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| By Jerry Dowling |
What do we have to do for a pennant race around here? By the miracle of cable, at least, we can turn to the Cleveland Indians, who have evidently done twice what the Reds haven't done once.
Less than three years after their last division title, the Indians have rebuilt themselves, surprisingly and with astonishing rapidity, pushing back into contention through one of the most astute performances by a middle market club the game has ever seen.
Following the 2001 season, the Indians had just won the AL Central with an old club making $92.1 million, the fifth highest payroll in the major leagues. General Manager Ron Shapiro could have kept the club together and patched up with veterans, probably for more than $100 million.
But the Indians can't play that game for long. They were headed for a collapse within a couple years anyway, because their high minor leagues were empty. What could he do?
Rather than risk spending for a couple years and losing to the upstart Minnesota Twins, Shapiro ripped up a good club and started fresh, dealing his goods to contenders for advanced minor league talent. In the last couple weeks, you'd have to say he's done a good job of it. He didn't even promise a contender until 2005, and the Indians are a year ahead of him.
After winning the first two of their three-game showdown with the Twins at Jacobs Field last weekend, the Indians were within a game of first place in the AL Central. On Aug. 4, they were a .500 club in third place and the Twins held a six-game lead. Since then, the Indians have won 10 of 12 while the Twins have lost eight of 11. Picking up a game on the Twins last weekend, the Indians still play them 10 more times.
Given that the Reds already are on their second rebuilding for a two-year-old ballpark, we probably should be taking notes. Remembering that the Reds rebuilt for the new Great American Ball Park didn't quite match their avowed model -- the Indians and a new Jacobs Field in 1994 -- maybe the Reds can get it right this time.
But it's a stretch. The Indians began after the 2001 season with a roster of successful veterans. They started with star power and value to deal.
The Reds began their rebuilding last year trimmming nickels off a $50 million payroll, meaning they weren't ridding themselves of especially expensive players nor were they bringing in big hauls of talent.
The Indians didn't deal away 27-year-old rising veteran pitchers making $2 million in their athletic prime to bring in guys who would fill out the minor league pitching staffs. Their trades were more in the spirit of Aaron Boone for Brandon Claussen than Scott Williamson for whoever.
Following the 2001 season, the Indians moved aging second baseman Roberto Alomar to the New York Mets for outfielders Matt Lawton and Alex Escobar, pitchers Jerrod Riggan and Billy Traber and first baseman Earl Snyder. The big talent was supposed to be Escobar, who the Indians finally released last week after several injuries stopped his development.
The Reds almost traded Barry Larkin to the Mets for a package including Escobar in 2000. Fortunately, Larkin vetoed the trade.
But even with Escobar washing out, Lawton is a solid citizen for the Indians in right field and they still think Traber, coming off Tommy John surgery, can become a good left-handed pitcher for them.
At the end of June 2002, realizing they weren't going to win, the Indians took stock of a similar situation to that facing the Reds last year. Following years of poor drafts, Shapiro had put together a couple of good ones by the middle of 2002, fortifying the lower levels of the organization. But the Indians were dry for high-level prospects and the major league club was in decline.
So Shapiro made deals. He moved pitcher Bartolo Colon to the Montreal Expos for pitcher Cliff Lee, infielders Brandon Phillips and Lee Stevens and outfielder Grady Sizemore. Now Lee is an All-Star starting pitcher and Sizemore is the Indians' starting center fielder.
The presumed star of that trade, Phillips, blew up in a trial last year with the Indians, but maybe he can still amount to something. Even if he doesn't, the Indians filled two major league positions for one with the trade.
That same summer, the Indians sent left hander Chuck Finley to the St. Louis Cardinals and brought back outfielder Coco Crisp, who had been the Player of the Year in the Cardinals organization in 2001. Crisp now plays daily in the Indians' outfield.
The Indians are back to having the most potent offense in baseball. Do you know who plays first base in this lineup? It's Ben Broussard, once a chip in the Reds system until the Reds decided they'd take Russell Branyan for him in 2002.
In addition to Lee, by the way, the Indians picked up another starting pitcher on the trade route a little earlier, acquiring Jake Westbrook from the New York Yankees for the aging David Justice in a 2000 deal. Here's hoping the Reds can net at least two starting pitchers from all the deals they've made in the last year.
Indians fans weren't very happy after the club responded to a 2001 division title by removing Alomar, Kenny Lofton, Juan Gonzalez and Marty Cordova. Of course, Manny Ramirez already had gone free agent to the Boston Red Sox after the 2000 season, and no one liked seeing Jim Thome sign as a free agent with Philadelphia after the 2002 season.
But Ramirez and Thome each went to East Coast clubs in larger markets, where each club is placed in a high dollar competition that includes a New York Goliath. The eastern clubs need to sign players like Ramirez and Thome, because if they don't their competition can and will.
But the Indians, like the Reds, are placed in division with like-minded and like-funded competition. To win in that kind of division, it's not necessary to put together the greatest assembly of stars, though the Cardinals have done it anyway.
In the two Central divisions, the playoffs are within reach for the organization that can mesh young talent with solid journeymen who can be bought for pennies. Of all the Cleveland batters, designated hitter Travis Haffner is rolling out huge numbers and the catcher, Victor Martinez, is hitting up a storm. No one else in the order is taking over the stat sheet, but everyone else is at least average offensively.
Thome is a great player producing another dynamite season in Philadelphia -- 35 homers, 80 RBI, a .279 batting average and a 1.012 OPS. The Indians would be a lot better with him.
But the Phillies are paying Thome $12.2 million this year and the Indians aren't. Instead, the Indians are paying Broussard $324,100 and for that have received 59 RBI -- one per 4.75 at-bats compared with one per 4.88 at-bats for Thome.
It helps Broussard quite a lot that the Indians' batting order has no weak spots because they've made sharp signings of journeymen to fill in where they haven't found young talent. The Indians are always on base.
The third baseman, Casey Blake, is a 30-year-old drifter who bounced through the Toronto, Baltimore and Minnesota organizations before he finally found himself last year in Cleveland with a club that had no one better at third base. Second baseman Ronnie Belliard is journeyman who isn't known for his delicate expression of the game. He's 29, bouncing around infields from Milwaukee to Colorado to Cleveland.
For $42 million, which is puny, the Reds are falling apart as the contenders leave them behind. For $34.6 million, the third lowest payroll in the major leagues, the Indians are in a pennant race.
But for a couple of relief pitchers here or there, the Reds could be contending and the Indians could be looking a long way out to the future. Unfortunately, the Reds traded their relief pitchers.
contact bill peterson: letters@citybeat.com
