20th this past Saturday. Galarraga should have had the third perfect game in less than a month. But Joyce's error, and baseball's unwillingness to put processes in place to correct it, left Galarraga with what is likely the most hollow one-hitter in baseball history.

Jim Leyland and every Detroit coach, player and fan within audible distance emphatically disputed Joyce, who argued back. Confronted later with the evidence, Joyce was quick to admit his error.

"I just cost that kid a perfect game," he told a reporter afterward. "I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay."

But once Joyce's arms went out in a "safe" signal, there was no turning back.

Perhaps Bud Selig and the rest of baseball's policymakers feel that, by putting 100 percent of the burden on umpires to get the call right, they're forcing the umpires to stay sharp by promoting total accountability. What baseball doesn't want is a setup like the NFL, where replay all but drives officiating, where side judges will routinely get out-of-bounds and possession calls wrong, seemingly guessing on the right call, knowing that coaches will challenge the call and replay will correct any mistake.

But what baseball has is a replay policy that has changed little from the days of Honus Wagner and Napoleon Lajoie. In the past two years, baseball has begrudgingly instituted replay on home run calls, allowing umpires to review whether a ball was fair or foul, or if it hit above the line that separates the outfield wall from the stands.

But on questions of balls and strikes, safe or out, not much has changed from the horse and buggy days.

Balls and strikes are, admittedly, another animal altogether. Baseball couldn't possibly institute a system in which every questionable ball and strike call is reviewed, or games would take six hours. But on the bang-bang play at first, the swipe tag on the stolen base attempt, the diving catch that TV replays showed to be a trapped ball -- in this era of high definition television feeds and 12 different camera angles, there is just no excuse to get those calls wrong anymore.

It's time for baseball -- the sport of the designated hitter, interleague play and the all-star game that determines homefield advantage in the World Series -- to cease clinging to the archaic ideal that replay technology will somehow corrupt the purity of the game, or turn umpires into robots. Because the only thing that's getting corrupted is history in the making.

Jim Joyce failed Armando Galarraga on Wednesday. But the office of the commissioner failed Joyce. Now Joyce is shamed and Galarraga might never scrape so close to greatness again.

That's a crime. But the real crime occurs when Selig and his cronies avert their eyes and continue to pretend that it's a bygone era where nothing can be done about it.

Acting on Acta

As the Manny Acta Era begins in Cleveland, I have a confession to make:

When word reached the media that the Indians had whittled their managerial search down to four names, I wanted the biggest name of the bunch. I wanted Bobby Valentine.

I wanted Valentine because he has loads of experience, he's been managing pretty much nonstop since 1996, and above all, he's the ultimate anti-Mark Shapiro guy.

Valentine is an old-school manager like Mike Hargrove, but with an eccentric personality that I thought would be a breath of fresh air in an Indians organization that had become bogged down with Moneyball-style analysis and process worship. I wanted Valentine to come in on the first day of spring training wearing Groucho Marx glasses and slinging shaving cream like Trot Nixon. Anything to make baseball fun again for the Tribe's now-youthful roster.

Then, Valentine came to town for the in-person portion of his interview. No one knows what went on behind closed doors, but when Valentine met with the media, he gave a series of rambling responses to questions, ultimately admitting that he did very little research on the Indians or the American League in preparation for his meeting with Team Shapiro.

That in and of itself shouldn't have excluded Valentine from consideration. There will be time to memorize every name on the 40-man roster. I'd be more concerned with his coaching philosophies than whether he can rattle off every pitcher who toed the rubber for the Indians this past season. But what it did show was a lack of preparedness, which could be indicative of Valentine not taking the job opportunity seriously enough.

After that interview, Valentine was all but excluded from consideration. That left Acta, Dodgers bench coach Don Mattingly and Columbus Clippers manager Torey Lovullo.

Of those, the Indians wanted Acta by far the most. He was the lone remaining candidate with Major League managerial experience, a progressive thinker who values the baseball numbers game and a virtual walking encyclopedia of Major League Baseball rosters.

In short: Acta is a Shapiro guy. Like Wedge was a Shapiro guy. But maybe even more so. When the Indians officially hired Acta as the franchise's 40th manager on Sunday, you'd have to think Shapiro was walking on air.

The hire came as something of a surprise, considering that the Astros -- a team with significantly deeper pockets than the Indians and an aggressive owner in Drayton McLane -- had also offered Acta their vacant manager's position. But when Acta and the Astros reportedly had trouble coming to terms on money, the door slid open and Shapiro got his man.

So what did the Indians get in Acta? And how, exactly, is a guy with so many philosophical similarities to Shapiro going to clean out the cobwebs of the Wedge Era?

He can start by relating to players better than Wedge was relating to them by the end of his tenure.

Wedge was decidedly new-school in some ways, but in terms of handling players, he was a modern-era John McGraw tough guy. I'm convinced that Wedge saw himself as something like a spaghetti western Clint Eastwood, and expected the same from his players. Be the strong, silent type. If you're hurt and you can still move, shut your yap and play through the pain. Complaining equals whining equals weakness.

Of course, we all know that a clubhouse of 25 guys is going to contain many different types of personalities. Some can play the role of the lone cowboy, as Wedge idealized. Some are a little more high-maintenance than that. Those are the guys Acta will have to do a better job of connecting with.

Acta will also need to develop a rapport with, and teach, some of the Latin American players that floundered under Wedge. This is a critical connection, because Acta shares a common broad background with the Tribe's foriegn-born Latino players. Born in the Dominican Republic, Acta is the first native Latin American manager in Tribe history. Al Lopez, Dave Garcia and Pat Corrales -- Acta's former Nationals assistant coach -- were all Tribe managers of Latin American descent, but all were born in the U.S.

Players from Latin American baseball factories such as the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Venezuela are, in many cases, taught the game differently than the far-more-structured upbringing that governs the maturation of American-born baseball players. In the U.S., players move from Little League to travel teams to AAU ball, high school ball, advanced summer leagues and maybe college before ever playing a single pitch of pro ball. By then, a U.S.-born player could be 22 or 23.

Acta followed the route that so many young Caribbean players take. He was signed by the Astros as a 17-year-old and was in Double-A ball by 20. He had to learn American baseball on the fly while still a teenager.

Maybe Acta can turn Fausto Carmona and Rafael Perez around, or maybe he can't. But it's an important element to his new job. Carmona represents the front of Acta's rotation next year, and Perez a key member of the back of his bullpen. If his background as a young Latino player can help him reach the young Latino players on the roster, that would be a huge asset for Acta.

One thing you shouldn't hold against Acta is his won-loss record in two-plus seasons as manager of the Nationals. Nor should you assume that just because he was fired by the worst team in baseball midseason, he must be no good.

John Lannan, he of the 9-13 record and 3.88 ERA, was Washington's best starting pitcher last season. He made 33 starts. The Nationals' rotation also included Jordan Zimmerman (3-5, 4.63), Garrett Mock (3-10, 5.62, 28 starts), Shairon Martis (5-3, 5.25) and Craig Stammen (4-7, 5.11). Washington's lineup was topped by Ryan Zimmerman (.295, 33 HR, 106 RBI), Adam Dunn (.267, 38 HR, 105 RBI) and Josh Willingham (.260, 24 HR, 61 RBI). Beyond that, no one cracked 60 RBI or even double digits in home runs.

In short, the Nats' struggles had a lot more to do with the experience level and talent on their roster than anything Acta did or did not do. And when teams lose, managers tend to get fired, deserved or not.

So aren't the Indians in the same boat with the experience/talent question? Quite possibly. But apparently Acta developed an interest in building young teams, or he wouldn't have taken the Indians job.

It's that interest that makes him an intriguing choice to take the reins on this lastest Tribe rebuild.

If Acta is a Shapiro type of guy, that's not entirely a bad thing. It means he's organized, understands the value of making sound administrative decisions and won't make those decisions without the data to back them up.

The fact that Acta is a Shapiro-type guy who believes in Shapiro's organizational principles, yet isn't a product of the Indians organization, might mean that we could have the best of both worlds: a forward-thinking manager who isn't institutionalized by the Indians Way. A guy on the same philosophical page as the front office, but with enough outside influence to bring some different perspectives to the table.

