The glory days of the second half of the 1990's that included 2 World Series appearances and 6 playoff runs officially came to end on November 1, 2001 with the resignation of gm John Hart. It was on this day that Mark Shapiro, formerly the Indians director of minor league operations, was named the tribe's next gm. Even though Cleveland had recently enjoyed a run of success nearly unprecedented in its history, the roster was aging and the farm system depleted. In fact, according to Baseball America, the Indians had just the 26th best farm system in 2001 and the 20th best in 2002.
Thus, a rebuild and tough times were ahead.
Shapiro began his professional career in the field of real estate and soon after that obtained his first job in MLB as an assistant in player development in 1992. He was then promoted the following year to director of player development and retained that position for 6 seasons until he was again promoted to assistant gm to John Hart in 1999. As a graduate of Princeton, Shapiro certainly had the mental makeup and prowess to quickly scale the peak of MLB front offices.
Once installed as the 7th Indians gm since 1950, Shapiro chose to rebuild the front office before he could rebuild the franchise. In fact, he had made 14 moves in the front office before opening day 2002, including naming Chris Antonetti and John Mirabelli his assistant gms. By mid-season Shapiro had also fired manager Charlie Manuel and began the search for one that would better fit his style. Immediately at the conclusion of the 2002 season Shapiro announced that Eric Wedge would be the tribe's next manager. These changes laid the groundwork for the fire sale and return to glory that ensued throughout the next few years.
John Hart left Shapiro with an aging and relatively talent depleted roster. In fact of the $95 million payroll that was left under the control on the Indians on November 1, $55 million of it lasted no more than one legitimate season after 2001. Thus, Shapiro was faced with the daunting task of rebuilding a team that currently held little value. His first priority seemed to be to cut cut payroll and remain somewhat competitive. The first step was to part ways with free agents Juan Gonzales and Dave Burba freeing up a total of $16 of salary.
Next, Shapiro began discussing a trade of soon to be Hall of Fame 2B Roberto Alomar. Alomar who made nearly $8 million in 2001 still had 2 more $8 million years left on his contract, but not on the field. In fact, Shapiro had the foresight to know that Alomar's great career had come to an end and that his trade value was peaking. On December 11, 2001 Mark Shapiro finalized a trade that sent Alomar to the Mets for Matt Lawton. Along with this move, Shapiro made a series of other small moves over the next few months concerned with lowering payroll while increasing on field performance. Some of these include the signings of Brady Anderson, Karim Garcia, Steve Woodard, and Rickey Gutierrez (all of whom were eventually let go). He also traded OF Dave Roberts for marginal prospects to free up salary. Now, these moves are nothing remarkable and in fact outside of the salary relief in the Alomar deal, the Indians gained very little in Shapiro's initial moves.
However, Shapiro's success as gm turned significantly in his favor via the trade market starting on June 27, 2002, when he managed to complete one of the 3 most lopsided deals since 2000. The other two are the twins get Liriano, Bonser, and Nathan for Pierzynski and cubs getting Lee in exchange for Choi and a nonamed RP. Shapiro managed to obtain future CF star Grady Sizemore along with quality SP Cliff Lee in exchange for Bartolo Colon. This deal set the stage for the rest of the Indians firesale since one of their most valued assets in Colon had been dealt. According to Baseball America at the time of the trade "once the Indians made the decision to deal Colon for prospects, they couldn't have asked for any more in return." After another successful trade of acquiring Coco Crisp for Chuck Finley, Shapiro made a couple more less than impressive moves, outside of salary relief before the deadline in 2002. He sent Shuey to the dodgers in exchange for two did-miss prospects and Terry Mulholland and he sent Ricardo Rincon to the A's for did-miss prospect Marshall McDougal.
The rebuild was relatively quiet until December 6, 2002 when Shapiro proceeded to engineer yet another lopsided deal. This time he acquired Travis Hafner, yes Pronk, for essentially Einar Diaz, yes a backup catcher. At the time of the trade Baseball America reported that "Indians general manager Mark Shapiro was arrested for grand theft slugger." All joking aside this was one of the most important trades in the rebuilding process. Shapiro had been so successful thus far in turning around the farm system that Baseball America had the tribe's minors ranked 1st in MLB on opening day 2003. Over the course of the next 3 years Shapiro made multiple deals exchanging did-miss specs and other loose change while managing to put together three notable deals, 2 good, 1 bad. As for the good, first the Indians managed to acquire Arthur Rhodes, a valuable rp, for Matt Lawton and second Franklin Gutierrez, Gutz, for hothead Milton Bradely. The bad, was bad, Shapiro managed only to get Jeriome Robertson a SP who's career was over by 2004 in exchange for Luke Scott and Willy Taveras both starters in the present day Houston OF.
