Talking Tribe 6/23
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by user David
I couldnât tell you the official time of death, but Iâm going to go ahead and call it: the Cleveland Indiansâ season is over. Yes, I realize last yearâs team was actually in just as bad shape on August 1 as this one is now, but there are a lot of differences between those clubs. Here are just two of them:
Pitching
The 2005 Indians had one of the greatest pitching staffs the city has ever seen and probably will ever see. And guess what? Not even that could get them into the playoffs. This year, the Indians have pitching that is most of the time terrible, sometimes good, but rarely great. The Indians would need several 10-15 game winning streaks to have any chance of getting back into the race, and that isnât going to happen with such inconsistent pitching.
Attitude
This is the first year that this group of players has had an expectation to win, and they have carried themselves that way to a fault. Especially after the 6-1 start, I think the team started to think a little too highly of itself. When losses started to come more frequently, management and players alike blew it off, saying it was still early yet. Iâm not sure when it officially stops being early, but itâs my guess that when youâre 15 games out and nearing the end of June, it's a little past early. Yet, I still have not seen that sense of urgency. They act like theyâve got plenty of time. But all it will take is another week or so of this type of play and there will no longer be any hope of getting back into the race. The postseason odds report gives the Indians a 1.2 percent chance of making the playoffs right now. Um, thatâs not good.
At this point, Iâm done caring about a sense of urgency. Instead, I want to see the team preparing for next year by trading away players not part of the long-term plan and bringing up some of the kids to get them experience (such as the move recently made in trading away Jason Johnson and bringing up Jeremy Sowers). But since the team hasnât played with a sense of urgency up to this point and since, at 15 games out, there is little point in playing with one now, that means this team will not have shown any urgency the entire season. And that is simply inexcusable. I never again want to hear, âItâs just one winâ or âjust one loss.â How is a game in April any less important that one in September? They all count the same. If you miss the playoffs by a game, sure you can look at a game you lost in late September as the reason why, but what about games you lost in April and May? Win those and you would have been in the playoffs.
And that is the reason why I think Eric Wedge should be fired. I have stated that I was not quite there yet, but guess what? Iâve arrived. One of the things I liked about Wedge last year was his ability to keep the team in the moment. They were never looking back or looking forward; they were always focused on the task immediately at hand. But I have grown tired of this. I watch managers in our division like Jim Leyland and Ozzie Guillen who are not afraid to chew their team out when they suck, even if they have been playing great up to that point. I remember early in the season when everyone thought Leyland was crazy for bashing his team in the media after one early loss to the Indians, but Iâd say that worked out pretty well. Guillen could probably have been declared clinically insane late last year when the Indians were making a run at his White Sox, but we know how that turned out. His team went on to the playoffs and had an incredible run all the way to a title.
Wedge has been great at keeping the young players on an even keel. That was invaluable when this team was made up of nothing but young players from 2002 to 2005. But now those young players are not so young anymore and they need a manager who will give them a good kick in the butt when they need it. Right now the players need it, but Wedge is not the guy who will give it. I expect to see a lot of changes with this team in the next year, and I hope a new manager is one of them.
Date
Fri 06/23/06, 10:47 am EST