There will be time for the big picture to become clearer. For now, he has to get down to business with his players, which he'll start doing this week. Those are the relationships that will, in the end, determine if Acta's tenure in Cleveland is a success, and whether Acta falls closer to Wedge or Hargrove in the pantheon of Cleveland managers.

Cleveland's Cubs

There were six of us at dinner on Sunday night, at a Toledo-area restaurant. My fiancee Jane and I had returned to the city of her more formative years to finally nail down a reception site and a wedding date for late next summer.

Joining us at the dinner table were her parents -- Detroit fans who had moved the family to the outskirts of Toledo about 20 years ago -- and my parents, who had made a daylong trip from Cleveland to assist the four of us in the reception site selection process. My parents, like me, are Cleveland natives saddled with a lifelong attachment to Cleveland sports.

Inevitably, the conversation among the men at the table turned to football and the common thread of losing shared by the Lions and Browns. This past Sunday came and went like so many other Sundays before. While the Browns were busy enduring a 12th straight loss to the Steelers, the Lions were in the process of getting rolled by the Packers 26-0. It was Detroit's 19th straight loss to the Packers in Wisconsin.

The football talk ran out of steam, and the conversation turned into a comparison of how Detroit and Cleveland sports are bottomless pits of misery -- subjectively speaking based on where you live, of course. We have LeBron and Shaq, but no championships in 45 years. They can actually remember the last time a Detroit team won a title, but they've mostly been Stanley Cups by the Red Wings, which doesn't really have any bearing on NHL-devoid Cleveland. As far as the Lions, Tigers and Pistons are concerned, the less said, the better.

Just then, my mom interjected in that way that so many moms do when it comes to sports -- vaguely on topic, but kind of not really.

"You know, your grandma remembers being downtown and watching the parade the last time the Indians won the World Series."

A brief background was provided for Jane's folks: That would be 1948.

Jane's dad didn't miss a beat in asserting that ever-so-slight advantage of Detroit over Cleveland. The Tigers last won a World Series in 1984.

"Wow, that's 61 years ago," he said, drawing out "sixty-one" for full effect.

My dad and I didn't bother counting the several near misses for the edification of Jane's dad. The 1995 team with the lineup for the ages but not enough pitching to match the Atlanta Braves, and more specifically, Tom Glavine. The 1997 team that got hot at the right time, scored improbable upsets over the Yankees and Orioles in the AL playoffs, fended off a 3-2 series deficit against the Marlins in the World Series, held a 2-0 lead going into the middle innings of Game 7, and ... well ...

More recently, there was the 2007 team that had a 3-1 series lead against the Red Sox in the ALCS, but fell victim to the playoff-inexperienced knock-knees of C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona, who crumbled right when their team needed them the most.

I know it has been 61 years for the Indians, but when someone from outside the Cleveland sports cocoon says it with an air of disbelief, it's kind of jolting. I dwelled on those near-miss Tribe teams for a few minutes while the conversation shifted to other topics. I thought about the thoroughly scary case of the Chicago Cubs, who are now working on 101 years without a World Series title.

It can get that bad. And I wonder if it might get that bad for the Indians, who are already six-tenths of the way to a century without a championship.

The conditions that created the gold rush of the 1990s might never come together again, unless the Indians manage to once again construct a lineup of borderline Hall of Famers just as they're moving into a new ballpark, with a title-hungry fan base eager to drop millions in disposable income on tickets and merchandise.

Six division titles in seven years? Those days are long gone, never to return without unforeseen positive developments. The Indians aren't designed to win that way.

The Indians are now designed to win the way baseball wants its small-market teams to win: once in a while.

For the longest time, I thought baseball wanted a salary cap. I thought Bud Selig, for all his warts as commissioner of Major League Baseball, was trying to fight the good fight and put teams like the Indians, Twins and Rockies on even ground with the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox.

Now, the salary cap talk has gotten strangely quiet since the last collective bargaining agreement. The Yankees and Red Sox are more popular than ever. The Yankees, Dodgers, Angels and Phillies -- all from the five largest U.S. markets -- comprised baseball's final four this year.

Baseball's leaders want it that way. They've wanted it that way since the days of Babe Ruth, but as the rich get richer and the less rich get less richer by comparison, the chasm only widens. And as the tectonic rift between baseball's made men and indentured servants continue to grow, teams like the Indians are going to find themselves just plain out of luck. Baseball's competitive system will be inherently weighted in favor of big market teams from now until the Rapture.

Unlike the NBA, and to a lesser extent the NFL, baseball is a sport that markets teams over players. MLB's lot is cast with the highest-profile teams that have the most name recognition among Joe Fan types from coast to coast. Certainly, the NBA wants to see pillar teams like the Lakers and Celtics in the playoffs, but baseball places far more weight on their money-maker teams to generate interest and draw viewers.

In short, baseball wants to see a steady diet of the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs, Angels, Phillies and Mets in the playoffs. It's OK if the Indians, Twins or Rays rise up and go on a Cinderella run every so often. Fans like a good underdog story. But this isn't March Madness. Cinderella can't visit the ball every year, or one of baseball's wagon-pulling Clydesdales consistently misses the party.

A world in which the Indians can make the playoffs 15 times in 16 years is not a world that baseball wants to create. With that in mind, you can probably start engraving the headstone for baseball's would-be salary cap. The cause died sometime after the 1994 strike, and no one looks like they're going to bother reviving it anytime soon.

The Indians of the now-closing decade are the Indians of forthcoming reality. Out of contention 50 percent of time, on the outskirts of contention 40 to 45 percent of the time, and maybe a legitimate contender once or twice every 10 years.

Part of the problem is certainly how the Indians do business. The Dolans don't have the deep pockets to make risky investments on high-priced veteran players. Mark Shapiro and his staff have made errors in conducting drafts, free agent signings and trades. But at their best, all the Indians can probably every hope to become is the Minnesota Twins, racking up a few extra division titles, but seldom playing deep into October. Mostly because of where Johan Santana and C.C. Sabathia now pitch -- New York. The only market big enough to cater to their contract demands.

If nothing changes in the baseball landscape, you'll probably only need one hand, plus maybe a finger or two if we're lucky, to count the number of times the Indians will be able to mount a serious World Series run in the next 39 years. If opportunity only knocks once or twice a decade, you better be doggone sure you can answer the door. Unfortunately, it would be all too easy for the hand of fate, and better teams, to thwart a mere handful of playoff runs in the coming decades.

Jane's dad might have been shocked and awed by the title-bankrupt state of the Indians over the past six decades. But the real shock and awe is what might not happen over the next four decades.

If' I'm still around, I'll turn 69 in 2048. Our family dinner conversation in 2009 will probably have been long forgotten by then, but the Indians might still be plugging away with 1948 as their last entry in the World Series championship log. In fact, it's a highly probable outcome.

Even worse than that, the Indians might become trendsetters among small market and midmarket teams. Future generations might see further entries in the Century Club. The clock is already ticking on the Giants (2054), Expos/Nationals (2069), Brewers (2070), Pirates (2079), Orioles (2083) and Royals (2085), just to name a few.

What never was

The pinnacle of Eric Wedge's tenure as Indians manager came and went like so many other moments that marked his seven years at the helm.

It was on the precipice of something greater that would never be realized. It preceded a downfall. It was the beginning of the end.

If there was one moment in time to freeze from Wedge's now-ending tenure as Tribe manager, it was October 16, 2007. Game 4 of the American League Championship Series versus the Red Sox.

Already clutching a 2-1 series lead, the Indians battled Boston to a scoreless draw for four innings before exploding for seven runs in the fifth off Boston starter Tim Wakefield, highlighted by Casey Blake and Johnny Peralta homers. Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez answered with three straight solo home runs in the top of the sixth, but mustered no further damage. Jensen Lewis and Rafael Betancourt mopped up for starter Paul Byrd, and the Indians won 7-3, taking a 3-1 series lead.

One win away from the World Series. One win away from homefield advantage in the World Series and a Rockies team that was their competitive equal, if not inferior.

That is the snapshot of the Wedge era that we wish we could have and hold. The stands filled with Wahoo-clad, delirious fans, flooding the noisy streets around downtown after the game, honking car horns, reliving the late '90s, when this was all commonplace.

