Written by Brian McPeek

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The Tribe is quickly reaching a point where decisions for this season and future seasons have to be made, the Cavs have decisions to make regarding which player best fits their need with the 4^th pick in the coming NBA draft and the Browns (and Browns fans) are still pretending like anything Mike Holmgren says actually matters. It’s a quick Weekend Wrap after a busy Father’s Day weekend.

Yuck

Like I said last week, it’s hard when you realize how mediocre the Indians truly are to get upset about an occasional below average run of play. It’s not impossible though. I’m also getting bored with the Tribe taking the first game of a series only to drop the next two and depress me further.

Anyway, when I say I understand the team is…well…meh… it still pisses me off to watch a game like Sunday’s against the Pirates. The Indians and Jeanmar Gomez gacked up a 2-0 lead and then gacked up a 4-3 lead and the club was done in with rotten pitching and defense that made that rotten pitching look great. A couple of errors by Asdrubal Cabrera were critical in allowing pretty much nine runs.

In dropping two of three to the Pirates after being swept by the Reds the Indians are on the precipice. If they don’t get a hold of the season and right the ship quickly they’re going to find themselves buried under not just games in the standings but also under indifference and ambiguity from fans who were slow to buy into the team’s early success and quick to tell you that play like we’ve seen on the last week or two was exactly why.

A 5-2 or 6-1 week would be just what this team needs right now. Not only for the Indians collective psyche but also for ours. School is out, summer has arrived and the ballpark is a reasonably-priced option for fun. But not if the team is as bland as buttermilk.

Credit Where it’s Due

Anyone who follows the column is aware I’m not a Michael Brantley fan. I don’t think he makes much of an impact on the field and I don’t think he carries himself all that well off of it.

But he’s had a hell of a month.

In the last 28 days Brantley is 28/85 for a .329 average with 5 walks, 4 doubles, a triple, a home run, 5 stolen bases (and caught stealing just once), with 16RBI, and on-base percentage of .367 and OPS of .802

That IS impactful and if that was Brantley all day and every day my distaste for the way he casually approaches the game would take a back seat to my love of his production. And for the last month it has. Will that continue? I have no idea. I know that those numbers and ratios are way beyond his career numbers so whether the light has forever gone on or whether Brantley is just having one of those wonderful months that many mediocre players occasionally enjoy, I have no idea.

More impressive than all of the numbers was that I actually saw Michael Brantley smile and clap after a big hit by a teammate Friday night in the late innings. He actually looked like he cared and that he was enjoying the night. I’ve been around Brantley enough (without being even remotely close to knowing him) to wonder why he doesn’t let some personality seep into his game. I know his dad was a big leaguer and sometimes those guys take a more business-like approach to the game as opposed to an infectious, excited approach, but Brantley sometimes makes it difficult to like him with the way he carries himself.

That said, he keeps putting up months like the last one and he can publicly strangle kittens on Public Square and I’ll be just fine with the guy.

On the Other Hand

Tony Sipp is my new Michael Brantley. I officially and formally transferred my disdain and disgust off of Brantley and onto Sipp a few nights ago when the Indians lefty got ripped yet again in Cincinnati. Not only is he not getting guys out (at all) but he looks like it doesn’t bother him in the least. This is a guy who has complained in the past about the dearth of off days during the season.

Yeah… a one inning, three times a week guy drawing a major league salary who has months and months off between October and February and who can afford to enjoy them from whatever beach he wants is bitching about not having to show up and basically watch baseball for four days per week while he works for 10 minutes at a time the other three days.

That’s one lazy, disconnected, and entitled athlete right there.

And Sipp bitched about that when he was getting guys out and actually only working for ten minutes per night. These days if he makes it ten minutes it’s because he’s loaded the bases while getting nobody out. If it’s less than ten minutes it’s because he just gave up a three run HR and someone else is coming to try and keep the game where it is after Sipp has finished pissing gasoline all over the fire.

Two Week Warning

We’re actually inside two weeks from the time the Cavs will make their selection in the 2012 NBA draft. What the Cavs do with that fourth pick will go a long in determining if the team can accelerate its path back to the playoffs (and, more importantly, keep Kyrie Irving happy and winning in the process) or whether they’re back in the back end of the lottery next year at this time.

Think about that fourth pick. I know last year was an anomaly and this year’s draft is deeper with more ’decent’ players, but had the Cavs gotten nothing more than Tristan Thompson last season just how bad would they be right now? And yeah, Thompson can still develop and contribute and is already a rotational player, but he’s not a guy people game plan for or worries about on the floor. The Cavs aren’t getting another Kyrie at #4 this season. That could is special and Anthony Davis may be the only player in this draft who fits that ‘special’ bill, at least immediately.

