I was trying to think of the best years for a player on the Indians since those 90s teams dissipated, because I really feel like Jose is about to have one...
And then I saw 06-07 Travis Hafner... 42/117 in 129 games. .308/.439/.659 with a 1.097 OPS. Lord... How did that team only win 80 games?
If I remember right it was all pitching issues, Casey Blake and Eric Wedge:
1. The bullpen was a total dumpster fire the first half, pretty sure just about every member of that pen was either in a slump or garbage. Cost them numerous games early on and helped to crush that team's spirit. They recovered in the middle of the season but it was subverted by another bullpen implosion. Fausto Carmona made his bigleague debut and was actually excellent... at first. The team then traded Wickman, thinking they could elevate Fausto to closer and he just went up like a roman candle. That killed the team's chances of a late push. Wickman's 'mehness' certainly didn't help. Here, Wickman was 'Beerman' and fans had aneurysms any time he went in, even though he was effective. He got traded to ATL, they called him 'Bobzilla', and he went off. Just a horrid pen, all the awful guys I remember: Scott Sauerbeck, Fernando 'Still Pitching Somewhere' Cabrera, Guillermo Mota, Jason Davis, Andrew Brown, Brian Sikorski, this guy who would never amount to anything ever again anywhere named Edward Mujica. Just a total shit show of a bullpen.
2. Back of the rotation fell apart. Byrd hit the end of the road. Jason Johnson was useless. Sowers was a late season smokescreen if I remember right. Lee was starting into the funk that transformed his career. Westbrook was Westbrook- useful but certainly nothing spectacular. They really needed the pen to pick them up early and they didn't.
3. Casey Blake was being Casey Blake. He kept showing up to games, playing in the field, and drawing the fans ire. He insisted on putting on his glove when he played the field and always insisted on going up to the plate just because he was in the lineup. This completely infuriated the fans and they let the team have it. You look at his stats and go, 'I don't see the issue- he looks perfectly serviceable. And for what the Tribe needed, he was just fine, really. Actually slightly above league average.' This is what you would THINK- but you would be wrong. He was terrible, just ask any fan who occasionally watched games back then. The stats lied- he actually struck out every single time there were RISP. Just ask the casual Cleveland sports fan.
5. Eric Wedge. He hated smiling like gorimoko hates quick, concise counterpoints. His teams always started slow because he was too high-strung and it rubbed off on his teams. Or something like that. Either way, his blue-collar expectations that his teams give 100% (the Steroid Era was ending, btw, so no more 110%), play hard all the time, and whatever completely rubbed this free-wheeling hippy fan base the wrong way. Just the wrong guy for this city's mojo.
6. Mark Shapiro's poor free agency decisions. He worked with a very modest budget and got creative, but all of his creative moves just blew up. Paul Byrd was supposed to help ease the loss of Kevin Millwood. I think we all remember how well he did back then. Jason Michaels (was he FA or trade?) was supposed to be a guy who would bring good value in an expanded role... instead he was mediocre at best and awful at worst. The idea behind Jason Johnson was that if they could get half a season until a Sowers or Guthrie was ready, he was worth it. He instead imploded from day one. Year two of Aaron Boone was no better than Year One. None of his moves really worked, and the young guys didn't step up that year (Andy Marte, Fausto, Kouz, Guthrie, Sowers, Gutierrez).
The one thing you have to remember about 2006, though, is that had the team NOT bombed, they would have never made the 2 trades that set up 2007 and beyond: Ben Broussard for Shin-Soo Choo and Eduardo Perez for Asdrubal Cabrera*. It also seemed like it set up a couple young guys to break out the next year, like Fausto and Franklin Gutierrez. A frustrating year but kind of like the first part of this season, fans seem to have a much more negative memory of it than it really was. All that was made possible, though, but the absolutely horrid bullpen that started the season and the team's inability to overcome it.
*Think of how miserable current Cleveland baseball fans would be if they didn't have Bauer or Shaw to bitch about. 2006 made it possible!