But it was fleeting. It was a prelude to heartbreak. It was the all-too-Cleveland career of Eric Wedge.

Looking back, October 16, 2007 was Wedge's watershed. Before that game, the Indians were building toward something. They were climbing the ladder of success. They had bottomed out in 2003, losing 94 games with a stripped-down, young team in Wedge's rookie managerial campaign.

They climbed to 80 wins in '04, including an August surge that made us believe that this team was on the verge of prime-time ready, even though a late-season swoon put a damper on things. Unfortunately, swoons and collapses haunted Wedge's club on more than one occasion.

The 2005 season was the breakout. Ninety-three wins and their hand on the destiny throttle heading into the season's last week. But a last-week collapse versus Tampa Bay and Chicago killed off a would-be wild card berth. The year after was marred by bad pitching, and the Indians fell to 78 wins.

But then came that magical '07 season. A snowy opening weekend wiped out an entire four-game series with Seattle. The Indians moved their next series, against the Angels, to Miller Park in Milwaukee. The hardship out of the gate seemed to galvanize the team, and the Indians had their only really successful April under Wedge.

The season ended with 96 wins, a division title and a first-round dispatch of the Yankees in four games. As the Indians carried their 3-1 series lead into Game 5 against Boston, it looked like the plan that Wedge and Mark Shapiro had hatched four years previous was about to reach fruition -- perhaps doing what Dick Jacobs, John Hart and Mike Hargrove couldn't: win a World Series.

But Josh Beckett outpitched C.C. Sabathia in Game 5. The Red Sox won, 7-1. And the meltdown was on. Games 6 and 7 at Fenway Park weren't close. Boston rallied to win the pennant, four games to three.

The Indians were never the same. As a manager, neither was Wedge. He won Manager of the Year honors, but the rockslide was already in progress.

What followed was a quick descent. Two years of slow starts quickly rendering the remainder of the season irrelevant, except for grooming young players for bigger roles down the road. Two years of purging the roster of veterans. Two years of sliding toward the inevitable conclusion that was reached on Wednesday, when Wedge's job was terminated, effective at the end of the season.

As so it was that Wedge fell, in the span of 24 months, from the cusp of the World Series to a Peralta groundout that ended the second game of Wednesday's doubleheader against the White Sox. In front of a sparse crowd on a chilly last night of September, Wedge managed and lost the last home game of his Tribe career, so very far away from recent history.

Wedge managed the Indians for seven years, longer than most managers get. He'll go into the record books as the fifth-winningest and third-losingest manager in Tribe history. His lofty standing among Cleveland managers speaks more to endurance than accomplishment. Only Lou Boudreau, Mike Hargrove and Tris Speaker will have managed more Indians games than Wedge when all is said and done this year.

For a low-key guy who preached stability and frowned upon sideshows and distractions in his clubhouse, Wedge will be continually linked to controversy in Cleveland sports circles. The media and fans took frequent issue with his game management skills, his bizarre fascination with players who can play multiple positions, his lack of extensive big-league playing experience on his coaching staff, and his use of the phrase "grind it out," which became part of the Cleveland sports lexicon, but not in a good way.

Most of all, he'll be remembered for walking in lockstep with Shapiro. Wedge will be remembered by the Cleveland baseball-watching masses as Shapiro's puppet, a front office lackey that Shapiro had, in the past, referred to as his "partner."

It's not entirely deserved. Shapiro and Wedge might have been involved in a game of circular back-scratching early on in their partnership, but as the past couple of seasons progressed, the groupthink started to disintegrate.

Some fans might argue that terminating Wedge was a move made to placate the ticket-buying public, who have been staying away from Progressive Field in droves. That's not true. Nobody in baseball thinks offering a manager up as a sacrificial lamb is going to directly solve the problem of lagging gate receipts on any level. If any baseball executive thinks that, he shouldn't be a baseball executive.

Bottom line, if Shapiro and Wedge were still seeing eye-to-eye, Wedge doesn't lose his job.

There will be time to debate the ups and downs of Wedge all winter, as the Indians commence the search for a new manager. Right now, what we have is a manager that was, Octobers that never were and the shaky prospect of what this team might be in several years.

It's a shame it had to end this way. Wedge wasn't the greatest manager in Tribe history, but he wasn't the inept buffoon some believe.

The past seven years could have been better. Maybe they should have been better. But the current reality is that the Indians are right back where they were when Wedge took over in 2003: at rock bottom and trying to claw their way back up through the American League.

Fortunately for Wedge, that's not his problem anymore.

Lost seasons

Right now, the temptation is to lump the Indians and Browns together in one heaping pile of Cleveland sports suck.

They sure look like two rudderless franchises that offer little in the way of hope for winning in the foreseeable future. The Browns just opened Eric Mangini's first season at the helm with a couple of putrid losses. The Indians might win another game this season. Or they might not. If they don't, they'll break 100 losses for the first time in 18 years.

Both teams seem psychologically beaten. The Browns' competitive resolve breaks around halftime every week. The Indians' competitive resolve broke around Sept. 1, give or take a few months.

The Browns and Indians, for now, both seem resigned to the fact that they are league doormats. That's the truth, but when your teams lose their will to fight, it's pure agony to watch. Which is why televisions across northeast Ohio have been steadily migrating away from Tribe game telecasts to anything else. The Browns, who usually rule the Cleveland airwaves on Autumn Sundays, are a few more disastrous losses from following suit.

The Browns and Indians have a lot of bad, non-competitive, unwatchable traits in common. But there is a difference between Cleveland's downtrodden football team and Cleveland's downtrodden baseball team, at least from where I sit and type.

The Browns are this bad. The Indians, even after purging the roster of almost all competent veterans, aren't.

The Browns simply do not have the talent to compete at a high level. In a league where draft success separates the swans from the ugly ducklings, where trades seldom happen, let alone trades yielding franchise building blocks, the Browns have whiffed time and time again. Their roster shows it, and even the coaching job of a lifetime by Eric Mangini probably wouldn't put these Browns on the fast track to playing meaningful games in December and January.

The Indians certainly have had their own problems with drafting, coupled with Mark Shapiro's well-documented trade and free agency misadventures. But unlike the Browns, the Indians have done enough right to have the talent to stay competitive, to even contend in a less-than-powerful American League Central.

That's why the Indians don't get off the hook so easily in my book. When the Indians underachieve for five months, followed by a September meltdown, I'm not as willing to sit back and let things play out. I want someone to get under the hood and start tuning up the engine.

Unlike the Browns and their systemic issues, which seem to start at the beginning of the free agent signing period and end after Game 16 of another cruddy season, the Indians' problems have less to do with stockpiling talent and more to do with how that talent is cultivated and coached.

It's unfair to lay all the blame for the 2009 collapse at the feet of Eric Wedge, but it's removed just about every shred of remaining ambiguity over whether it's time for a new manager and coaching staff. It's definitely time for a change. Not because Wedge is a horrible manager, as some fans contend, but because it's time to see what a new boss -- preferably one from outside the organization -- can do with the lump of wet-but-moldable clay that is now the Tribe's roster.

Looking at talents like Matt LaPorta, Michael Brantley, Shin-Soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera and the forthcoming Carlos Santana, it's easy to sit back and daydream about what the Indians could become if the right group of leaders can put the puzzle pieces together. Even the embattled pitching staff has undeniable -- if unpolished -- young talent in Justin Masterson, Tony Sipp, Chris Perez, Hector Rondon, David Huff and Fausto Carmona, who desperately needs a stronger guiding hand in his struggle to prove that his 2007 campaign wasn't a fluke.

The Indians stopped stumbling a while ago. They've stopped staggering and even crawling. They'll sort of ooze across the finish line on October 4. But once this nightmare of a season ends, it's time for Mark Shapiro to pick up his steamrolled team and re-shape them, starting with a new manager and coaching staff.

Success is not guaranteed, of course, but it's a logical starting point for a team that should feel as though it's good enough to play meaningful games next September. Maybe they'll need a couple of seasons of maturation before playoff contention is actually realized, but it's a worthy goal that the Tribe's young roster should feel empowered to shoot for.

If several seasons under a new coaching staff yields no playoff contention, it might be time to make changes higher up the Tribe's organizational ladder. But for now, it's time to start small and think big. That's in contrast to the Browns, who always seem to make big moves with small results.