Since the tribe was ready for primetime, prior to the 2005 season, Shapiro has only made two deals that significantly affected the ML roster. First, in true blockbuster fashion on January 27, 2006, he sent Bard C, Riske RP, and Crisp OF to Boston in exchange for Marte 3B, Mota RP, Shoppach C, and then sent Rhodes RP to philly to get Michaels for the OF. At the time I was very excited and pleased with this deal and unlike many others I still am. RP's outside of the elite relief ace type, hold little value for a franchise because they are so prevalent. This trade would have been even more in the tribe's favor had Mota not been hurt and horrible while in Cleveland. First off, Crisp and Michaels are nearly identical players over the last two years. Since the trade Crisp has hit .272/.325/.397 and Michaels has hit .270/.326/.400 so if anything Michaels has the slightest of edges at the plate. Defensively they are also quite similar with range being Crisp's only noticeable advantage. The speed that allows for Crisp's range also shows up on the bases where he has stolen 39 bases compared to Michaels 10 since the trade. Bard and Shoppach are washes as each are backup catchers at this point and doing fairly well at it. Now that leaves this deal as Riske and Rhodes in exchange for Mota, Marte, and a RP prospect yet to show his face. Rhodes had a 5.3 era last season in philly and is not pitching this year, sounds like Mota, and Riske is upholding his mid-3 era he held down in Cleveland as a middle reliever. So, to whoever criticizes this deal I have this to say, being offered a high ceiling middle of the order 3B and any kind of RP prospect in exchange for a quality 7th inning guy is an offer no one can refuse.
The next, and currently last, deal that Shapiro has put together is trading minor league star 3B Kevin Kouzmanoff and RP Andrew Brown for 2B Josh Barfield. At the time of this trade I was skeptical and I still am. I do not bad mouth this trade for what it is, but more so for what it could have been. I am not one of the fans who wanted to keep Kouz for the future, in fact I was of the opinion that he must be dealt immediately due to his age and lack of ML experience. However, I envisioned Kouz pulling in a closer of some kind to anchor the ailing bullpen. On the other hand, I will never criticize Shaprio for being too aggressive or too quick to pull the trigger. When breaking this deal down I again employ my rule that decent middle RP is of infinite quantity and thus of little value. Not to mention that Brown is 26, out of options to the minors, and yet to remove his rookie status with only 16 career ML innings to date. The only differences offensively between Kouz and Barfield are Kouz' 80 points of slugging in exchange for 12 sbs and 30 points of average for Barfield. Barfield also adds value in the field as a slightly above average 2B, while Kouz' defense is significantly below average at 3B. So, again this deal looks to be in our favor and a good one at that, but maybe not the best use of a minor league 3b who had an OPS of 1.089 last season.
Over the course of his 6 seasons as Indians gm, Shapiro has also excelled at adding talent through the draft. Of the current players on the roster, Shapiro added Ben Francisco in the 5th round in 2002 and Garko in the 3rd round of 2003. He also picked Adam Miller and Jeremy Sowers with his first pick in 2003 and 2004 respectively. The 2004 draft also netted three of the Indians top pitching prospects, Lewis, Lofgren, and Sipp. It is always easy though to criticize a teams draft picks, no matter what sport is being debated.
However, I only have two complaints regarding the draft in Shapiro's 6 seasons. The first complaint is from 2005. In the 42nd round of the 2005 June draft Shapiro went out on a limb and took University of Washington, is that in St. Louis, star RHP Tim Lincecum, a draft eligible sophomore. Lincecum was a top round talent, but basically fell out of the entire draft due to his alleged $2 million price tag coupled with his lack of size and awkward mechanics. Now if Shapiro had what it takes to draft him at that position, he should've had what it takes to cough up the $1.1 million bonus Lincecum eventually demanded. This mistake became evident, when with less than a years experience in the minors Lincecum is 5-2 with a 3.96 era for the woeful SFG.
My second nitpick has to do with this years 1st round pick, 1B Beau Mills. Now my criticism here is similar to the Kouz trade. I have nothing against Mills and see him as an elite ML bat. However, he plays little to no defense and reminds me too much of Travis Hafner who still has a significant portion of his career ahead of him. I would have much rather seen the pick used for a high ceiling guy like Brackman SP from NCST or Rick Porcello, a highschooler from NJ. Mills should be a fast track guy with a live bat, so I have no problem with what the pick is, just with what it could have been.
Now at this point in my ramblings I have more than established that Shapiro is one of the best at adding prospects and getting unbelievable value in what I call negative trades, trades that hurt the ML roster immediately(eg. veterans for prospects). However, Shapiro has only made one successful positive(eg. prospects for veterans) move during his time as Indians gm. I do not see the last trade as a positive trade because each player is still a work in progress and basically an even handed move as far as future and current value. The one positive move that I do praise is his signing of Kevin Millwood prior to the 2005 season. Millwood ended up leading the AL in era and propelling the Indians to a 93 win season and their first playoff race since before Shapiro took over.
All of this information leads me to make a rough comparison of Shapiro to another recent ML gm, Chuck Lamar. Lamar was the gm of TB from 1998 through 2005 and always seemed to have the best prospects, yet his teams were never able to get the job done at the ML level. The Shapiro Indians at this point in time very much resemble these devil rays, but have had some more success. Thus, Shapiro has just under a week to establish his legacy as a complete gm, much like Dave Dombrowski of the tigers, by making a positive deal, prospects for veterans, such as the ones I've proposed about a week ago. Some sort of deal is necessary to push this team into the playoffs and beyond.
Thus concludes my complete history of the Indians since Mark Shapiro was named gm in 2001.
GO TRIBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
