Speaking of those league-minimum salaried players, since this isthe time of year that everyone moans and wails about the payroll of theteam (and I wonder why,
given the headlines coming from the PD),can we please remember how the tear-down and ramp-up of the Indians (bythis very Front Office) happened from 2002 to 2005 as the Indians paredback payroll while they loaded up on cost-controlled, similarly-agedplayers that would…wait for it…arrive and mature together with the ideathat they could peak as a playoff team?
Lest you forgot, just tolook at that tear-down and the beginning of the ramp-up, here is theTeam Record and Payroll from 2002 to 2004:
2002 – 74-88 / $78.9M
2003 – 68-94 / $48.5M
2004 – 80-82 / $34.3M
Veryquickly, compare those to what we've seen the last two years (in termsof records and payrolls) and what this year's payroll figures to settlein at:
2009 – 65-97 / $81.6M
2010 – 69-93 / $61.5M
2011 – ??-?? / $48.4M
Backin 2004, the Indians began to identify which of their league-minimumsalaried players were worthy of receiving long-term contracts and beganto lock those players up accordingly, buying out years of FA inexchange for financial security. As those players accumulated moreservice time and as their salary numbers escalated, the Indians havehad sequentially higher payrolls, but that doesn't mean that the teamjumped from a $34M payroll to a $70M payroll as the team recordimproved.
To wit, that 2005 team that finished with 93 wins hada $41.5M payroll (or lower than this year's projected payroll) and that2007 team that was one game away from the World Series? It was a $61.7Mpayroll or about $200K more than last year's 2010 team…seriously.
All told, what the Indians need this season is a couple of players toemerge as legitimate "core" players and some level of advancement needsto be seen because, as Swydan adroitly pointed out in the Fangraphspiece, the Indians need "to make the jump from paper champions toproducing on the field" which is something that group of young playersdid in the 2004 and 2005 seasons. While every fan remembers thetear-down of 2008 and, more acutely, 2009, the build-up has somehowslipped everyone's mind and the evolution from a team that "featured"Broussard, Lawton, Jason Davis, and others into a 93-win team in 2005came when the potential of certain players became legitimate productionfor those players.
