2008 MLB PREVIEW: CLEVELAND INDIANS

by WCT, The Ship of Fools

It sucks to be a Cleveland sports fan. It really really does.

Cleveland sports fans wake up every morning knowing that no matter how good things may look, somehow, someway, the sports gods are going to punch us in the proverbial balls. Its like death and taxes.

That ominous sense of inevitability will hang over the Cleveland Indians season like a dark cloud this year. Is it because the fans expect the team will blow another 3-1 lead in a Championship Series? No -- Well, maybe, but that's not specifically what I am talking about here -- its because their Cy Young Award winning lefty, C.C. Sabathia is as good as gone.

Sabathia, who Indians fans have watched grow from a pudgy, erratic, 17-year old, who could throw in the mid-90s but had no idea where the ball was going when he released it, into a marginally-less-pudgy, effective, 27-year-old, who is one of the best pitchers in the Major Leagues; is entering the final year of his contract.

Negotiations on an extension took place throughout the off-season. On the plus side for Sabathia, the market was set when ace lefty Johan Santana signed a six-year, $137.5 million contract this winter with the Mets, and grossly overrated lefty Barry Zito signed a seven-year $126 million deal last winter with the Giants. Sabathia wants that kind of money. However on the minus side, Sabathia crapped all over himself in his three postseason starts last year, including at home in game five of the ALCS with the Tribe up three games to one, and has yet to prove that he is a big-game pitcher. Those negotiations were put on hold within the last two weeks, when Sabathia announced that he will not talk contract again until after the 2008 season.

That said, come June and July, Indians G.M. Mark Shapiro might have a tough decision to make. If the Indians get off to a bad start, and are looking like a team that will not compete for the playoffs, he will have to seriously consider trading Sabathia to a contender for prospects, rather than face the reality of possibly losing him for nothing in the winter.

Granted, this is a very pessimistic view of the world. After all, the Indians did finish tied for the best record in baseball last year, and were one win away from winning the World Series (actually five, if you count the formality that would have been the series against the obviously overmatched Colorado Rockies). This is a team with, when healthy, the deepest starting pitching rotation in the American League. They should once again be among the AL leaders in runs, if C Victor Martinez can duplicate last year, and DH/1B Travis Hafner can rebound from a down year. That is, if you consider an 836 OPS and 100 runs batted in a down year. For Hafner, I do.

Contributors down-the-stretch 1B Ryan Garko and 2B Asdrubal Cabrera will each be starting their first full seasons as everyday players, and P Fausto Carmona, who won 19 games (even with stints in the minor leagues) last year, begins the season as the #2 starter, so it can be argued that the 2008 Indians should have a much more positive outlook than 2007's 96-win squad did last March.

Then again, pessimism is par for the course for the Cleveland sports fan. Sabathia's inevitable departure is likely what is on most Indians fans' minds, even though the Tribe is equipped to once again compete for the AL Central crown. Even against a suddenly-stacked Detroit Tigers club. So if you pass an Indians fan in the street, and he or she seems a little down (and this will happen), now you'll know its because our favorite lefty with the hat cocked to the side is on his way out.