Shapiro Is To Blame

Another night, another brutal close loss. The Indians find new ways to strand baserunners and now find themselves in a huge hole in the AL Central, five games back of the White Sox. The Tribe looks very soft and its best players just do not deliver in the clutch, they don't. And the guy to point the finger at is GM Mark Shapiro.

His counterpart with the White Sox made some very bold moves this offseason and knew he had to upgrade his club. Heck, Kenny Williams did that in 2006 even after his team won the World Series. Shapiro? This offseason he did squat! Baseball is a game that can fool you. Certain players have "career years" and as a GM you have to identify which of the crop has hit its ceiling. In 2006 the Detroit Tigers reached the World Series and Dave Dombrowski stuck with average players like Brandon Inge and Craig Monroe and it came back to haunt him the following season. This winter, Shapiro needed to address the LF and 3B spots and failed to. He did add a reliever in Masa Kobayashi, which was a nice manuever, but not enough to counter what Chicago did. With a bevy of arms in the system, you can't tell me Arizona would not have dealt the Tribe Carlos Quentin? Do you know what the D-Backs got for Quentin? A minor league FIRST BASEMAN!!! I think the Tribe leads the planet in First Base prospects.

Bottom line is Grady Sizemore is not a leadoff hitter and he still leads off. Victor Martinez is not a cleanup hitter, yet he hits fourth. Travis Hafner now says his shoulder hurts, so he is a waste of a roster spot on a team that only carries 24 players anyways (Andy Marte is 25th but Shappy is so scared to death to lose him for some reason so he is just stashed away in moth balls). Tribe got fat and sassy after getting to the ALCS and if you don't get better, you get worse. And that is where they are today thanks to Shapiro.