I guess I am comparing Cleveland in size to my current city, Richmond, VA, and think that is significantly larger. By further review of link, I noticed that only two cities with MLB teams have lower population-bases than Cleveland, Detroit and Milwaukee. Coincidentally, both of those teams spend significantly more in payroll than the Indians do.

But then again, don’t residents of Akron and Canton identify more with Cleveland than any other major metropolitan-area? If so, that adds another 1M people and then what do you do with Columbus? It’s pretty split between Cleveland and Cincinnati fans.

But anyway, I thought I read that the Cleveland-metro area actually increased in the last census compared to decades of declines.

And Cleveland a beautiful 176th in the country

Tada! We are definately a small market team. It has nothing to do with size and trust me Cleveland is shrinking. It has to do with the economy of the city

However, Jeremy, would you please validate your comment, “of course they are a small market team”. As I pointed out, did the size of Cleveland prevent the team from spending money and fielding a successful team in the 1990s? The Minnesota Twins, Cincinnati Reds, Seattle Mariners, and Milwaukee Brewers all have payrolls greater than that of the Indians. Can you actually tell me that any of those cities are significantly larger in size than Cleveland? Please show me the metrics!

Ohio is the 7th largest state in population and has 2 baseball teams. Each of the top 6 have at least 2 as well.

With Hafner, Sizemore, & Lowe coming off the books in 2013, to the tune of $20M, they could re-sign Choo, get a LF (that is if you believe that Tim Fedroff or Jared Goedert cannot pull off a Will Middlebrooks-like performance), and legit starting pitcher and stay under $100M. Keeping a $100M payroll and locking down players like Choo will put at least 30k people in the stands.

Furthermore, I just looked up and saw that the Indians have an average ticket price of about $25. This team is drawing an average attendance of 21,000 fans a game, the worst in MLB. That equates to about $42M in ticket revenue projected for this season. Capacity is 42,000 at Progressive Field. They could easily increase average attendance by 10-15,000 by actually making a move this winter on a LF, DH, 1B, or SP. Furthermore, by making such a move, the additional attendance will increase ticket revenues by $20-30M a year (Cole Hamels just signed for $24M a year), and that’s just ticket revenue. What if those fans also purchased concessions and merchandise or for heaven’s sake watched more games on STO thus increasing the advertising revenue?

So here is how I see it:
1) Sign a legit starting pitcher at $20M a year.
2) Sign Choo at $15M a year. (+10M from where he is now)
3) Sign a LF for $10M a year.
I just added $40M to payroll and $20M is coming off the books. That’s an additional $20M over this season’s payroll thus bringing the Indians to $85M in 2013. They did sign Cabrerra and Santana to extensions, and I think there are some other players who are arbitration eligible which will push the payroll to $100M, but that’s a good figure now-a-days.

Keep in mind that selling out Progressive Field alone would nearly cover a $100M payroll. And there are still plenty of other revenue sources that may more than double ticket sales.

So seriously, the only rationale that I can fathom for why the Indians are so cheap is that they have projected cash flow problems. And as you know, the Dodgers nearly went bankrupt last season yet still sold this year for $2B and are a 1/2 game out of the lead in the NL west.