Written by Brian McPeek

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As we head toward the July 31^st trade deadline I’m hearing more and more fan discussion about the Indians making a big move. But a Matt Wiliams-type 3B isn't walking through that clubhouse door Tribe fans. Neither is a Ken Hill or Chuck Finley to strengthen the rotation.

It’s not going to happen unless some other club gets really stupid and does so while the Tribe is on the phone. Maybe the Indians could call the Oakland Raiders if they’d like to lift the odds of that taking place but you might just have to settle for a Kevin Seitzer or Bip Roberts-type walking through the old door. That’s far more likely the type of deal the Indians will swing.

I think what fans who remember the glory days of the mid 90’s really need to try and remember is this: this isn’t the freaking 1990’s.

The Indians are not playing in a sparkling new stadium while the beloved football team has been moved to another city. There are not 455 sellout crowds ready to rock and roll the ballpark every night. There are fewer people in Cleveland, fewer companies in Cleveland and fewer jobs in Cleveland than there were in the 1990’s.

Give it up. Those were the salad days but they aren’t coming back to this town at this time. The Indians can’t afford to send Brian Giles to the Pirates for the disappointing Ricardo Rincon. They can’t afford to send Jeromy Burnitz away for two months of Kevin Seitzer.

The game and the economy and the economy of the game are too different now to operate as the Indians did when they were sailor-rich and on the cusp of a title that ultimately never came.

No. These Indians are reliant upon their prospects to actually perform for them at the major league level or to be smartly packaged for a young, major league player that results from a surplus-to-needs type of trade. For example, the Indians have a number of highly thought of infield hitting prospects. Guys like Lonnie Chisenhall, Cord Phelps and Jason Kipnis all possess similar strengths (hitting) and similar weaknesses (defense). The Indians have a need for a right handed bat. The better the bat the higher the price but if the Indians can deal a couple of prospects for a young, controllable, legitimate major league RH bat then maybe we’re onto something.

Those deals are much tougher to do and come at a far greater cost because almost all teams are looking to hold onto young, controllable, legitimate, major league bats. For all the ridiculous talk radio-type trade proposals that advise the Tribe to send Chad Durbin, Ezequiel Carrera and Jason Donald to the Orioles for Nick Markakis, does anyone really believe a package of crap like that is going to get a young, good hit/good defense guy like Markakis who’s entering his prime? Honestly, how quickly would your head explode if the Indians had traded 2010 Shin Soo Choo for that package of crap?

The fact he’s expensive and the Orioles blow doesn’t matter. Money doesn’t seem to be an issue for an Orioles club that foolishly spent a lot of it on geezers like Vladimir Guerrero and Derek Lee. If the Orioles shed payroll they’ll shed those old bodies.

The baseball business model also works against the Indians with deals and trades. You can pretty much rule out dealing your prospects to teams like New York, Boston, LA and Philly. They don’t need your ‘maybes’ and ‘one days’. The Yankees don’t want Lonnie Chisenhall in order to prepare for life after Alex Rodriguez. They’ll go buy Evan Longoria or Ryan Zimmerman to play third when that day comes.

So that eliminates you getting impact major league help from those type teams most times. That leaves you with the other mid-market teams to deal with. And if they have any idea what they’re doing they’re building their system as well the same way you are.

There just aren’t many viable options for clubs like the Tribe. They really have three options as the deadline approaches:

1.     Fleece and Idiot- find a club that’s not being run smartly and see if you can get that young, controllable, legit major league player for as little as possible.

2.     Stick with What You Have: Hope that Choo and Grady Sizemore produce in the second half. Pray that Alex White comes back and is Jaret Wright in ’97 and that Fausto Carmona’s electro-shock therapy cures him of being a basket case. Get adequate production from Chisenhall, look for Matt LaPorta to show signs of why he was the biggest name in the CC Sabathia trade a couple years ago and continue to cross fingers for Asdrubal Cabrera’s MVP-type season to continue.

