Cleveland Indians: Something Mark Shapiro Missed in His Time in Cleveland

The Cleveland Indians had a chance, but Shapiro missed the boat

Back in the late 70s, the Pittsburgh Pirates went through a succession of frustrating second place finishes behind the team from the other side of the state. The Pirates had a couple of gaping holes in their infield because of the free agent loss of Richie Hebner and the broken ankle suffered by Rennie Stennett. To fill these gaps they made two trades, sending a total of nine minor league prospects to Oakland and San Francisco for Phil Garner and Bill Madlock.

Analytically speaking, these were terrible trades. Garner was a solid player; out of 26 major league second basemen he probably ranked between eighth and tenth at his peak. The players the Pirates sent to Oakland included Rick Langford, Mitchell Page, and Tony Armas, who, along with Rickey Henderson formed the core of the A’s teams that contended briefly in the early 80s, by which time Garner was below replacement level and the Pirates were in a downward spiral. The Madlock trade was slightly more defensible. For him, the Pirates gave up two young pitchers, Al Holland and Ed Whitson, who went on to have serviceable careers. Madlock, in turn, won two batting titles with the Pirates (this was when batting average was considered the most important stat) and had a lifetime OPS of .807. Still, if the trades had not been made, the Pirates would have been a much stronger team in the early 80s than they turned out to be.

But ask any Pirates fan if those trades should have been made, and there is no doubt in his mind, because in the middle of all that the Pirates won a World Series.  Management looked at its roster, saw an aging Willie Stargell, a pitching staff with everyone peaking together, Dave Parker getting too expensive to keep long-term, and decided that 1979 was the time to go for it.  Madlock, in particular, was a perfect fit in the middle of the lineup and enabled Garner to go back to his natural position of second base.  It was never a sure thing, and they paid a huge price in a decade of struggling afterwards, but the Pirates have a championship that people who are not on Social Security can remember, which is more than the Indians can say.

I can see Mark Shapiro running those Pirates teams, projecting the future value of all those prospects, spending hours looking at whatever passed for spreadsheets in those days, and standing pat. There is no way someone who believes in “trusting the process” and “sustained competitiveness” would empty his farm system like that for two guys who were short-term fixes.  But Shapiro would have kept on finishing second in the division (with no wild card to fall back on) until the core of the team was no longer capable of contending, then he would have traded all those veterans for more prospects.

Shapiro is taking some heat in Toronto for not being in favor of the blockbuster trades the Blue Jays made over the past few months that brought in David Price and Troy Tulowitzki.  It is said by some that this difference in philosophy is part of what led to the departure of Alex Anthopoulos as Toronto’s GM, which has amplified the heat on Shapiro. I do not know (and neither do you) whether any of the prospects that the Blue Jays gave up for these guys (and Josh Donaldson, for that matter) will turn out to be great players. We do know that several of the players they gave up for R.A. Dickey played major roles in the Mets’ drive to the World Series. We also know that the Blue Jays won a division title this year, which would not have happened without those trades, and will be in position to do so again next year.

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Trusting the process how you build a core of players that is capable of contending, and Shapiro did a good job of that with the Indians. Did it twice, in fact: with the Hafner/Sizemore/Martinez teams and then the current roster. But what Shapiro fails to grasp is that when a team reaches the point where the core has championship potential, particularly in a small market, you have a window of three or four years and while that window exists you have to change your priority from the long-term to the short-term and do whatever it takes to win in that moment.

The Royals were a perfect example of this. If you talk to anyone who follows the Reds, they are thrilled with what their team got in the Johnny Cueto trade.  The Royals shed even more prospects in the Ben Zobrist trade. They made these moves in July even though they had a secure lead in the division because they see that their core players are all within two years or so of getting expensive and they knew that this was the time to go for it. If they had lost the World Series and then Cueto had gone elsewhere, statheads would have shaken their heads and said this is what happens when you deviate from the process.  But the trade would have still been the right thing to do. Just as the trades Toronto made were the right thing to do.  Because the goal is not to be competitive, it is to win, and when a window opens you don’t check your spreadsheet, you jump through the damn window.  Even if it doesn’t work, your fans know that you did everything you could, and they will respond to that.

The Indians have such a window right now, because they have the best rotation in the American League, a good manager, and a core of productive offensive players who are also affordable for now.  The closing of that window is already on the horizon, because somewhere around 2019 all these guys will be past 30 and have contracts that either expire or become too expensive. That means that the proper strategy is to go all out in 2016 and 2017 and then start dumping contracts in 2018 to get ready for the next rebuild around Lindor, Zimmer, and Frazier.  The contracts will be dumped regardless of what happens in the interim, but if the next two years are spent preaching patience and trusting the process, we will simply be two years further removed from 1948 with nothing to show for it.

This is not about money. It’s about being aggressive and seizing the opportunity before it slips away.  Whether that means adding payroll or using your prospects as assets to bring in talent that can help now depends on what you value, but doing neither would be inexcusable.

Well, maybe it is about money. I fully believe that a team with a $100 million payroll and an engaged, passionate fan base will always, always, always be more profitable than a team with an $80 million payroll and apathetic fans.  Maybe that’s not the case if your goal is to qualify for revenue sharing, but let’s hope we’re aiming for something higher than that. Does that mean I would trade Zimmer or Frazier? If it meant spending the next two years playing in October, you bet your ass. It might be a little tougher down the road if the next rebuild happens without Zimmer or Frazier. But if the next rebuild is Chris Antonetti’s highest priority, it could happen without him, too.