Mixing and matching this week for The Wrap. We’ll talk Tribe, Santana, attendance (yawn) and more and we’ll hit on my most updated and recent thoughts on LeBron James. And while we’re talking NBA Playoff hoops, we’ll jam an Ozzie Guillen take into the column. It’s The Weekend Wrap:
Some Swings, Some Misses
~ I’m tired of people talking about the attendance. Paul Cousineau hit the nail on the head with his Lazy Sunday column. At least he hit on a big part of it anyway. He believes there’s some validity to the Tribe ‘not winning the winter’ and therefore not building up a great deal of pre season support for the club. I agree.
The Indians were never interested in Albert Pujols or Prince Fielder and they lost out on Carlos Beltran and Carlos Pena despite offering more money. They also refused to offer a 3rd year to Josh Willingham (who’s carrying the Twins anemic offense with an OPS of 1.003 and OPS+ of 176). Willingham would be a dream come true this season with that production. What he’ll look like in years two and three of that deal with the Twins remains to be seen as he is 33 years old now.
It also didn’t help when the Tigers dashed in at the end of the offseason and signed Fielder, further leveraging their financial situation to the hilt and further deficit spending to try and get aging owner Mike Ilitch a World Series title before he dies. That’d be a good story if it happens. It’s bad business whether or not it happens. The Tigers will face a Day of Reckoning one day very soon due to their financials.
So the casual fans that recognize the names like Fielder and Pujols aren’t drawn in and the die-hards are going regardless. But winning would get the fans into the ballpark. The young Indians of ’94 and ’95 weren’t household names. They became household names as the seasons progressed but they weren’t household names when the Jake started swelling with fans. They won though. And they won a ton. And that’s when they started to become household names and that’s when the fans started the drive to 455.
You win, they come. But…….
At some point this group of players needs to close the deal. People remember last season when the Indians started 30-15 and held a five game lead over Detroit. They also remember that the Indians finished under .500 and behind the Tigers by 15 games when September ended.
30-15 was impressive. It led to nothing. 23-17 is less impressive and people just aren’t yet ready to open their wallets and their heart to a (largely) starless team that tripped over its feet last season and dashed more hopes and dreams.
It’s going to take more than a division lead in May to convince people this club won’t throw up on itself again. Shit, it’s going to take more than that for me to believe this isn’t an aberration.
And besides, as a diehard I get almost angry when a bunch of hipster know-nothings start packing up my park, taking the seats I love to sit in and then don’t know a sacrifice fly from a mango.
~ A week ago I’d have been much more bullish on the Indians than I am today. Mostly because Shin Soo Choo is starting to hit (out of the leadoff spot no less), Michael Brantley is putting quality ABs up (credit where it’s due as I’m not a fan or a believer in Brantley given he has to hit .310 to make up for the fact he doesn’t run or hit for power/drive in runs).
But they are, to borrow an Eric Wedge axiom, “grinding” their way to wins. Without even close to their best stuff, Ubaldo Jimenez and Justin Masterson are gutting through starts, Jeanmar Gomez and Derek Lowe have been rock stars and even Zach McAllister has been solid while replacing the injured Josh Tomlin.
The bullpen has had some bumps but by and large has been very good.
I just don’t know if it’s sustainable. I don’t know how long you can go with Ubaldo and Masterson throwing 20 pitches per inning and with a left field situation that you may as well leave empty given what you’re getting offensively and defensively from the guys who have played it.
But the longer it lasts the more interest that will build. And I’d be perfectly fine being wrong about the sustainability.
~ I’ll say it again because I killed the kid for laziness and poor play last season, but Carlos Santana is doing work behind the plate. He threw out three straight Marlins Friday night and it’s clearer every day that the knee injury that cost him his 2011 spring training had a far bigger effect on Santana’s year behind the dish than his lack of desire or work back there did. Kudos to Santana for being active and for working on that important part of his game.
Now, about that long swing from the left side in every situation…
Uneasy Lies the Head that Wears the Crown
There’s a pretty interesting discussion going on over on the TCF boards regarding LeBron James, one of our favorite subjects. It centered around the Pacers going up 2-1 over the Heat on Thursday night and how Dwayne Wade’s putrid and pathetic performance got not much more than a few passing comments. Had LeBron crapped the bed and not showed up like Wade on Thursday the internet would still be smoldering.
That got some folks wondering just how badly LBJ needs a title so that he can push the focus and the attention on not getting it done to someone like Kevin Durant.
But that’s not really the issue because Durant just goes relatively quietly about his business and hasn’t sought the attention and the spotlight like LeBron has.
Durant has rarely (if ever) been an asshole publicly about his game, his place in it or anything else, really.
There's no, "Not one...not two...not three" moment for Durant. Not yet anyway.
There's no "The Decision" that was pretty much received like burning a truck full of Korans in Fallujah. Durant was, is and will be in OKC for the foreseeable future.
There's nowhere near the plainly pathetic and transparent false modesty that LeBron speaks with while saying "myself" two hundred times.