As the Indians euthanize their season a week from Sunday in Boston, the Browns will take the field at home against the Bengals, in all likelihood searching for their first win. They'll also be searching for a lot more: leadership, a team identity and talent at key positions. The same problems they haven't been able to address in a decade's time.

There is a difference between underachieving and being a low achiever. It's the difference between the Indians and Browns. And it's why, despite the built-in parity advantages in the NFL, I fully expect to see the Tribe back in the playoffs before the Browns.

Talking Heads about the Tribe

Baseball is bad when it's not about baseball. And for most of the 2009 season, the Indians certainly have not been about baseball. They've been about the talking heads of Mark Shapiro, Eric Wedge and other club higher-ups trying to explain the business of baseball.

Most fans don't want their TV screens fogged up with hot air speeches about market constraints, opportunistic trades and maximizing value. All we care about is the fact that the Indians are not a winning team. We really don't care why. We really don't care how they're going to get back to respectability. We just want Shapiro and Co. to do it, and earn their gosh-darn inflated salaries.

Friday's deadline trade of Victor Martinez was the final insult. Not to speak ill of the trio of pitchers the Indians received -- Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price -- but if Wednesday's trade of Cliff Lee removed the head of the beast, the loss of Martinez ripped out the heart, the closest thing the Indians had to a soul.

The Indians are truly a shell right now. They are a collection of players with no uniform identity, no cause for which to fight, except roster spots for next season. During Friday's game, Shapiro appeared on SportsTime Ohio's telecast, explaining the Martinez trade and reviewing the state of the organization.

Right now, that's all we have if we're on the outside looking in. We have talking heads drawing verbal diagrams and defending moves instead of players playing ball. It's like the offseason, except there is no snow on the ground.

Since talking heads are the only way through which we can really follow the Indians right now, let's do exactly that. Let's talk Talking Heads about the Tribe. David Byrne, the lead singer of the 1970s-'80s art rock band, probably never envisioned himself as a baseball sage. Well, step to the plate, David. You're up.

This is Indians baseball that Shapiro and Wedge can understand -- Talking Heads style.

Once In A Lifetime

A single off Talking Heads' influential 1980 album "Remain in Light." Also Shapiro's justification for dealing Lee when he did.

By stepping through the open door before the Phillies and Blue Jays could come to an agreement over Roy Halladay, Shapiro reasoned that he could get the best deal for the Indians. Shapiro said he was under no pressure from the Dolans to dump salary. He said this was the best move at the best time, and if he had waited, this type of deal might not have come along again.

Of course, Carlos Carrasco is the only widely-recognize marquee prospect the Indians received, and most pundits seem to project him as a middle-rotation big league starter at best. A-ball fireballer Jason Knapp might become a big league stud someday. Or he might become Adam Miller. We have time to find that out. Time is about all the Indians have right now.

Burning Down the House

A single from the Heads' 1983 album "Speaking in Tongues." After sitting through a roster purge that included Mark DeRosa, Rafael Betancourt, Ryan Garko, Ben Francisco, Lee and Martinez, the application to the Tribe's situation is kind of self-explanatory.

The trade purges of 2006 and '08 look like garage sales compared to the flame thrower Shapiro has taken to the roster in the past month. This is most definitely not a retool with an eye toward 2010. This a rebuild for 2011 and after. Grady Sizemore is the only real core player left after this detonation, and even he might be gone before the Indians return to competitive ball.

This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)

Another single from "Speaking in Tongues." But also a suitable commentary for the people who are aghast that, once again, the Indians are dealing off their best players.

You know the script: "Why does this always happen to Cleveland? Why do we always get screwed? We are fate's bastard children."

It is true that if Shapiro had done a better job at piecing together a roster this year, the Indians would have been winning with Lee and Martinez this year instead of trading them. But their departure from the Indians was inevitable.

Ultimately, it's a baseball problem, and it won't be solved until the sport adopts a salary cap, which may never happen, thanks to contentious labor relations between players and owners going back more than a century.

Don't be naive. Don't allow yourselves to be emotionally snookered by a tearful Martinez lamenting his departure on Friday. Certainly, his emotions were raw and real. The Indians represented 13 years of his life. It was the only organization he knew. But as soon as the Red Sox slide a fat contract extension under his nose, those tears will dry right up. It's still a business. As fans, you'd be best-served in not getting emotionally attached to players, especially when you are rooting for a midmarket baseball team with lagging gate receipts.

They'll leave sooner or later. That's the rub. A team like the Indians needs to develop players they someday won't be able to keep. That's the only way they can win.

Life During Wartime

A single from the 1979 album "Fear of Music," and probably a good working title for how Tribe fans feel right now.

If you shouldn't treat the events of the past week like the Apocalypse, no one is asking you to accept it with a smile either.

If there is a winter of discontent fit for midsummer, this is it. A bad season gone worse, as all the supports have been kicked out from under the local baseball team by a GM in full teardown mode.

How do you deal with it? Dig an emotional foxhole. Alcohol is good for relaxing on a given evening, but not so good as a coping mechanism. Tend to the garden, go for a run, clean out the gutters like you've been meaning to do since spring. If baseball doesn't bring you enjoyment, shove it onto the back burner. It will be there later, once they Indians figure out a new direction.

Take Me to the River

A cover of an Al Green song that appeared on the Heads' 1978 album, "More Songs About Buildings and Food." Probably also what most fans would like to do with Larry and Paul Dolan, with Shapiro and Wedge not far behind.

The reasons for why the Indians are in this mess are many. Some of them, such as a lack of a salary cap in baseball, aren't their fault. But some are. The Dolans don't have the up-front cash to invest in the team, meaning that they're heavily reliant on the team's revenue streams to make roster improvements. When that revenue dries up, there is nothing to really jump start the process, short of going into rebuild mode and trying to build a winner with a new group of younger players, which can take years.

As Cavs owner Dan Gilbert is fond of saying, money follows, it doesn't lead. In other words, you have to invest money to make money. The Dolans have invested money into the Indians organization, but they can't make the acquisitions and capital improvements that can really spark fan interest, get the turnstiles clicking and the cash registers ringing, thereby jump starting revenue streams and paving the way for more income that can be pumped back into the team.

Unfortunately for the Dolans, the net result is a fan base that is highly skeptical of their competency as owners. Skeptical fans don't spend money freely.

Girlfriend Is Better

Yet another song from "Speaking in Tongues." Also a caution to Lee and Martinez, now that they're playing in the East Coast media crucible. In a nutshell, don't wake up one morning to find out that you have a girlfriend you didn't know you had.

The unrelenting eye of the camera can turn you into a god. But it can also tear you down and pry deeply into your personal lives. I have no doubt that both you guys are upstanding family guys, but you're still professional athletes entering into contact with larger fan bases than our little Midwestern outpost. Women want you. Men want to be you. Privacy is thin. Rumors can start from a blog post.

You could let your guard down at least a little bit in Cleveland. Not so in Boston or Philadelphia. Watch your back and watch your reputation. That's all I'm going to say.

Psycho Killer

A song from the Heads' 1977 debut, "Talking Heads: 77," and probably how a lot of fans would describe Mark Shapiro at the moment. His work as GM over the past nine years does have a hatchet-job element to it. The Indians have not drafted well on his watch. They haven't had a good track record with free agents.

The only time Shapiro has had any real success is when he needs to flush a season and trade veterans for prospects. That's a definite positive quality to have in a GM, but when season after season needs to be flushed, the body of work doesn't really stand the test of time.

It's really time for Shapiro to learn from his mistakes. He's quickly approaching 10 years on the job, and his regime needs to hit for a higher average with drafts, trades and signings. If his handpicked support staff isn't getting the job done, it's time to make changes. And, Mark, please, look outside the organization. Bring in experienced baseball people and give them real authority to challenge you.

If you do that, you might take an ego hit in the short term, but your reputation will flourish in the long run.

Gone with the wins

It's over. The credits are rolling, and it wasn't a happy ending.

Wednesday's trade of Cliff Lee and Ben Francisco to the Phillies essentially finishes what the Bartolo Colon trade of 2002 started.

