Finding positives proved to be a challenge after Cleveland Indians' wasted

Finding positives proved to be a challenge after Cleveland Indians' wasted

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It's too easy to ask what went wrong with the 2009 Indians. Everyone knows by now.
People have been fired and traded because of it.

The harder question to ask and answer is what went right? Not much to be sure.
Asdrubal Cabrera had a nice year. The same with Shin-Soo Choo. Rookie David Huff won 11 games. Luis Valbuena hit 10 homers as a rookie. Tony Sipp and Chris Perez threw well at times out of the bullpen.
The Indians had a chance to look at a lot of rookies. There were 12 on the club when the season ended on Oct. 4 with a 12-7 loss to Boston. Said fired manager Eric Wedge, "Some have shown they belong in the big leagues. Some need more time in the minors."

Which sounds a lot like the scout, who in early June, when the Indians still had the team they thought would contend intact, said, "The Indians have a lot of big-league players. They just don't have any stars."
Since several of those big-league players were traded long ago, it makes one wonder where the Indians stand now.

At the All-Star break they were a collection of strangers. It's safe to say they ended the season the same way. When 52 players walk through the locker room door, it's hard to call anybody "buddy," much less remember his name.

The front office has always been a big believer in having leaders among its players. There weren't many to be found after the flurry of trades. Third baseman Jhonny Peralta has no inclination to lead. Travis Hafner started the year with one sore shoulder and ended it with two. Fausto Carmona was in the ozone the whole year and closer Kerry Wood never really got a chance to show what he could do on or off the field because he had so few save opportunities.

Grady Sizemore played for five months with a left elbow and left groin that needed surgery. When he finally shut it down in September to have two operations within a week of each other, the Indians turned into an expansion team.

Statistically speaking, the season was just as bad as it looked. Only six other teams in Indians history lost more games than this year's 65-97 club. The Indians have played baseball since 1901, so that covers a lot ground and a lot of bad baseball.

GM Mark Shapiro says this won't be a complete rebuild like he went through in 2003. He could start an argument in any bar in town with that statement. That is, if anybody is still talking about the Indians.

So whoever Shapiro hires as manager better come with the proper equipment. Only sledgehammers will do on this

FIVE REASONS WHYTHE INDIANS’ SEASON COLLAPSED

1. Desert delirium: When the Indians reported in February to their new $72 million spring training complex in Goodyear, Ariz., everything that ailed the franchise was going to be cured. No more would they have to contend with the antiquated facility in Winter Haven, Fla. While the complex offered everything a ballplayer needed, even if it did look like a detention center on the far side of the moon, the Indians, remarkably uninspired, lost 20 games in Cactus League play. The desert delirium persisted into the regular season as they lost seven of their first eight games to finish April with an 8-14 record. The pattern of the season was set.

2. Thou shall not save: The Indians’ bullpen, GM Mark Shapiro’s pride and joy in the off-season, blew 10 saves in the first two months of the season. In the next four months, they blew eight.They had 10 games decided in the eighth inning or later in April and May. The Indians went 2-8 in those games.

3. Take your pick: David Dellucci and Masa Kobayashi were a waste of roster space. Grady Sizemore played hurt all year. They waited too long to promote Andy Marte and Matt LaPorta from Class AAA Columbus.The pitchers walked too many batters. The hitters struck out too much. Travis Hafner was a shadow of himself. Manager Eric Wedge changed the lineup too much. Owner Larry Dolan is cheap. Shapiro can’t judge talent. Chris Gimenez played too much. Jordan Brown could have saved the season if they’d only called him up. Winston Abreu was really a spy planted by the four other AL Central teams to sabotage the Tribe’s season.

4. They messed with the gulls: When Shin-Soo Choo’s game-winning single in the 10th inning deflected off a gull in center field on June 11, the Indians should have embraced the moment. They should have done everything possible to cater to the flocks of gulls that had descended into Progressive Field over the previous games. Instead, they set off fireworks between innings to keep the gulls away. The fireworks worked and kept the Indians from being embarrassed in a string of nationally televised games, but it ruined what would have been the best home-field advantage this side of the Metrodome.The Indians were 27-36 and seven games out of first place after Choo’s single. They went 38-61 the rest of the year and buzzards replaced the gulls above the ballpark.

5. It’s the trades, stupid: This is the old chicken or the egg argument. Were the Indians going to break the team up all along? Or were they waiting until midseason to see how they were going before conducting a fire sale?It didn’t matter because after the deals of Mark DeRosa, Rafael Betancourt, Ryan Garko, Cliff Lee, Ben Francisco, Victor Martinez and Carl Pavano, the Indians were as bad a team as there was in the big leagues. After Pavano was traded on Aug. 7, the Indians finished the year by going 19-35. Only Pittsburgh finished with a worse record (17-36).