LeBron is the most gifted player in…well…maybe ever. But his fatal flaw is that gift. It provided all he ever wanted and an "easy" way out of shitty living conditions and poverty. LeBron never had to fight for a single thing in his life. It was handed to him from the time some AAU leech figured out his talent and his body were growing at simultaneously ridiculous rates.
That's why James gets figuratively (and occasionally literally) bitch-slapped by legit bad asses that fought their way out of the ghettos and away from rotten situations and lives. You know, someone like DeShaun Stevenson. That's why guys like Danny Granger, who's a smart and perceptive dude, saw through the LBJ bullshit from Day 1 in the league and shows James no respect. That's why Paul Pierce thinks LeBron is an effing joke.
LBJ acts like a bad-ass and a hard case but hasn't ever made a deposit in blood. Not on the court or off of it. Not when on and off the court he’s been protected his entire life beyond age 12. LeBron is a fronting' bitch. That's how the actual hard cases in the league see him. He's flawed and that has nothing and everything to do with his prowess on the court.
If you think James would trade an MVP award for a ring, you're crazy. That's how he measures himself is in MVP awards. The only reason he's jonesing so bad for a ring is it gets him off the 'Best to Never' list. That's it. It’s not about validating the work he did with his teammates. It isn’t about the fans of Miami. It's about his legacy and his legacy alone.
He's a bitch and a diva and the greatest blend of athleticism and talent that we may ever see.
He's all of that and he’s absolutely nothing more than that. So let’s just leave it at that.
Read that link up there.
That article is why I always have and always will love Ozzie Guillen It’s beautiful. Yes, Guillen drives me crazy at times and he can go too far, but my God, that’s man who tells you exactly what he’s feeling about anything at any time without sparing any feelings and I love him for that.
Ozzie Guillen said that if any of his own players confronted him verbally the way Dwayne Wade did Thursday to Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, he would punch the guy.
“He can guarantee a fight,” Guillen said, adding that Wade’s actions were “disrespectful.”
Guillen said no player has ever confronted him that way, but there would be trouble if it ever happened.
“I will kick his (butt),” Guillen said. “Well, I won’t say I’ll kick his (butt). They’ll kick my (butt) because they’re bigger than me, and I’m older. But I will take my chances. Some people have to understand our job. Some players, they think they know more baseball than you do.”
As for the Wade-Spoelstra incident, Guillen said this:
“I don’t know Wade. I don’t know the coach. That’s disrespectful. Why he said it? When he said it? That’s none of my business. (But) he can guarantee a fight.”
Guillen said he can understand how a player, in the heat of the moment, might become upset if removed from a game.
“You know how many players I take out of the game, and they got up in the (clubhouse) and talk crap about me?” Guillen said. “I don’t care. Because I’m going to talk crap about them. Because if I take you out of a game, it’s for a reason.”
Guillen is wrong as often as he’s right but he’s not wrong about this situation and his read on it is perfect. Erik Spoelstra comes off as an emasculated puss, going as far to accept responsibility after the game for the confrontation with Wade, because in the NBA the players have too much sway over the direction and fortunes of a franchise. There are far fewer players and far fewer franchise type guys. If you have one (or two) then your job as coach is to kiss their asses all day, every day and hope that they actually respect you enough at the end of all of it to minimize just how much of a gelding you are.
These guys don’t want a hard line coach who’s been around forever and who’s not going to take their shit. They want some ‘process’ oriented metro-sexual eunuch who knows how to form sentences that all lead the press and the fans to believe that the franchise player is delightful and infallible and that any issues with losses or the player not performing well are the coach’s fault for not putting him in the position to succeed or not getting him enough rest to be fresh and impactful.
That shit doesn’t wash in baseball or football. Josh Hamilton may win a Triple Crown and an MVP award this season but the game doesn’t let him get any bigger than the game. Josh Hamilton starts acting like the cock of the block in the big leagues and he’s getting a ball in the ear hole. He starts acting like that in the clubhouse and there are 24 guys in there that will make sure he gets back in line.
Same with football…there are too many guys who depend on each other to get NBA-like on the field. It doesn’t happen. Wide receivers are divas but not to the ridiculous extent DWade and LeBron are divas.
The NBA has created a situation where not only do these guys spit in the face of cities and fans but they also spit in the face of their own owners and coaches. Then the coach smiles, wipes it off and apologizes for being in the line of fire of that spit stream.
It’s a joke. The fact that it’s happening in Miami isn’t surprising. Spoelstra has always been the squeaky and weak creation of Pat Riley. Spoelstra never played and has no idea how to relate to many of the guys who play for him. Why should guys like Wade and Haslem or anyone else respect the guy when he has no respect for himself?
Ozzie Guillen knows that and Ozzie Guillen has way too much respect for the game and for himself to just give that away to some asshole crying about playing time or how the coach is doing him a disservice.
Guillen is right. He would hit Wade in that situation and he wouldn’t roll over and take it like Spoelstra had, does and will until he’s inevitably let go because his guys couldn’t win a title. Hopefully Spoelstra negotiated well. But regardless of whether he did or not he’s never going to be able to buy back any respect for himself.
Not after being the bottom to every guy on that roster’s top for the last few years.