2007 Indians Discussion

[Sacco111]

It truly is a shame, in the midst of a down season for him we convinced ourselves it was the pressure of a new contract that was affecting the small town North Dakota boy, so we signed him long term over Sabathia, coulda signed one of the two, what a mistake, its not as easy as saying hindsight is 20-20, he was playing bad when we extended him, oh well, I'm glad he's gone along with his albatross contract...if he performs well in NY good for him, they'll still be paying ARoids monster contract with diminished returns...

As far as Sizemore goes, its funny how we decline his option then bring him back for base pay with incentives, and then he doesn't play an out the entire year...unlike Hafner, Grady's career derailment isn't possibly tied to steroids, just injury prone and bad luck...I remember when I met Hafner at Giant Eagle a few days after we missed the playoffs in 2005 with a collapse/choke at the end, he was one big dude, I mean huge, his fall from superstardom to average has that steroid feel to it, to bad, shoulda coulda woulda...

I agree. Hafner's contract killed us for years. He still has a great eye and when healthy, he's still a great OBP machine. If he could only be healthy. But it does stink of roids. I hate to agree with Canseco about the % of juicers in the league. You only have to look at the drop off of stats to see it.

[prodigy]

It truly is a shame, in the midst of a down season for him we convinced ourselves it was the pressure of a new contract that was affecting the small town North Dakota boy, so we signed him long term over Sabathia, coulda signed one of the two...

o no no no.... lol, no way we were resigning CC with or without Hafners contract. Indians maxed out at like 19mill for CC, Yanks offered 24mill. So we had no shot. Dolan was not going to invest that much money in one player and one of the few things i agree with him on.

[ClevelandSpider]

o no no no.... lol, no way we were resigning CC with or without Hafners contract. Indians maxed out at like 19mill for CC, Yanks offered 24mill. So we had no shot. Dolan was not going to invest that much money in one player and one of the few things i agree with him on.

Actually we could have signed one or the other and they (Dolan) chose Hafner. We could have made a contract offer to CC the same time we made one to Hafner and signed him before he hit the open market and saw what the Yankees offered him. We offered Sabathia between $17 and $18 million in December 2007:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3253598

That's after signing Pronk. So yes we could've signed Sabathia had we not spent all our money on Hafner. And even in hindsight you say it would have been foolish to invest so much money on a future Hall of Famer in Sabathia? That's asinine, asiten, asieleven! I bet you also agree with the trades he made for Sabathia and Lee too, he's done such a great job the past ten years in building a winner!

At the time I wanted Sabathia over Pronk and hindsight makes the choice look even worse. Sabathia will eclipse 3,000 Ks and has a good shot at 300 wins, hes only 32 and built like a horse, I see no slowing down...signing Hafner over Sabathia was a collosal mistake, almost as bad as not pulling the trigger on trading Jaret Wright for Pedro back in the day, oh well, I look forward to the new season, has a better feel than the last few!

[GeronimoSon]

o no no no.... lol, no way we were resigning CC with or without Hafners contract. Indians maxed out at like 19mill for CC, Yanks offered 24mill. So we had no shot. Dolan was not going to invest that much money in one player and one of the few things i agree with him on.

It's funny how history can be re-written.. to convey an agenda.. The fans who screamed & yelled and bought Malley's Chocolates 'Pronk Bar', a milk chocolate candy bar that was crazy good.. were thrilled to sit in PRONK-Ville can look back, six years later and claim.. signing him was a mistake..

Indians fans EVERYWHERE were thrilled to see Mr Dolan resign Travis Hafner to that fair (at the time) contract that would keep the PRONK in cleveland until his 35th birthday.. Jake Westbrook.. same drill three year fair (at the time) contract to stay in Cleveland.. CC Sabathia.. was offered the MOON.. and he passed. wouldn't take a HUGE paycheck from Mr Dolan..

Knowing this, Mr Dolan & Mark Shapior decided the Indians would go into the 2008 season with the intent to compete and win the AL Central and surpass getting to within one game of the World Series, that had elluded them in 2007. If CC led the way, the Indians would get the draft picks for the soon to be departing ACE.. Well, we all know what happened.. and with just a few short months left in the 2008 season, CC's 10 starts was traded for a littany of prospects with the Brewers.. It was the wisest use of CC at that time & hailed as a smart baseball move by all...

