If you’ve been following the Indians at all this season, you’ve probably been pretty frustrated. April was horrible, May was okay, June was maddening, and July is ending in the same fashion. In fact, this 4-game sweep at the hands of the White Sox might just be the final nail in the coffin of the Indians 2015 Hype Train.
Don’t blame Sports Illustrated, though. Curses aren’t real.
Don’t blame the owners for being cheap, either. They opened the check books for Swisher and Bourn and it blew up in everyone’s face. This roster is not constructed as such specifically because the owners were afraid or unwilling to open their wallets.
You know who you can blame, however? Almost everyone in the dugout.
I’m not going to go into the specifics of this game, because nothing good happened at all. Well, Danny Salazar happened and he was pretty great actually (save for a solo home run allowed to Carlos Sanchez), but other than him, everyone else was pretty awful.
How did the Indians do with RISP? 0-5
How many men did they leave on base? 6
After the game, the team held a long meeting, which led to Jason Kipnis blasting the team over social media:
“We’ve been playing like [crap],” Kipnis told the Northeast Ohio Media Group. “There’s no way around it. It’s embarrassing. There’s no fight. [We’re] giving up early. We’ve got people worrying about their own things. Nobody is held accountable. It’s just not the way we’re going to do business here.
“We we held a team meeting today to rein the guys back in, get us back to where we need to be, get our heads straight, get our heads out of our [behinds] and start playing like a better baseball team.”
I’ve heard some really foolish talk about Terry Francona needing to be fired. I think he’s consistently shown that he knows how to work a roster to get the most out of it — I don’t know what happened this year, but I don’t think his leash should be anywhere near as short as many Cleveland fans seem to be saying (then again, I live in South Korea and I may just be hearing the loudest voices).
But, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t concerned. Guys ‘worrying about their own things’ and ‘nobody is being held accountable’? Yeeeeeesh. Is that on Tito’s shoulders? Probably. Does that remind me of his ugly departure from the Red Sox? Yep. But again, I’m not in the dugout, and I don’t know the dynamic of this team.
If I had to speculate, I would guess that Terry likes to let his veterans police the locker room, and there’s not really anyone in there to do that with Giambi gone. Swisher is off cashing checks from the Disabled List, Bourn has never been a leader, Santana isn’t a leader, Raburn isn’t a leader, Moss isn’t a leader (and he’s new to the team). Who do we expect to be holding guys accountable? Maybe Aviles, but he obviously gets a pass for what he’s going through in his personal life. Kipnis is becoming that guy, but he’s not there yet (he’s still too young to rein older and more traveled vets in), and Brantley is in the same boat.
I don’t know the answers, but I do know this:
The Indians are not going to be playing in the Postseason.
no, there’s no postseason for this team, but I also think firing Francona is foolish in the extreme. He’s the only competent manager we’ve had since Hargrove.
I’m not advocating firing Francona. He gives this team some credibility that it lacks without him, but it is that credibility that is being used up the longer this continues.
Conversely, if anyone else is managing this team, (manny acta for example), they would have already been fired. If for no other reason than there has to be a fall guy. Can’t fire the players…
BTW, I like Kipnis getting all worked up and being vocal, but he played like the walking dead this weekend, too. Especially Saturday, I think. It’s all becoming a bad, blurry memory.
Managers don’t get fired for simply losing, they get fired when the front office loses confidence in them and players lose respect for them.
Is there any evidence to suggest that anyone from the top of the organization down the the bottom of the roster feels this way about Francona?
Managers get fired for lots of reasons, losing probably being number 1. What causes a front office to lose faith, winning?
I never said or implied that the front office had lost faith in Francona, quite the opposite. If he was a mere mortal manager, I feel he would have been fired or definitely be on the hot seat.
Someone has to be accountable. This team was expected to contend for the playoffs. If we don’t have the talent, the front office has to answer. If the talent isn’t working, the managers have to answer. Is it just hitting, then the hitting coach has to answer. There is an awful lot of money invested to just shrug your shoulders and say it’s one of those years. Small market teams can’t afford ‘one of those years’.