The rebuild is kaput. Mark Shapiro's original plan is busted after seven years, two winning seasons and one playoff appearance. It's back to the drawing board, and it's going to take at least several years before any new momentum might be able to slingshot the Indians back up the standings. Until then, build up your emotional callouses and prepare for a lot of losing as the Indians try to piece their organization back together.

More and more, I'm hoping that task will fall on new shoulders, but that's a whole other column.

For now, putting Shapiro squarely in the crosshairs of blame for this deal is attempting to simplify a complicated issue by hunting for a scapegoat. There are several reasons why Shapiro traded Lee now, and at least a few of them aren't his crosses to bear. Shapiro is on the hook for who the Indians received in return, but not entirely for the circumstances that led to the trade.

First, Lee's relationship with Indians management was tenuous at best. He still held a grudge for the way he felt he was treated during his worst of times in 2007, when he was demoted and didn't make the postseason roster. Lee was able to harness his resentment and use it to better himself in a big way in '08, and after a slow start, '09 as well.

This spring, the Indians reportedly didn't want to talk contract extension with Lee because they didn't want to sign him at peak value. That probably further agitated the waters between player and organization.

With all that in mind, it's reasonable to wonder if Lee was a voice of dissension in the clubhouse, a guy who spoke negatively of management. We know how the Indians deal with those kinds of players. They get rid of them.

Second, the Phillies seemed to really want to make a move for a frontline starter. Shapiro's haul for Lee and Francisco (pitching prospects Carlos Carrasco and Jason Knapp, catching prospect Lou Marson and minor league infielder Jason Donald) has been met with a heavy helping of criticism by fans and the local media, but if timing was an issue, perhaps Shapiro wasn't going to find a team more willing to make a blockbuster deal than the Phillies, who are attempting to stock up for defense of their World Series title.

But the third reason for the trade is perhaps the most disheartening, because it involves the financial state of the Indians. If the Indians made this trade primarily for financial reasons, it forecasts rough seas ahead for the franchise, at least until the economy improves noticeably.

No secret, the economic nosedive of the past year has hit Ohio hard. A region already losing jobs to business flight is now losing jobs to downsizing at established companies. Widespread job loss means family budgets around the region get tightened, and discretionary spending -- like Tribe tickets -- is among the first things to go. Couple that with a lousy on-field product and a palpable distrust of Indians management throughout the fan base, and you have a recipe for rusty turnstiles at Progressive Field.

As of last month, the Indians were averaging a little over 22,000 per game. A beyond-capacity crowd for the Cavaliers, a sparse crowd for the Indians.

Less attendance leads to reduced merchandise sales, and likely indicates shrinking ratings for the club's game telecasts as people find other things to do with their summer besides watch a losing baseball team.

All of it nails Larry and Paul Dolan squarely in the wallet. And that's what makes this summer's purge of (so far) Lee, Francisco, Mark DeRosa, Rafael Betancourt and Ryan Garko so troubling. For at least the short term, we might be going retro in Cleveland. The cash-strapped Tribe of the '70s and '80s might be returning, selling off their best players to save money.

Lee was slated to make $9 million next year, should the Indians have picked up his club option. If $9 million for one year is too rich for the Dolans' blood, that's a sign that ownership might fear some very real financial distress over the horizon, if things don't pick up on the revenue front. But that's an "if" that is only truly known by the Tribe's high rollers and accountants. It's up to the rest of us to speculate.

But if we are to play the role of Bill Belichick, who famously only went by what he saw, what we see is a team that just traded their best pitcher at least half a season before it was truly necessary, meaning the fear of losing Lee to free agency was not the only factor at work here.

The Indians have performed what could loosely be described as fire sales in 2006 and '08. But the players traded in those purges amounted to assorted flotsam and jetsam that didn't play into the team's long term plans.

The trades of 2009 cut a lot deeper -- and deeper still, if the Indians trade Victor Martinez before Friday's trade deadline -- and seem to resemble a white flag more than an attempt to retool for next season.

This coming rebuild is a far cry from Shapiro's original plan of 2002 and '03. It won't arrive on the heels of a seven-year run of success and the benefit of the doubt it provides. It will arrive in the midst of an economic hurricane, with a fan base running the emotional gambit from angry to exasperated to jaded, thoroughly unwilling to spend what little mad money they have on the Indians.

The biggest battle the Indians leadership regime will have to fight -- whether it's the present cast of characters or a future regime -- won't occur between the foul lines, or even in the farm system. It will be the battle to reclaim the franchise's reputation, a battle to get the fans to believe again, both with their hearts and their pocketbooks.

Unfortunately, Wednesday's trade just made that battle a lot harder to win.

Shake it up

There are countless ways to build and run a successful organization, in sports, business or any other endeavor. The ways are limited only by the variety of talents and personalities that exist in managers and executives across the board.

I write for a business magazine at my day job, and I've talked to hundreds of CEOs about how they run their businesses. Some swear by their metrics. Some manage by feel. Some believe in consensus building. Some believe in majority rule. Some believe the buck stops at their desk.

There is no one right way to do this. But as many ways as there are to build an organization, there are as many ways for it to go wrong.

As an organization, the Indians seem to be at a crossroads. Mark Shapiro and his staff laid out a carefully-orchestrated plan in 2002, one centered on rebuilding what had become an atrophied farm system, signing the best young players to reasonable long-term contracts and augmenting the core the roster with value-based free signings and opportunistic trades. The object was to get the most bang for the Dolans' buck as the Indians transitioned from the big-market fantasy land of the sellout-laden '90s to the budget-conscious, belt-tightened reality of the 2000s.

It worked, but only to a point. And "to a point" just hasn't been good enough to put the Tribe on a consistent winning track.

Midmarket and small market teams simply need to hit on a high percentage of their moves if they are to stay competitive with the big bankroll boys in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago. Big-market teams can outspend poor drafting and whiffs in the trade and free agent departments. Smaller market teams either hit on the moves they make, or they don't hit at all. There is no safety net, no duct tape to cover the damage at a later date.

And to that end, Shapiro's plan just hasn't worked how it has needed to work. He's hit on some moves, but not enough. The result is basically an unfinished product. The Indians have a small band of promising young players, but little surrounding it. They have a farm system that has some quality talent, but not much apparent star power. They develop some players, but many more seem to languish and not realize their full potential, or have brief stints as productive major leaguers before regressing.

The net result is a lack of organizational momentum, feeding a kind of malaise that seems to have settled over the entire franchise. From top to bottom, the Indians seem to be sleepwalking down a unclear path toward unspecified goals.

Higher-ups in the organization might quickly contend that the organizational goal is very clear: to build a World Series winner. That looks great on a mission statement plaque. But is that what really motivates the front office, coaches and players each day?

I'd guess not. And if you want to kill momentum in the world of business, multiple CEOs have told me that poorly defining your objectives is a great place to start. Want to turn your organization into a collection of automatons going through the motions of work each day? Neglect to focus them on a larger purpose.

That's the danger of the "grinder" mentality that so fascinates Shapiro and Eric Wedge. It's easy to understand the logic of not wanting your players to get too high or too low over the course of a more than seven month journey from the first spring training game to the last game of the season. But in the rush to have players put on their hardhats and focus squarely on the task at hand, it's easy to go too far in the other direction.

You're asking guys to play a sport, not work on an assembly line. A certain level of passion and emotion is a good thing. If you don't have that, you have a group of uninspired, unmotivated employees who are just trying to get to the next game, and eventually to the end of the season so they can punch their time cards and go home.

This is baseball. If you play it for a living, you shouldn't be waiting for the 5 o'clock whistle to blow. But I fear that's the mentality that has grown up around the Indians. Too much Johnny Punchclock, not enough Ernie Banks.

Shapiro's mistakes in personnel management go hand in hand with the mental flatlining that has occurred on Wedge's watch. Wedge could probably do more with the players Shapiro gives him if he could inspire them to achieve more. But Shapiro too frequently hamstrings Wedge with washed-up bullpen arms, overmatched hitters and soft-tossing starting pitchers. Shapiro and Wedge might be eternally loyal to each other, but they're really not doing right by each other in the organizational hierarchy.

Having said all of that, there is still some good left in the Indians' organization. The club is not so off track that it can't be salvaged. But someone has to come in and do a thorough weeding of some of the negative undergrowth that is depriving the team of nutrients. Someone has to break the cycle.