Five years later.. CC's trade is remembered as one of the two Cy Young winners the Indians sent away for nothing of any note or value...

Truth is defined and written by the winners.. Losing CC made the Indians lose and the IDIOTS in the media win! Those few casual fans who are tooo stoooopid to think for themselves are now able to come to this website/forum/blog and post garbage/nonsense about dumb trades of Cy Young Winners and Roid Rhetoric regarding players with no history of any such activity..

The winners (the ocker's and hoynes' and schudel's, etc) in this rewrite of history.. aren't the guys who played the games.. they're much too weak to do that..

[Sacco111]

CC Sabathia.. was offered the MOON.. and he passed. wouldn't take a HUGE paycheck from Mr Dolan..

He took a gamble on free agency. The offer we gave was a mil or two lower and a year shorter than the one the Yankees offered. He decided on a larger paycheck. That is a fact.

The key to the CC trade, LaPorta did not pan out. I never understood the other 2 throw ins (excluding Brantley) as they were never really considered key prospects. We seem to do well on under the radar trades. I mean, Seattle should never take a phone call from us again (Omar Vizquel, Shin Soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera).

It's also not a re-write of history. It is a look at the trades with the benefit of hindsight. If you look at the trades today...would you do it all over again? Not unless you are stooopid. The idea of trading those guys made sense at the time and still does today. But, the scouting and the execution failed. Every moron, even the casual fan can see that. In the CC trade, we traded for a guy that had a raw developing swing which we thought we could correct or develop. We got 2 throw ins that were not even of average potential. Brantley has done ok but is no more exciting than a healthy Franklin Gutierrez without IBS.

[ClevelandSpider]

I had a reply to prodigy but I got a message saying it had to be approved my a moderator, probably because I included a link to an article detailing the Indians offer to Sabathia, anyways there is no prize for being right in the end, when Hafner started dropping off in production my first instinct was roids as it was right in the midst of what would become one of baseball's darkest times...I was a huge fan of Sabathia from day one and from being a pitcher all of my life and up and through HS, I always though great starting pitching beats great hitting, so I prefered CC over Pronk, but like I said, theres no prize for being right...

The main point of my pending post was that the Indians offered Sabathia $17-18 million after signing Hafner long term in Dec. 2008, had they made an earlier offer, around the time of Hafners offer, and a bit larger, they could have resigned CC before he hit the open market and saw what the Yankees would give him...the Dolans had the money to sign Sabathia OR Hafner and they made the WRONG choice, had CC agreed to the contract offer in late 2008, they would have spent the money to sign both, but if they didn't pay Hafner all that money and intead signed CC, the Indians would be better today, I think unfortunately it set off a string of dominos that led to bad trades, but maybe us Cleveland fans were spoiled by the Expos trade where we got Sizemore, Lee and Brandon Phillips for Colon...

Make no mistake tho, Sabathia is a Hall of Famer, and at 32 he has a legit shot at 300 wins (109 away) and will almost certainly get 3,000 Ks, you can't fail to sign your own Cy Young and future Hall of Fame pitcher, theres no excuse, you have to identify your organizations cornerstones and sign them well in advance of them hitting the open market

[GeronimoSon]

... they could have resigned CC before he hit the open market and saw what the Yankees would give him...the Dolans had the money to sign Sabathia OR Hafner and they made the WRONG choice..

Breaking this down:

"..The Dolans had the money..." <== RHETORIC..Unknown.. PURE BS..

The Indians could sign CC <== RHETORIC..Unknown.. If you're hanging your hat on anything is possible.JUST GREAT, but reality says.. nope.. history says.. nope..

"...The Dolans made the wrong choice.." <== RHETORIC..Unknown. It wasn't a choice..

Otherwise.. keep lying to yourself that you have ANY idea what you are talking about...

[OneTuzSea]

Breaking this down:

"..The Dolans had the money..." <== RHETORIC..Unknown.. PURE BS..

The Indians could sign CC <== RHETORIC..Unknown.. If you're hanging your hat on anything is possible.JUST GREAT, but reality says.. nope.. history says.. nope..

"...The Dolans made the wrong choice.." <== RHETORIC..Unknown. It wasn't a choice..

Otherwise.. keep lying to yourself that you have ANY idea what you are talking about...

But Geronimo, we all know that players LOVE signing extensions with teams before they hit free agency! That way they get more money!


