Well here it is in black and white !! The “Holy Grail” of baseball management !! The Oakland Athletics !!
What I have done here is to put together a simple chart of the Indians and the Oakland Athletics from 2007 to 2014. It shows the “mid-market” (which Oakland is not BTW), “stay within your budget”, “look for bargains using advanced statistics”, “trade away stars before they cost you an arm and a leg” and “strive to be competitive in certain years” model of baseball management. So called “Billy Bean” baseballnomics.
Cleveland Indians
Year W L Pct GB Attendance Salaries
2014 76 70 .521 4.5 1,323,848 82.5 mil
2013 92 70 .568 1.0 1,572,926 77.8 mil
2012 68 94 .420 20.0 1,603,596 78.4 mil
2011 80 82 .494 15.0 1,840,835 49.2 mil
2010 69 93 .426 25.0 1,394,812 61.2 mil
2009 65 97 .401 21.5 1,776,904 81.6 mil
2008 81 81 .500 7.5 2,182,087 79.0 mil
2007 96 66 .593 – 2,275,916 61.7 mil
AVG 78 82 .487 11.8 1,750,000 71.4 mil
Oakland Athletics
Year W L Pct GB Attendance Salaries
2014 81 66 .551 11 1,775,616 83.4 mil
2013 96 66 .593 – 1,809,302 60.7 mil
2012 94 68 .580 – 1,679,013 55.4 mil
2011 74 88 .457 22.0 1,476,781 66.5 mil
2010 81 81 .500 9.0 1,418,391 51.7 mil
2009 75 87 .463 22.0 1,408,783 62.3 mil
2008 75 86 .466 24.5 1,665,256 48.0 mil
2007 76 86 .469 18.0 1,921,844 79.4 mil
AVG 82 79 .509 13.3 1,650,000 63.4 mil
Now I am not going to spend the time analyzing these statistics to death. It is quite clear that crappy low salaries with mediocre performance does not translate into fan support. That doesn’t mean I am implying that salary level directly correlates to fan support either. I do not know that to be true and it is kind of a self-fulfilling prophesy anyway. What I am saying is that the Dolans may have been sent a strong message that they can be fiscally responsible and have a competitive team. If not every year, then some years. Oakland has won their division twice during those years and Cleveland once. Both teams are likely to get a Wild Card game out of one of these seasons as well (assuming Oakland hangs on). Regardless of this competitive reality, the attendance is still awful by any standards for both teams. Now you can point to that awful excuse for a ballpark in Oakland for some of it and the team across the Bay. But the area is still vastly more populated than the metropolitan Cleveland area so I feel those factors balance out. The model SIMPLY DOES NOT WORK when looked at from the perspective of fan acceptance and attendance.
In a future post I will explain why I think that model fails and what the Indians could do about it if they looked in the mirror.