The trouble is, I don't know if Shapiro and Co. can do it. I don't know if they're even willing to admit that there is a problem larger than injuries and a few guys having down years.

The Indians desperately need cross-pollination, whether it be in the front office or in the manager's chair. They need outside perspectives from coaches and executives who are not completely institutionalized by The Indian Way. They need strong-willed baseball minds from other, more successful organizations who are capable of coming in and telling Shapiro "You're wrong about this." And Shapiro needs to give that person real power -- not just the cop-out title of "Special Assistant."

For now, "this," as it pertains to what Shapiro is doing wrong, will remain mostly undefined. The point is, the Indians desperately need a presence within the organization that thinks differently. Right now, I gather there isn't a ton of new thought-DNA being pumped into the front office or coaching staff. And that's what Shapiro needs -- outside influences. Even if it makes him uncomfortable.

I go back to my CEO interviews. Hiring people with different opinions, people who might challenge your methods, is one of the hardest things a leader can do. But if someone in Shapiro's shoes refuses to do that, their loyalty is ultimately to their process and plan, and not to their organization.

As the general manager, Shapiro is obligated to do what is best for the Indians. Not what is best for himself, Eric Wedge, Chris Antonetti, John Mirabelli, or even Larry and Paul Dolan -- though he answers to them. His first priority should be to making the Indians better. Period. Not making the Indians better by doing it his way, with only people loyal to his plan.

We're already seeing the results of that with a downward spiral that is worsening by the year, and a noose that is tightening around Shapiro's reputation as a GM by the week.

Midsummer mish-mash

I know it's probably dawned on you slowly over the past few weeks that your life is a little less full. But you couldn't put your finger on exactly why. Then it hit you: You hadn't read an Erik Cassano column since June.

We'll just continue to assume that because it makes me feel better. I've been on something of a self-imposed summer vacation since the end of June. And by "summer vacation" I mean "Insanely busy with little available time for leisure writing."

But I've gone into my schedule with a pickax and carved out some keyboard time. So let's get back up to speed on some of the things that have been going on in Cleveland sports.

Shaq has been a Cav for almost a month now.

And in that time, the Cavs lost their top offensive coach, John Kuester, who took the head coaching job in Detroit. Immediately, everyone in Cleveland seemed to clench their bowels at the idea of Mike Brown integrating The Big Geritol Tablet into the team's schemes without the help of an accomplished offensive assistant.

But reworking the playbook to accomodate Shaq really isn't an overly complex proposition, for two reasons. First, there aren't many ways to implement Shaq that haven't already been discovered. Second, Shaq is honestly a matchup player at this point in his career.

Shaq is a low-post player, period. Even though he's a good passer, he can't play the high post all that well because he's no threat to drive and no threat to shoot when he's more than seven feet from the hoop. Take him out of the low post and he's Ben Wallace.

Offensively, the only thing he can do is take an entry pass on the block and try to find a path to the basket. If it's there, he shoots -- usually a layup, dunk or that little right-handed hook he's developed over the years. If a double team comes, he passes. That's pretty much Shaq in a nutshell. Nothing too complicated in theory. All a coach really needs are teammates who are willing to let Shaq get his 20 to 30 touches a game.

In addition, Shaq's role with the Cavs is narrowly-defined. He is here to match up with the likes of Dwight Howard, Andrew Bynum and Rasheed Wallace. When the games become slow, plodding halfcourt mud wrestling matches, Shaq is there to try and get the tough points and tough stops inside. The games in which the Cavs will truly, honestly need Shaq's services will occur in May and June -- and maybe a dozen regular season tilts.

Against the vast majority of teams on the regular season slate, the Cavs will likely keep hammering away on what worked last year -- smaller, quicker lineups. The Cavs were at their best last year when they could run with Mo Williams and Delonte West in the backcourt, with Anderson Varejao at center. That was their most athletic, most energetic and most potent lineup.

Against teams that don't have an elite big man, chances are the Cavs will still spend much of the time playing with a smaller, uptempo lineup that will give LeBron a chance to run the floor with quick guards. Shaq and Zydrunas Ilgauskas might find themselves on the bench for long stretches of those games.

The Anthony Parker signing was good for a Plan C.

Obviously, everyone -- Danny Ferry included -- would be ecstatic if we were sitting here right now contemplating how Brown is going to work Ron Artest or Trevor Ariza into the rotation. But that didn't happen. Blame whatever circumstances you want -- the cold Cleveland winters, Ohio's income tax structure or LeBron's impending free agency casting a murky cloud over the Cavs' future -- but they didn't get Artest or Ariza. They got Anthony Parker, and he's still a good catch for $5.5 million over two years.

Parker is the kind of player GMs love. He's a career-long survivor who had to work his way back to the NBA from Europe. He works hard, takes nothing for granted, and brings a specific set of skills to the table -- perimeter defense and outside shooting. The Cavs need both.

Parker is 34, so there is the omnipresent worry that his athleticism, already on a downward trend due to Father Time, will suddenly start skidding over the next couple of years. But when quickness starts to go, it's usually first evident when a player tries to guard someone with explosiveness, someone who can blow past in the bat of an eyelash.

Examining the signing purely through the lens of trying to win a title, none of the teams that currently stand between the Cavs and the crown possess shooting guards with that kind of speed. Kobe Bryant had those kinds of quicks in his athletic prime, as did Vince Carter and Ray Allen. All are outside shooters now. Parker can keep shooters in front of him.

Even if Parker can't play 40 minutes of lockdown defense a night, he can at least play effective defense for 25 to 30 minutes. At 6'-6", his height alone means the Cavs match up better with the other contenders. It wouldn't shock me to see Parker win the starting shooting guard's job in training camp, with West moving to a supersub role.

The Anderson Varejao signing: Good, at least for the short term.

I understand why the Cavs signed Varejao for six years and up to $50 million. He is their best big man under the age of 30. He's been a productive player for his entire career. He could have let hard feelings from the 2007 holdout fiasco fester in his mind, but he put it behind him and played ball. In part, the contract length might have been a gesture of goodwill on the part of Cavs management, an attempt to show Varejao that they're willing to go a little above and beyond the call of duty to secure his future.

Securing Varejao also helps paint LeBron a picture of what kind of team the Cavs might have for the 2010-11 season. As important as it is to maintain salary cap flexibility for next summer, it's important to begin showing LeBron who his running mates will be if he decides to re-sign or exercise his option next summer. LBJ likes Varejao, so in that vein, committing to Varejao is most definitely a positive move.

Is Varejao worth the years and dollars? To an extent. He is what he is. He'll never become even an average offensive player, he's an average rebounder at best, but his defense has improved, he's still a high-energy player and he still has a knack for drawing charges, even as the NBA promises time and time again that refs will crack down on flopping.

Ferry did overpay somewhat for Varejao, but at least he overpaid and made a half-decade commitment to a player who fits the Cavs' system. He might be best-suited to coming off the bench, but he can start at power forward and look competent, at least when he's not asked to guard Dwight Howard. Unfortunately, that's the last image we as fans have of Varejao to date, so it might color our assessment of him for the duration of the summer.

Where else can the Cavs spend money?

The Cavs have signed Heat forward Jamario Moon to an offer sheet. Moon is a 6'-8", 29-year-old small forward known for his hops and man defense. He can probably play some power forward in smaller lineups, adding momentum to the idea that the Cavs will continue to play small and quick whenever the situation allows.

But in order for Moon to become a Cav, the Heat cannot match the offer sheet, which is reportedly in excess of $2 million and, like all offer sheets, must be for a minimum of two years. The Heat are deep at the forward position and might be pursuing bigger game in the form of Lamar Odom, so there appears to be a significant chance that Miami won't match to keep Moon. The Heat have until Friday to make a decision.

If Miami does match, the Cavs will have to once again look at other options.

The Cavs worked out Sean May -- he of the notorious weight and conditioning problems -- in Las Vegas last week, but he might be headed to Sacramento. They reportedly had an interest in Warriors free agent Rob Kurz, an undrafted summer league find from a year ago. He is a 6'-9" outside shooter. The Suns' Matt Barnes has also reportedly been on the Cavs' radar, but for whatever reason, Ferry and Co. only seem to have a lukewarm interest.