...wait....

[prodigy]

He took a gamble on free agency. The offer we gave was a mil or two lower and a year shorter than the one the Yankees offered. He decided on a larger paycheck. That is a fact.

Yankees blew Indians offer out the water by about 5 million. Thats how the yankee's play ball. big reason why baseball needs something to even the playing field alittle.

[ClevelandSpider]

Breaking this down:

"..The Dolans had the money..." <== RHETORIC..Unknown.. PURE BS..

The Indians could sign CC <== RHETORIC..Unknown.. If you're hanging your hat on anything is possible.JUST GREAT, but reality says.. nope.. history says.. nope..

"...The Dolans made the wrong choice.." <== RHETORIC..Unknown. It wasn't a choice..

Otherwise.. keep lying to yourself that you have ANY idea what you are talking about...

The condescending tone is unnecessary, I wonder do you respond with insults to everyone that disagrees with you?

It's pretty simple, if the Dolans gave Hafner a 4 year, $57 million contract and still offered Sabathia between $17-18 million annually, they had enough money to sign CC...in the end the Yankees offer to Sabathia was more and the Dolans decided not to match...but had they not signed Hafner they could have signed Sabathia to the Yankees offer...they made the choice to sign Hafner over Sabathia, clearly he was more important to them than CC...they had enough money to invest $129 million into 2 players, they could have invested that into Sabathia if they wanted to, instead they chose not to and signed a guy that didn't even come close to living up to his salary in Hafner...Had they been smart, they could have given CC a great contract offer around the time they signed Hafner and prevented him from getting to free agency, it's not that hard to understand...

Baseball players today are overpaid, but CC is one of the best pitchers in the game, an innings eater, a workhorse, a strikeout machine...we coulda kept him, the Dolans decided a hitter was more important and chose to sign Hafner first and then offer CC a contract, which risked him walking, it was a bad move, that is not debatable

[ClevelandSpider]

Yankees blew Indians offer out the water by about 5 million. Thats how the yankee's play ball. big reason why baseball needs something to even the playing field alittle.

My point is that it shouldn't have even gotten to that, we should've made CC a offer before Hafner, an offer that blew him out of the water, one he couldn't refuse, maybe in the ball park of 5 years $100 million, made in early 2007, more than a year before free agency and before seeing what the Yankees would offer, then we could wait til the end of the season to sign Hafner who was in the midst of a mediocre season, that's what we should have done, instead the Dolans made a mistake an compounded that by trading him for basically nothing, and then doing the same a year later with Lee

The Indians organization has been the poorest run of the Cleveland sports franchises the past 5 years, Heckert tho sent packing has done a much better job than past Browns GMs in getting talent an tho the wins arent there, the Cavs front office has made some moves and has a young team with talent, the Indians front office has been a joke...

[GeronimoSon]

"...The Dolans had the money...": How much money did the Mr Dolan have to spend on these players. Do you have a number? Or are you guessing..pre-supposing.. taking a wild stab.. implying that what you want is what THEY should have.. ? Do you have anything besides rhetoric on how much money Mr Dolan has or had to spend at the time?..

(the simple answer is no.. you don't and didn't know. You were clueless and remain the same. So, there was no condescension, just pointing out that you, like so many others, will believe whatever nonsense you want to believe, then infer from opining what could be or should be done.. When you don't know squat.. )

The Indians could sign CC: Yet he signed elsewhere after cutting off negotiations with the Indians. He was traded and cut off negotiations with the Brewers..

Do you see a pattern here?. CC was going to become a FA.. He wasn't going to sign. Mr Dolan knew it and did what was best for the team at the time..

"...The Dolans made the wrong choice.." How can you make a statement that Mr Dolan made the wrong choice when the choice wasn't his to make?. Mr Dolan made a huge and substantial offer. The player making the decision (not MR DOLAN) decided to play elsewhere. Claiming Mr Dolan should have signed CC instead of Hafner and or Westbrook is pure nonsense. CC WASN'T GOING TO SIGN WITH THE INDIANS.. THERE WAS NO CHOICE.

So, if you think this is disagreement.. okay, but try using the FACTS to support your weak argument. The facts are very clear and plain. They fly in the face of your comments. IF you don't like what's being said, perhaps you might read them and realize, they're not insults, they're the truth....

