A few years ago, I wrote a column speculating which of Ohio’s pro sports teams could become a championship caliber team first.
I don’t remember who I ranked at the top of the list. I know it wasn’t the Browns. I’m sure of that.
But I do remember what I wrote about the Cleveland Indians after they had traded reigning Cy Young Award winners C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee for prospects in back-to-back seasons in 2008 and 2009.
“At least act like you’re trying,” was my advice to the Indians.
Guess they showed me. The 2017 version of the Indians, apparently the best team in the American League, is definitely trying.
With the unanticipated signing of this year’s biggest free agent, power-hitting Edwin Encarnacion, the Indians sent a signal they are all in for 2017 and beyond.
The Indians got to the 2016 World Series the way small and midsize market teams traditionally have done it, with a productive farm system, some shrewd trades and signing the occasional low-priced free agent.
But a three-year, $60 million contract for Encarnacion says the Indians are doing things differently now. A team that has never had a payroll over $100 million just gave one player $20 million a year.
Encarnacion said he was surprised at first that the Indians were pursuing him. He didn’t expect them to be one of the teams making a serious offer.
Similarly, Indians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti thought it was a long shot, too, when the process began. Antonetti said last week that at the start of the offseason the Indians “didn’t think it could happen.”
Encarnacion hit 42 home runs and drove in 127 runs last season for the Toronto Blue Jays. He has averaged 39 home runs the last five seasons and has driven in more than 100 runs four of those seasons. The one time he missed 100 RBIs he drove in 98.
Without him and without Michael Brantley last season, the Indians were second in the American League in runs scored.
The last time the Indians had a hitter with at least 42 home runs was in 2006 when Travis Hafner hit 42.
Cincinnati Reds fans will remember Encarnacion, now a designated hitter/first baseman, as a defensively challenged third baseman who showed occasional home run power, but nothing like what he produced in Toronto.
He spent 4 ½ seasons in Cincinnati, where his best season was in 2008 when he hit 26 home runs and batted .251 in 506 at bats.
He also was not a favorite of Reds manager Jerry Narron, who reportedly took his laid-back personality as a lack of hustle.
Even in his first two seasons in Toronto, Encarnacion was not a big-time power hitter. He had 21 home runs and 17 home runs his first two seasons with the Blue Jays. Since then, he has hit 42, 36, 34, 39 and 42 homers.
The Reds sent Encarnacion to Toronto in a trade for veteran third baseman Scott Rolen the same week the Indians traded Lee to the Philadelphia Phillies in 2009.
The Lee trade brought Carlos Carrasco and three prospects who never were a factor for the Indians. The trade of Sabathia resulted in Brantley coming to Cleveland but the other three players in the deal either were disappointments or never got to the major leagues.
The days of fire sales and chasing prospects are over for the Indians. Maybe Ohio’s other major league baseball team or its NFL teams could take notes on how the Indians have done it.
A few other items:
• Thanks to Fickell: Ohio State paid for a full-page ad in Friday’s Cincinnati Enquirer thanking new University of Cincinnati football coach Luke Fickell for his two decades as a player, graduate assistant, interim head coach and assistant coach at OSU.
It was a nice gesture. It also didn’t hurt for Ohio State to look like good guys in an area it recruits heavily and where it is trying to increase fan interest.
• Marty on Votto: It’s no secret Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Marty Brennaman has not been Joey Votto’s biggest fan, or at least hasn’t been a fan of his 10-year, $225 million contract.
On the Reds Hot Stove League radio show last week Brennaman said if he were a major league owner and he could trade Votto, he would “trade him yesterday.”
“I would say, ‘Hell, I can lose 94 games without you as easily I could lose 94 games with you.’ I don’t care about the OPS. I don’t care about any of that. This team made a bad deal when they signed him to a 10-year contract. You’re never going to convince me this is a good contract,” he said.
• Hall of Fame: Ottoville’s Tom Archdeacon, a sports columnist at the Dayton Daily News since 1989, is one of four writers who will be inducted into the United States Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame at the Final Four in Glendale, Ariz., in April.
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