An intriguing player who recently landed in the free agent pool is Tim Thomas. Bought out by the Bulls last week, Thomas could fill a need for the Cavs if they could get him to sign for their remaining $3.2 million.

Thomas is a power forward with three-point range on his jumper. If you listen to basketball pundits from around the country, an outside-shooting power forward is part of the Shaq championship equation. Every title Shaq has won has come with some help from a power forward who can pull big men out of the lane and force them to contest perimeter shots -- the so-called "stretch four." Thomas doesn't play a lot of defense, but as Shaq's wingman, he could help pull would-be double teamers away from the big guy. On a one-year or two-year deal, Thomas might be worth a reasonable investment.

The Cavs' draft was all about the money not spent.

Ferry loves doing this to us, right? That pick out of left field. Last year, it was J.J. Hickson. This year, it was Congolese small forward Christian Eyenga, who has been playing pro ball in the European minor leagues.

When the pick was first announced, my initial reaction was that the Cavs had pulled another Ejike Ugboaja out of their hat. Ugboaja was the forward taken by the Cavs with one of their second-round picks in 2006. As time has gone by, I've become convinced that Ferry essentially punted that pick away by drafting a player he never had any intention of signing. I thought he did it again with Eyenga.

Ferry did kind of move the chess pieces around by drafting Eyenga and leaving more immediate help on the board. The idea is likely that a rookie picked at No. 30 probably can't help the Cavs win a title this coming year, so why draft someone you have to sign this year?

Unlike Ugboaja, Eyenga does have a future with the Cavs. He started to turn some heads with a solid showing at the Las Vegas summer league last week, but it's still improbable that he's going to open the season with the Cavs. Especially since the Cavs drafted North Carolina swingman Danny Green in the second round. Green might not possess Eyenga's ceiling, but he's more NBA-ready and figures to open the season with the team -- and for less money than Eyenga would make as a first-round pick.

Who should the Tribe trade?

Mark DeRosa is already gone to St. Louis. There is no question that the Indians are out of contention to stay. With the trade deadline less than two weeks away, now is the time when non-contenders usually start pawning off their expendable veterans for future help.

But unlike in years part, I think Mark Shapiro needs to be a little more selective about who he deals.

There is a school of thought that says now is the time to deal Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez. They have one more year remaining on their contracts, so Shapiro will be able to ask more than the going rate for a half-season rental. But Lee and Martinez are also the club's best pitcher and hitter respectively, and if the Indians want to hold any hope for a return to contention in 2010, they probably need to keep both.

I'm not ready to surrender 2010 just yet. Watching young players like Franklin Gutierrez go to other organizations and find success leads me to believe that the first corrective step is to hire a new manager and coaching staff, preferably with a heavy influence from another, more successful organization. There is a reason why the Cavs have tried to emulate the Spurs and the Browns have tried to emulate the Patriots. It doesn't always work, but if you're going to imitate, imitate a winner.

If a new coaching staff doesn't yield results next season, or if Shapiro's loyalty to his plan is so dense that he can't bring himself to alter his philosophy, then maybe an larger-scale rebuild is in order, in which case it's time for the everything-must-go used car blowout sale. In which case, maybe it's time for the Dolans to find Shapiro's successor.

Until then, keep Lee and Martinez. And please keep Kerry Wood. He hasn't won himself a lot of supporters with his performance thus far as an Indian, but after years of watching Bob Wickman and Joe Borowski save games with smoke, mirrors and mid-80s fastballs, we finally have a closer with closer stuff. I don't want to surrender him so soon. There is always a chance he could rebound next year, and if that isn't the case, then it might be time to part ways.

Am I pumped for Browns season? Yes, to a point.

They went 4-12 last year. As far as sexy drafts go, their '09 draft was somewhere south of Rosie O'Donnell. But maybe that's part of the appeal of Eric Mangini: He's not trying to blow everyone away with his ability to make big splashes like Phil Savage did.

There was a lot of change for the Browns this offseason, as there will always be when a new regime comes to town. But they've been mostly low-key changes. The apple cart hasn't been upset, which I think was a good move.

The Browns have the players to be a decent team. They needed more stability, better leadership and better luck with avoiding injuries to realize that potential. Mangini has, at least thus far, brought the first two elements to the table. As for the third? Buy a rabbit's foot and start rubbing it.

I still wonder what is going to happen to the running game when Jamal Lewis inevitably breaks down. I still think Mangini needs to name Brady Quinn the starting quarterback and be done with it. I still question the wisdom of putting the burden to produce on the shoulders of rookie receivers Brian Robiskie and Mohamed Massaquoi. But for the first time in a long time, my questions about the Browns aren't the product of across-the-board concerns with the team's overall philosophy.

I am honestly intrigued by what I'm going to see out of the Browns this year. I'm not expecting a lot right away, but I am interested to see Mangini at work.

Baseball withdrawal

I have a confession to make.

I only started really paying attention to the Indians about two weeks ago. As in, really following them day to day.

True story. The Cavs took up that much of my sports-related attention for roughly eight months. I didn't start keeping daily tabs on the Tribe until the Cavs made their abrupt exit from the playoffs in the conference finals. Even then, I didn't focus on baseball until I made up my mind that the NBA Finals, no matter the winner, would just be too painful to watch.

Certainly, I paid passing attention to how the Indians were generally doing -- which is to say, poorly through April and May. But watching the Indians sag to the bottom of arguably the weakest division in baseball made me dread the end of the Cavs' season even more.

I had made up my mind about the Tribe's offseason moves over the winter. Signing Kerry Wood was a good move. Signing Carl Pavano to guaranteed money was a bad move. Mark DeRosa was another grinder who was going to be valued by Eric Wedge and Mark Shapiro for his supposed intangibles like hustle, heart and leadership -- and the ability to play five different positions. But at the end of the season, he'd present us with a .260 average and 12 homers.

Other than that, I was certain the Indians stirred nothing in me. They weren't all that good in '08, and I didn't really see anything that made me believe they were going to suddenly find the path to greatness in '09. Heading into this season, I firmly believed that the 2007 season was a fluke, one of the few glimmers of success on an otherwise drab backdrop of mediocrity, and one of the only things on which Shapiro and Wedge could hang their collective hat.

If anything, once my suspicions were confirmed in early April, I was hoping for an absolute bust of a season. I was hoping for 100 losses. A season absolutely devoid of any straw within grasping distance of Shapiro or Wedge. A season that wouldn't allow anyone in the Tribe's brain trust to hide behind injuries, or a supposed fluke of a bad bullpen, or an off year by this player or that player.

Once I saw that another lousy start was inevitable, I wanted to see the Indians have a season so bad that the Dolans would be forced to examine the organization and perform what I have believed is a long-overdue shakeup, even to the point of replacing Shapiro. Too many excuses plus not enough wins equals failed rebuild. Harsh? Maybe. But from my perspective, it was better to come to the conclusion now than in 2012, when three more seasons had been wasted.

The Indians hardened my heart. On a trip to Florida in May, I watched them blow a 7-0 lead to the Rays at Tropicana Field, losing 8-7 on a B.J. Upton homer in the bottom of the ninth inning. As I left the stadium that night, I was openly relieved that I decided against wearing an Indians shirt to the game.

A lot of fans, in Cleveland and elsewhere, place a premium on representing your home team when attending a road game. But a bad experience at an Indians-Tigers game at Comerica Park in 2006 made me wise up. If representing one of the teams in this town is going to subject me to ridicule, persistent heckling or worse, why put myself through that? Just because they're going down doesn't mean they have to take me with them.

I was hoping every day that the Cavs would extend their season into mid-June. Even if a Finals loss delievered temporary numbness, it would mean only about five weeks until Browns training camp started. The Browns might still reek like a fish kill this year, but at least they offer the intrigue of a new coaching regime and the obligatory accompaniment of new players.

In the interim, I'd have the NBA draft and the start of the NBA trading and free agency season, which is certain to be an intriguing period for Cavs fans. So if the Indians were to continue losing with a long, still silence, I made up my mind that my summer would probably be more fulfilling if I just kept them in the background.

So why am I watching them again? Why am I hoping again?

