To the Dolans I say this: Get Francona who he needs to win and forget the cost. If they win, you’ll recoup ten times more than you spend on the good players. If you aren’t willing to do that, then please tell everyone what we already suspect – that you don’t give a damn for Cleveland, for Ohio,or the fans.

Out of the top five spending teams, four are sitting at home. Develop, scout, and research. As they say in business, if you can’t outspend them, outsmart them.

I know Cleveland has been burned many times before–is there a more sports forsaken city?–but keep the faith. Francona could go just about anywhere he wanted, and he picked Cleveland. Something must be in the works.

Cleveland got themselves a good manager.

I like the hire, but as others have said, Francona has a tough job ahead of him. The Cleveland farm system has pretty much been looted by now, presumably they’ll have a high draft pick in the coming year but they need a lot of warm (and healthy) bodies to rebuild this squad.

It’s like Lotto, .. hey you never know.

Francona, much like Torre is a people and situation manager. Their forte is managing the players egos, .. the media and the ancillary hoopla that goes along with managing a MLB team. Especially in a big market. I like Francona bit he’s not an Xs and Os guy, .. he’s not a inspirational type. He won’t make the Indians more than what their roster says they are.

Like Torre at Atlanta and St Louis or even Francanoa at Phily, .. without the talent he will not be successful. So the question is do the Indians have he talent. I think the answer is no.

But, .. you are certainly a class act so Good Luck Tito!

The Indians ownership and front office are far worse then what he had in Philly – example – in the 20 years since they drafted Manny Rameriz, the 2 best OF’s the Indians have drafted are Ben Francisco and Trevor Crowe (now in the minors with the Angles, they bypassed OF Jacoby Ellsbury to snag Crowe).

Obviously Terry knows much more as a manager then he did when he was with the Phillies. But Casey Stengel moved from the Yankees to the talent-less Mets, and he set a record for losses his first year. The Indians have terrible players – starting with 2 true major league pitchers – Masterson and Jiminez – #3 and #4 pitchers at best. In all national articles, the Indians do not place one player in the ‘Top 100 Minor League Prospects’.

Perplexed as to why Terry walked into this. He could have waited and gotten a good job with a solid organization – unless there is something about him that we don’t know.

So Larry Dolan takes over the franchise in ’00, bumps up the payroll by ~20%, then slashes it all the way down to $34M!( 1/3 the payroll of ’01), and has never brought it back to that level? Must be nice pocketing all that revenue sharing money from the league.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/?page_id=114

If the Indians somehow win–he is brilliant.
If they dont, he moves on with all of MLB knowing no one can win with the Dolan’s as owners.

The Dolan’s are quickly becoming the Donald Sterlings of baseball……