As a GM, Shapiro rates low marks, SI says
It's always a
tough task to rate the performances of general managers, but just as sportswriters
rate a player, they can't let the performance of the men who build these teams
go ungraded.
Justice Is Served
March 4, 2010 3:35 PM
Shapiro's greatest failure, however, was his unwillingness to cut loose a manager who was unqualified to handle big leaguers. For all the sloganeering that marked Eric Wedge's managerial style, Wedge couldn't squeeze the best out of his ballplayers.
While Wedge might not have been the worst manager in Indians history, he'd make anyone's list of the Worse 5 in the past 50 years. No manager ever did less with more.
That's the frustrating part of Shapiro era. Sticking with Wedge slowed the development of key prospects, and his Dark Ages approach to leadership cost the Indians a starting second baseman -- or, actually, a shortstop -- in Brandon Phillips, a solid outfielder in Franklin Gutierrez and a serviceable starter in right-hander Jeremy Guthrie.
Who's to blame for Wedge?
That blame must fall on Shapiro's broad shoulders. For it was the button-down Shapiro, along with his highbrow sabermetrics, who created the mess that will be the 2010 Indians. It was Shapiro who approved the drafting and trading of every player now in the organization. His hands are on everything.
That might not have been a bad thing if Shapiro's hands were steadier and if he knew how to steer the ship "Wahoo" in the right direction. But Shapiro has taken the Indians back to the 1970s, a time when fans could count on one thing: plenty of empty seats from the Fourth of July on.
There will be no joy this summer at Progressive Field. There will be few packed houses at the ballpark. But there will be plenty of "Dollar Dog Nights" and promotional discounts, because at some price, baseball fans will put their fannies in the cushy seats at a nice ballpark.
To see winning baseball in Cleveland, fans will have to wait until 2011 or 2012 or 2013. They will have to ignore the rhetoric that has guided the Shapiro regime and look at what it has wrought, which ain't much.
"No matter how admirable the team's process and structure are, the results just haven't been there," Marchman said.
The thing speaks for itself here, and if what Shapiro has done deserves anything, it's not the promotion to team president he'll be getting a season's end but a slot in the jobless lines.
With that as a backdrop, the SI rating might be overly generous for a GM who had promised much and delivered little.
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