3.     Go Big or Not at All- You’re not getting long term assets for your refuse and fringe 40-man roster guys. If you want a young stud it’s going to cost you a large chunk of your system. Are you willing to part with White or Drew Pomeranz and two of Phelps, Chisenhall and Kipnis? Because if you want a guy whose going to make a difference and whose going to be here for more than a cup of coffee then you need to be willing to pay.

Some don’t have the stomach to make that big deal and send what looks to be the future of the franchise somewhere else. But prospects are prospects because there’s an element of doubt whether they’ll actually make it. Albie Lopez and Jaret Wright were deemed untouchable back in the 90’s during trade discussions for Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez.

Seems kind of silly today, no? I mean, none of the five teams Lopez played for while compiling a 47-58 record with a 4.95 ER over 11 seasons really seemed to believe he was on par with the Big Unit or Pedro once the bloom wore off his prospect rose.

Of course, sending Brian Giles to Pittsburgh for the horrific (for the Tribe anyway) Rincon only to watch Giles turn into a perennial All Star for Pittsburgh also seems pretty silly today. Giles’ effectiveness seemed to end with the steroid era but that was still a HUGE miss from the Indians’ perspective.

So you have to ask yourself whether each of your top prospects is either Brian Giles or Albie Lopez. That’s all. And don’t be wrong. Because the future of your entire franchise for the next ten years is hanging on the answer.

My call? I’m all for collecting major league talent. I get the guys that like following the kids from draft day forward but those guys get way too emotionally attached to those minor leaguers. There’s a detachment you need as a fan of a major league team and you better hope your GM has it too. No amount of minor league talent ever wins the World Series each year. And while you need to draft smartly and develop properly you ultimately need good major leaguers to win championships.

Are Phelps/Kipnis/White/Pomeranz/Chisenhall going to be good major leaguers? God only knows. But if you can turn a couple of those prospects into an actual major league contributor then you’ll never hear a word from me.

If Lonnie Chisenhall and Jason Kipnis become good major league players down the road for the Indians then that’s great. If Lonnie Chisenhall and Jason Kipnis become, for all intents and purposes and via trade, Nick Markakis or someone like that, I’m really, really okay with that too.

In regard to the Orioles’ Markakis it’s literally a case of a bird in hand is worth two in the bush leagues. Of course, I’d be fine if the player coming back was an Upton or Heyward or Morse or Jones or…..

Failure to Launch

I get the sense people are watching the Tribe almost with one hand covering their face and looking out through their fingers. It’ll be easier for many to just cover up and turn around if and when the Indians hit a wall and lose ground.

It’ll be even easier now that Tribe fans will have their beloved Browns back within a couple weeks. The NFL doom and gloom has been averted and an agreement (all the major details have been agreed to) reached and that means Tribe fans have their safety net should the floor drop out on them with the Indians.

I know this Indians team is flawed and it doesn’t capture the imagination like the teams from the mid 90’s but Tribe fans are going to be watching this team play meaningful games in September and maybe October.

The AL Central is too much of a soup sandwich for anyone to run away with it and hide.

Don’t Blink

When the NFL and the players do formally agree there’s going to be a whirlwind of activity. Teams will have probably three days to exclusively sign their own free agents and then free agency will start for real for a couple weeks. Training camps will get underway while all of this is going on and the Hall of Fame game in Canton will likely still be played.

One thing for Browns fans to keep an eye on when teams can sign their own free agents is both the contract status and the interest in FB Lawrence Vickers. Ironically enough, as Browns writer Jason Askew referenced on the Cleveland Fan boards, Vickers came out of college as the prototypical WCO fullback. He could run like a halfback, catch like a receiver and block well enough to be extremely valuable. He was also fast enough to be one the best kick coverage gunners in college football.

