Displaced Cleveland Fan

With the help of ex-Indian Cy Young award winner, CC Sabathia, the New York Yankees won their 27th World Series title.

As it turned out, the playoffs were quite predictable from the perspective of a cynical Cleveland fan. When I made my playoff predictions a month ago, my picks were not based on the strength of the team, but on the players on their rosters that left the Indians in either 2008 or 2009. The result? All but one of the picks was correct (I picked the Red Sox with Victor Martinez to beat the Angels).

So in a World Series that began with a pitching match-up of CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee (who both won the Cy Young award in consecutive years while in Cleveland), Sabathia and the Evil Empire prevailed.

Is a Yankees World Series championship surprising? Not at all.

Am I happy for CC that he finally won a World Series? That’s a whole ‘nother question.

On the one hand, I really can’t blame him for leaving Cleveland (he was traded). I also can’t blame him for not coming back during free agency after his brief stint with the Brewers (the Indians could no longer afford him). What’s more, I can’t blame him for signing with the Yankees ($161 million - How do you turn that down?).

On the other hand, he was part of a New York team that essentially bought a World Series title. The lack of a salary cap in baseball makes for a severely uneven playing field. The only way for a small market team like the Indians to win is to get lucky and have all their players reach their potential at the same time. Their window is open only until their players start to hit free agency. Once that happens, rich teams like the Yankees and Red Sox snatch them away.

So how do I feel about CC winning a ring? Indifferent. Mostly I’m just annoyed at the Yankees’ ability to buy any player they need and at Major League Baseball for allowing it.

Here’s hoping this mess is fixed sometime in the future. It would be nice for an Indians player to have a shot at winning the World Series without having to go to another team.

-dcf

Tags: CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, New York Yankees, Victor Martinez, World Series

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 10:27 am and is filed under Misc. Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.