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What if the Indians Had an Infinite Payroll Starting from 2007?

Merritt Rohlfing — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:30:37 +0000

It’s a pastime of any wishful thinking baseball fan: what if I had a few billion dollars and could buy my favorite team? What would happen? Well, that’s a great question. The Dolans are far from poor, but the revenue streams the Indians have coming their way are all too minimal. So let’s have some fun, let’s spend some time re-breaking hearts and opening old wounds, let’s imagine the Indians signed a distribution deal with Fox Sports in, say, 2007 for more than what the Dodgers just did. How would that be different? Where would we be today? (more…)

Judging Mark Shapiro’s GM Tenure: High-Profile Trades

Ed Carroll — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 14:57:39 +0000

Let’s get a this out of the way: I am a fan of the work Mark Shapiro did as general manager of the Cleveland Indians, from when he got the job on November 1, 2001 until he was formally promoted to team president on October 3, 2010. I feel he did a good job putting a competitive team on the field given the financial restrictions of running a small-market team. His tenure was not perfect and a decade of poor drafting has hindered the team in many ways, but I think he deserves merit as one of the better GMs in recent baseball memory.

We’re now more than two full years removed from Shapiro’s promotion to team president and GM Chris Antonetti is firmly entrenched as the Tribe’s decision maker. So I thought now would be as soon as anyone could fairly judge Shapiro’s tenure as GM. There are still some loose ends hanging (Carlos Carrasco, for example, and Matt LaPorta), but the body of his work is complete, and I wanted to put my optimism to the test. (more…)

The 2007 Cleveland Indians: Five Years Later

Katie Hendershot — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:41:52 +0000

Remember Roberto Hernandez? No, I’m not talking about the pitcher we used to call Fausto Carmona. (Or do we still call him that? I’m really not sure.) I’m talking about the pitcher that was with the Tribe back in the exciting season of 2007. My guess is that most Cleveland Indians fans don’t remember Hernandez, who appeared in only 28 games before being released by the Indians at the end of June that year.

There has been a lot of turnover in the Indians lineup in the recent years. This season will mark the fifth year since the whirlwind of a season that left Indians fans reeling after coming within one game of the World Series.

Looking at the roster the Indians put on the field in 2007, not many of the players are still in Cleveland. Some of the names are recognizable, and even memorable. But for most of the players, if they were with the Tribe beyond 2007, they probably weren’t there much longer.

It many respects, it’s easy to think of the 2007 Cleveland Indians and the 2012 Cleveland Indians as two entirely different teams, with completely unique identities. We have yet to see if the 2012 version has the ability to make a splash and have a magical season like the one of 2007.

Remember David Dellucci? Maybe, but do you know what he’s done since leaving the Tribe in 2009? He’s not the only member of that team who seems to have disappeared from the sport of baseball entirely and the faded from the memories of Indians fans. I doubt many future grandfathers will tell stories of the “great” Ryan Garko, but they will tell stories of that fateful October. It was one to remember, but it seems that many of the players weren’t. So where are they now? (more…)