But when Vickers was drafted by the Browns he put on enough weight and muscle to play the FB position in the Browns power offense. Less often he was targeted in the passing game, he got next to no carries in the running game but he did become one of the most devastating and powerful power fullbacks in football.

I don’t know if the Browns believe Vickers can knock the rust off the hands and be that WCO guy again or whether it’s worth paying him free agent money to try. That’s likely why they drafted Owen Marecic, the fullback from Stanford.

Vickers will have plenty of suitors if he remains that power fullback and doesn’t try and cut weight. And to be honest, though nobody wants to discuss after the numbers he put up last year, Peyton Hillis is actually the perfect fullback in the WCO. He’s big, can run like a RB at times, can catch the ball as well as anyone on the roster and he’s capable of blocking his ass off like he did at Arkansas for Felix Jones and Darren McFadden.

Line up Hillis at FB and Montario Hardesty at RB in a T-formation with Ben Watson, Evan Moore/Jordan Cameron at TE and Mo Massaquoi and whomever wins the opposite WR job and you have some serious options offensively.

You watch the offense this year. They’re going to be fine. They still need to see someone step up as a deep threat to stretch the field and to be that big, long striding WR that can take the 7 yard slant 80 additional yards if they get a seam, but if they can find that that guy (Carlton Mitchell?) then you’re going to have fun on the lakefront this fall.

At least when the offense has the football.

Saturation Point

I’m an Ohio State fan. I’m not an ‘Inside the 270 Beltway’ honk who sees no fault with the program but in the name of all that is good and holy I wish these national personalities on ESPN would check themselves and shut up on the Tressel stuff.

Seriously, when I’m in the ’02 Silverado I drive back and forth to work I don’t have any listening options other than the mouth-breathing Mike Trivisonno or ESPNRadio guys. If it’s not ESPN850 in Cleveland then I’m listening to ESPN970 out of Ashtabula.

And Saturday I listened to Dari Nowkhah actually ask the question that if you’re a school out there if you’d hire Jim Tressel knowing you’d win a national championship within four years but also be on probation at some point after.

Where do these guys create this shit? First of all, they act like Tressel is the college football equivalent of Vlad the Impaler. Like Tressel is some omnipresent source of evil that threatens to crush the integrity of the game and turn his student athletes into hard core criminals.

Dari Nowkhah needs to move on and work a bit to find some original show content. This bullshit with referring back to Tressel time and again when things are slow make Nowkhah look lazy in terms of his show prep and makes ESPN look like assholes who are more interested in crucifying a college football coach than in the sports journalists they claim to be. The ESPN folks are sitting on the very thin line between sports journalism and sensational tabloid.

The Tressel story might be titillating to some at this point (and it was definitely newsworthy weeks ago) but this is just boring and it’s no longer educational or entertaining.

The second thing Nowkhah should understand unless he’s a complete moron is that the answer to his question regarding hiring Tressel for a title and probation, if those responding were completely honest, is ‘Yes please. Sign me up today.’

Look at the number of major college programs out there. Now look at the ones who have not won a title in the past ten years. All of them would take the title and the probation and none of the schools that have won one but either have vacated it (USC) or soon will vacate it (Auburn) would do things differently.

You know why? Because winning and the dollars associated with winning is all they care about. That’s the end of the story. They also know that their programs are just as dirty and just as subject to sanctions and investigation as any other. The only difference is their names have not yet been drawn in the investigative lottery and that they can’t win dirty like OSU did.

But don’t think for a second anyone from anywhere, gun to head, wouldn’t take the title plus the ensuing probation. If they say they would they’re either lying or in front of a news camera.

Opportunities Lost

Great World Cup final between the United States and Japan. Japan won on PKs and the Americans will look back forever on the six or seven balls that hit posts or went just wide and otherwise avoided the net altogether.

You can't let an underdog breathe and have life. The United States had a chance to step on the throats of the Japanes and failed to do so.

They took a bullet in the head as a result.

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