The overwhelming apathy is disappearing. I'm looking at the standings again. I'm seeing the Indians hovering six-to-seven games back in the AL Central, and thinking "You know, if they could slice that lead in half by the all-star break..."

I'm actually having an opinion on this team again. While watching a win over the Cardinals this past weekend, I actually said "This is why you rely on healthy players. You don't keep plugging along with injured players in the lineup."

Did I say that? I meant to say "Who cares? They're still bound for 75 wins."

Am I really catching myself watching every at-bat of Victor Martinez? Liking Shin-Soo Choo more by the day? Making sure I'm in front of a TV for every Cliff Lee start? Even gaining some begrudging acceptance of Pavano and DeRosa?

This can't be happening. I had an air of indifference carefully constructed. I don't want to be sucked back in. This team is Nowheresville. The rebuild needs to be rebuilt, and quite possibly with a new GM and manager. Hope is a bad thing when your team is in last place.

And yet, not even 10 games out. And if they could just cut that deficit in half by the all-star break....

There is no getting out, is there? These guys had better make a season of it, or this could be a long summer.

What to expect?

The Indians are an ambiguous team as the 2009 season dawns.

In years past, we'd be able to get an idea of whether the Indians would excel in the rotation, in the bullpen or in the batting lineup. This year, it's kind of difficult to gauge what, exactly, we should expect of this team. Mark Shapiro's moves this offseason, Travis Hafner's lingering production problems, Cliff Lee's putrid spring training performance, and the overall talent and experience levels on the roster, invite enough speculation to make you believe this team could lose 90 games. Or everything could come together and they could win 90. Or they could split the difference and go 81-81 again.

There are some other obvious reasons behind the fog that encases the start of the Tribe's season. For the first time since 2000, the Indians will enter a season without C.C. Sabathia in the starting rotation. Lee is the staff ace based on his Cy Young credentials of last season, but he's also less than two years removed from the worst season of his career, and he's coming off an 0-3, 12.42 ERA spring training effort.

The rest of the rotation doesn't build much confidence, either. Fausto Carmona has electric stuff, but can't find the strike zone with regularity. Carl Pavano hasn't pieced together a decent, injury-resistant season in five years. Jake Westbrook is out until at least midsummer as he continues the long road back from Tommy John surgery. Anthony Reyes hasn't proven anything over the long haul. Scott Lewis, Aaron Laffey, Jeremy Sowers and Zach Jackson? Roll the dice.

In short, the starting rotation feels more like a starting dartboard. Three of these guys have to come somewhere close to the bullseye for the Indians to mount a serious challenge in the AL Central this year.

The state of the bullpen breeds much more confidence than at this time last year, mainly because someone besides Joe Borowski will break camp as the team's closer. Kerry Wood is likely bound for the disabled list at some point this season, but hopefully the injury is of the muscle strain variety, and wont involve the insertion of scalpels and/or arthroscopes into his person. But if he can stay active for the majority of the season, particularly the stretch run, the Indians might have their best door-slammer since Jose Mesa in the mid-90s.

The spring training performances of Rafael Perez (1.00 ERA in nine innings pitched) and Jensen Lewis (1.64 ERA in 11 IP) are positive developments in the construction of a setup corps to get to Wood -- something that was painfully absent from the Tribe's 'pen a year ago. Now if Rafael Betancourt (6.24 ERA in 8.2 IP) could just get on track and stay healthy, the bullpen could even be considered "deep."

Spring training saw a number of good individual performances from the hitters. Jhonny Peralta, Ben Francisco and Victor Martinez all tied for the team lead with 13 RBI. Peralta batted. 391 for the spring, Grady Sizemore hit .373 and Mark DeRosa hit .364 upon returning to the Tribe after the World Baseball Classic.

Then again, read into spring training hitting statistics at your own risk. Hitters' swings are often well ahead of pitchers' arms for most of spring training. By the time the Indians leave the Launching Pad at Arlington and head north to open the home portion of their schedule this coming weekend, their hitting prowess might drop like the temperature between Texas and Ohio.

But the weather will warm, and baseball's marathon schedule will allow water to find its level over the span of the next six months. But what is the water's level with regard to some of the Tribe's more important players? Below is how I see some players trending during the 2009 season.

Cliff Lee: Down

It's not just that the law of averages is bound to catch up to Lee after his freakishly good 2008. It's not just that he wilted in the Arizona heat this spring. It's that Lee has, historically, given up a lot of hits and a lot of runs. He has also historically not had the pinpoint control of his fastball that he showed a year ago.

Unfortunately, a regression to the mean for Lee might mean a regression to a middle-of-the rotation starter, complete with a near-.500 record and ERA in the mid-4.00's. Lee has had a couple of excellent years in 2005 and '08, but the "real" Cliff Lee is probably closer to what he showed in 2006 (14-11, 4.40 ERA).

Having said all of that, Lee is still a solid pitcher, even if he doesn't approach last year's levels. if it contributes to a postseason berth, I think we'd all be thrilled if he could repeat his 18-5, 3.79 performance from '05.

Victor Martinez: Up

Last season was an injury-wracked year for V-Mart. He only played in 73 games, only hit two homers, but still managed to pull his batting average out of the muck and hit .278 with 17 doubles and 35 RBI when all was said and done.

Martinez is one of the two most talented hitters on the Indians roster, and I expect a healthy Martinez to bounce back with a vengeance this year. Prior to last season, he was an automatic .300, 30 doubles and 70 RBI for three seasons. Now fully healthy at the outset of the season for the first time since 2007, Martinez might even exceed those numbers.

Mark DeRosa: Up

When the Indians first acquired DeRosa, my initial reaction was to dismiss him as a glorified utility player, another in a long line of "grinders" routinely overvalued by Mark Shapiro and Eric Wedge.

But a small sample viewing size during spring training and the WBC have changed my opinion, to a degree. DeRosa can hit, and he can play a little defense, too. DeRosa is still a third baseman trapped in a middle infielder's body as far as I am concerned, but if the object of contact hitting is to put a hard swing on the ball and force the fielders to make plays, DeRosa can do that, probably to the tune of a .280 average and 60-70 RBI.

Fausto Carmona: Down

You might think Carmona is already "down" after an 8-7, 5.44 ERA, injury-plagued 2008. And you're right. But adding to Carmona's problems is the expectations placed on him to regain his 2007 form and fill a spot at the front of the rotation. At this point in his career, I have to questions whether Carmona can do that.

Carmona seems primed to spend his 2009 showing us flashes of his '07 brilliance followed by long stretches of pitching out of the stretch, because he can't stop walking hitters.

As a sinkerballer, Carmona relies on getting batters to put the ball in play, but that obviously won't happen with any frequency if he's constantly falling behind in the count. The net result, in addition to bases on balls, is a rapidly-elevated pitch count that might force Carmona's exit from many starts in the fifth or sixth innings -- even when he's pitching relatively well.

Travis Hafner: Up

With Pronk, "up" is a relative term. A batting average in the mid-.200s and 25 homers would be an improvement over his .197/5 HR/24 RBI/57 game debacle of 2008.

The 2004-06 Hafner is gone forever. Debate the reasons why until Barry Bonds comes home, but at the end of the day, a 2007 redux (.266, 24 HR, 100 RBI) is a good year from this version of Pronk.

Grady Sizemore: Steady

Yeah, his batting average has been on a steady decline for three seasons. But when his other stats are as rock-solid as Sizemore's were a year ago (33 HR, 39 doubles, 38 steals, 90 RBI) and he's durable enough to never have played in fewer than 157 games in each of the last four years, I think you can afford to be a little flexible with the batting average gripes.

The fact remains that Sizemore really isn't a leadoff hitter. He plays the part well enough -- a testament to his talent -- but he takes a lot of swings, and a byproduct of that is a lot of strikeouts. It's a take-the-good-with-the-bad proposition. Without the aggressive approach at the plate and on the bases, Sizemore isn't a 30/30/30 man.

Jhonny Peralta: Steady

Maybe he won't repeat last year's 42-double performance. But if he splits the difference between '07 and '08, ending up with a batting average in the .270s, 20 homes and 30 doubles, that's a productive year for Peralta. Like Sizemore, he strikes out too much, and his long swing can be an out-producer as much as a run-producer. But taken at face value, Peralta is a solid contributor, and that should continue in '09.