But the Cavs need a piece somewhere in between the impact of Kyrie and Thompson and the need it bad. The piece I’d love is Bradley Beal but the more I look at the draft and specifically the Cavs, if they ‘settle’ for Harrison Barnes as a spot up shooter I’ll be less disappointed now than I would have been a week ago.

The reason being that Barnes would be a viable piece to this team now that Antawn Jamison is gone and Boobie Gibson cannot be counted on to ever play more games than he misses. I want Beale because I think Beale can break guys down and get his shot when he wants it and because I think the kid is ‘special’ in terms of his intelligence and his understanding of the game.

But from an X’s and O’s standpoint I’m a little less concerned with Barnes not being able to create his own shot and break guys down because Irving is so very good at doing exactly that. Irving’s ability to get to the rim in traffic and requiring double teams to stop his penetration is going to get a guy like Barnes open looks. If the Cavs are convinced that Barnes is going to knock them down then I’m okay if they take him provided Beale and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist are gone.

The focal point for this team should be winning, yes. But they need to win to keep a special kid like Irving here beyond a few seasons. Get guys around him who can enhance the strengths Irving brings to the floor regardless of who it and how you have to do it.

As for the 24^th pick and the two second rounders? Not sure what should be expected but I’d actually love the Cavs to go out and get the three biggest bodies with the nastiest temperaments that are available. This team needs an edge to it and finding a guy like Charles Oakley or Bill Lambier or Corliss Williamson would be useful. Someone who sets a physical and potentially violent tone and can make sure Irving getting knocked to the floor on a playoff drive gets the proper response would be worthy use of those picks All the better if he has any other skills to offer.

What’s it Matter?

Browns fans confuse me.

They also amuse me.

I particularly got a kick out of many Browns fans this weekend when you could almost hear their collective sigh of relief when Mike Holmgren deemed Cleveland worthy of a few words in a press conference and then another session on Cleveland sports station 92.3

It wasn’t as funny as the cowardly and pathetic Chuck Booms groveling and lobbing softballs after Booms conducted a campaign of 7 straight months of hate filled outbursts directed toward Holmgren. Funny how a guy like Booms will STFU when the object of his criticism is in the same room. I think Holmgren may have actually been petting Booms while the former comedian was curled up in Holmgren’s lap. But at least Booms made me laugh out loud at least once in what promises to be a short stint on the air here.

Back to a couple of things I actually heard callers utter:

“I just feel better when he speaks. I feel like I understand what they’re doing and why.”

“If I’m ever diagnosed with something terminal, I want Mike Holmgren giving me the news. He’s just very reassuring.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that nice? I wonder if Jerry Sandusky was saying nice things in the showers.

Who gives a shit what Mike Holmgren has to say or if he has anything to say at all, really? I can understand getting bent if Holmgren won’t talk to the people here but will spend time on the air in Seattle. That makes sense from the standpoint that he should work here and develop some relationships here with the media. Fine. Understood.

But fixating over what he has to say? That’s just freaking stupid.

What is he going to say?

Is he going to go on the air or in front of the Cleveland media and say anything other than he believes in the people he hired, he believes in letting them make the personnel decisions and that this organization is better today than it was when arrives? Is there anything else he could possibly put out there?

And why does it matter so much that he does it at all? Fans can’t get a pretty good idea of what’s going on by the Browns record? By their draft? It’s not relatively obvious to people that Brandon Weeden is the starting QB, that Holmgren’s boy, Seneca Wallace, is the backup QB and that Colt McCoy is a Brown in name only and only until the team can unload him? Holmgren says (and he didn’t draft or sign anyone to refute it) that he really likes his WRs. He really thinks they’re okay. People can’t figure out that if he really likes his receivers and reached for Weeden at 22 that he believes McCoy was the issue? And he’s going to keep a 25 year old, weak-armed concussion victim whose family called the organization out (and continues to do if you saw Colt’s younger brother’s tweet this weekend) as a backup over his personal pet in Wallace? Why? Because McCoy’s arm will suddenly be stronger as a backup and because the entire McCoy family will have short term memory loss as a result of that Harrison hit last season?

Damn, there are a lot of Browns fans who need to hear how pretty they are. “Tell me it will all be okay, Mike. Tell me we’ll really get it done and hold me while you say it.”

Look around. In the famous words of Bobby D: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which the wind blows”

My God. It just reeks of clingy desperation.

Win. Just win. Build a team that wins and one with a foundation that allows it to win annually and no one would care if Holmgren and Lerner were Howard Hughes and Greta Garbo. I’d be willing to bet no one reading this knows the name of the Green Bay or San Francisco team president without looking it up. And no one cares or pines to hear from them in Green Bay or Frisco. Because every damn one of those execs says the same exact thing and the only way you separate them from one another is through wins.

If Mike Holmgren never utters another word in this town while winning a title or two, that will speak volumes about his tenure here as well as his legacy. That should be all that matters. And yet I can’t help but picture a fan base sitting by the phone and just waiting for Big Mike to call.

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