I’m wondering if anyone else managed to sit through Ken Burns’ addendum to his film on baseball – four hours of coverage of the last decade or two, picking up where his previous film ended (and, alas, unredeemed by appearances by the late Buck O’Neill).  He managed to reduce recent baseball history largely to:  a. steroids; b. the strike and c. Yankees vs. Red Sox.

Those are all certainly major aspects of contemporary baseball history, but I’m wondering what a REAL baseball historian (and film-maker) would do to tell the story of the last decade or two.  What ‘s missing, in other words?

Obviously, “moneyball” (Bill James/sabermetrics), which got mentioned once, with a brief nod to the Oakland A’s (I don’t think James or Billy Beane were so much as mentioned, however).    I was really surprised there was no mention of the gradual decline in African-American players in baseball.  I also thought the issue of competitive balance (small markets vs. large markets) ought to be front and center, which certainly wasn’t the case in Burns’ film.  Anything else?

The Cleveland Indians were more or less absent from Burns’ film, by the way.  He did cover Jason Grimsley’s famous crawl to glory, and Omar was interviewed once.  There was a bit on the ‘95 series, but it was understandably about the Braves.  Lots of LGFT, however:  especially in the Boston vs. NY coverage, where Manny Ramirez and Dave Roberts were central, and Alan Embree was on hand as well.

I think there's already been an intentional overreaction thread, so I offer this instead.  The Indians and the Yankees have performed similarly badly so far this year in most areas (although the Yankees have more wins).  Thus, the two teams have identical OBP:  .354.  Team ERA's are virtually the same:  Yanks at 5.88/Tribe at 5.86.  WHIP favors the Yanks, but not by much 1.53 vs. 1.6.  Identical fielding percentages (.985).  And so on.  I know one can probably find other statistics that reveal some differences, but the bottom line is that these two teams have both played poorly so far this year.  Since the season is NOT looking promising to say the list, perhaps we can change the rules and make it into a competition between the Yankees and the Indians?

I was wondering at what point, if any, the Indians' disappointing season becomes an economic concern for the team.  Right now, they're averaging 25,787 per game (22nd in the majors).  That's about 3000 less than last year's final averages, but still above the levels for 2004, 2005 and 2006.  Normally, the Indians could expect attendance to go up in the good weather months of summer and probably hoped for a bump in September if there was a pennant race.  Now, it looks as if the pennant race is not going to happen and fans may stay away if the team sits in last place and plays the kind of dull baseball we've been seeing.  So, my question is whether people think the economics of this will either force the Indians to shake things up to cut costs and/or to shake things up in order to revive interest in the team?

Rather than tie myself in knots trying to decide whether to trade CC and to whom, I decided to amuse myself by doing some calculations regarding the Indians' propensity to get hit by a pitch.  Right now, we have been hit 54 times, far and away the most in the majors.  At the rate we are going, we will shatter the American league record for a team, currently held by Toronto (1996), who were hit 96 times.  We are on pace for 115.  The all-time record is held by Boston (NL - Braves?), back in 1898 -- 148.  I say go for it!  Perhaps we can trade CC for batters who get hit a lot -- among active players, leaders include Jason Kendall, Carlos Delgado, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, David Eckstein and Jeff Kent (surely some of those guys are available)?  Coax Craig Biggio out of retirement (who needs Bonds?).  Hire Ron Hunt to teach the Indians how to get hit on purpose and get away with it?  Fire Wedge and hire Don Baylor?  Let's put our heads together and figure out how to get this team into the record books!

If Mark Shapiro is trying to figure out whether to fish or cut bait, it seems to me he should focus his attention on the bullpen.  The numbers aren't pretty.  The Tribe bullpen currently ranks as follows among the 30 Major League teams:

Worst in Batting Average Against

2nd worst in ERA

27th in WHIP

28th in Save %

6th most HR's allowed (despite being 27th in innings pitched).

Despite the injuries to Carmona and Westbrook, the starting pitching has remained pretty strong.  The hitting, while still anemic, has done somewhat better and is no longer dead last or near dead last as it was earlier in the season.  The darkest cloud over the team, then, is the bullpen.   Does anyone out there think this group can turn it around or see any signs that they're about to?  Unless Shapiro does (and I'm increasingly skeptical), it's getting to be time to sell.