[ClevelandSpider]

"...The Dolans had the money...": How much money did the Mr Dolan have to spend on these players. Do you have a number? Or are you guessing..pre-supposing.. taking a wild stab.. implying that what you want is what THEY should have.. ? Do you have anything besides rhetoric on how much money Mr Dolan has or had to spend at the time?..

(the simple answer is no.. you don't and didn't know. You were clueless and remain the same. So, there was no condescension, just pointing out that you, like so many others, will believe whatever nonsense you want to believe, then infer from opining what could be or should be done.. When you don't know squat.. )

The Indians could sign CC: Yet he signed elsewhere after cutting off negotiations with the Indians. He was traded and cut off negotiations with the Brewers..

Do you see a pattern here?. CC was going to become a FA.. He wasn't going to sign. Mr Dolan knew it and did what was best for the team at the time..

"...The Dolans made the wrong choice.." How can you make a statement that Mr Dolan made the wrong choice when the choice wasn't his to make?. Mr Dolan made a huge and substantial offer. The player making the decision (not MR DOLAN) decided to play elsewhere. Claiming Mr Dolan should have signed CC instead of Hafner and or Westbrook is pure nonsense. CC WASN'T GOING TO SIGN WITH THE INDIANS.. THERE WAS NO CHOICE.

So, if you think this is disagreement.. okay, but try using the FACTS to support your weak argument. The facts are very clear and plain. They fly in the face of your comments. IF you don't like what's being said, perhaps you might read them and realize, they're not insults, they're the truth....

You are hopeless, utterly hopeless, I don't know how else to explain it to you because sadly it seems you'll never be able to comprehend it, yet you call others clueless...too funny...

If the Dolans could offer Hafner $57 million and offer CC $72 million, how do you not understand that not offering Hafner a contract and instead offering CC a bigger deal could have been done? Say they offer CC a contract worth $129 million over 6 years, would he have not signed that in 2007? He would have, I have no doubt, the fact of the matter is the Dolans decided Hafner was more important than CC and signed him instead, which hindsight shows us was a colossal error...

In the end, the Dolans had the money as evidenced by who they signed (Hafner) and what they offered to CC, but go ahead and sit on your high horse, toss out a few insults, I don't expect you to man up and admit you're wrong...my whole point all along has been that the Indians should have offered CC a great contract in early 2007 that blew him away and not tendered Hafner until after the season...you want to talk facts and truth? if the Dolans had offered CC enough money he would've signed, it wasn't like he was only interested in a big market or hated Cleveland, quite the contrary, he took more money, which the Dolans should have offered, plain and simple, now come back with more insults and condescending tone, that's your THING...

[prodigy]

If the Dolans could offer Hafner $57 million and offer CC $72 million, how do you not understand that not offering Hafner a contract and instead offering CC a bigger deal could have been done? Say they offer CC a contract worth $129 million over 6 years, would he have not signed that in 2007? He would have, I have no doubt, the fact of the matter is the Dolans decided Hafner was more important than CC and signed him instead, which hindsight shows us was a colossal error...

Heres the thing you gotta understand. What did the yankee's offer cc 24mill? well lets say we offered CC 25mill. The yankees would have countered with 27-28 LOL, They really would've. No way CC turns that down.

So lets say Cleveland Signed CC to 28 million a year. Thats just one player, That leaves us with very little money to spend on anyone else. So our team would be CC and bunch of rookies and ageing vets that we could afford.

not a good team. Shoot we have not been a good team since aways, but ya.

[ClevelandSpider]

Heres the thing you gotta understand. What did the yankee's offer cc 24mill? well lets say we offered CC 25mill. The yankees would have countered with 27-28 LOL, They really would've. No way CC turns that down.

So lets say Cleveland Signed CC to 28 million a year. Thats just one player, That leaves us with very little money to spend on anyone else. So our team would be CC and bunch of rookies and ageing vets that we could afford.

not a good team. Shoot we have not been a good team since aways, but ya.

You're missing my point, I said sign him in 2007 before he hit free agency in fall 2008 much like the Twins did with Mauer, before having to compete with the Skankees of the world...if we offered him a contract like I suggested, a 5 year 100 million or 6 year 129 million even, he would've signed, it would have been an immediate pay raise and he would've never known what the Yanks would have offered...if the Indians game plan is to play moneyball, they sure are doing a bad job of it