It stinks to be an Indians fan, doesn’t it?
You watch your team develop players into superstars and then you watch them walk out the door.
You saw it with Manny Ramirez when he left Cleveland to help the Red Sox win a pair of World Series titles.
You saw it with Jim Thome, the Indians’ all-time leader in home runs who went to Philadelphia and is now assisting the White Sox in their bid to dethrone Cleveland as Central Division champion.
And now, you’re seeing it with C.C. Sabathia.
The Indians may be considered a small-market team, but the pain inflicted on the club and their fan base when established stars leave town is of grand proportion. Unfortunately for both, the exchange rate on the investment is back to small, when you consider that all the defending American League Cy Young Award winner commands in a trade is four prospects and not a single big league ready player.
Sad thing is the Indians probably got what is considered a good deal around baseball circles in landing the prospect package from Milwaukee, which includes one projected can’t-miss-kid in former first-round draft pick Matt LaPorta — a power-hitting outfielder. General manager Mark Shapiro sure thought it was, saying his club got “tremendous value” out of the trade for Sabathia, Cleveland’s ace since 2003.
When teams know you don’t have the money to re-sign a pitcher that is in the final year of his contract, as was Sabathia, they’re not going to give you equal value in a trade — far from it. If the Indians would have waited and held out for more, as some have suggested, they would have likely received less, with Sabathia closer to hitting the free-agent market, where he is expected to command a lucrative multiyear deal.
It’s the price you pay as a small-market team that can’t spend enough to hold onto its players.
Large-market clubs such as the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox don’t know how the Indians feel. They rarely see big-name players leave their team unless it’s in a trade for more big-name players. They don’t just simply give them away like the Indians all but did.
That’s why you see the same teams — Yankees, Angels, Red Sox, Phillies, etc. — enjoying success on a consistent basis. They are not held hostage by a big-name player, because in most instances, they have the resources to re-sign them if they want.
With an owner that is either unwilling or unable to spend enough to remain competitive in the market for top-shelf players, the Indians don’t have that luxury.
Some fans will be angry at Sabathia for not accepting the four-year contract extension worth $72 million that was on the table from the Indians in spring training.
Not that $18 million per season isn’t a substantial salary, but it’s far less in years and dollars than the offers Sabathia expects to entertain this winter from clubs with plenty of spending power.
Why should he take less to stay in Cleveland, especially at this point, when it appears the team is going back to the drawing board despite being just a win away from the World Series a year ago?
If the Indians would have built on their success from last season, it may have been a different story. Sabathia may have wanted to stick around with a championship-caliber club to finish things off.
That’s not the situation in Cleveland anymore, certainly not with another one of the team’s marquee players most likely leaving for good.
How can you win this way?
As the Indians can attest, it’s difficult. Since 2001, the Indians have qualified for the playoffs just once — last year.
The club took a commendable first step, using the blueprint for success from the ’90s to lock up the majority of its core players — Sabathia, Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, Jhonny Peralta, Jake Westbrook and Victor Martinez — to long-term contracts.
But what happens when those multiyear deals expire? If the player has established himself as a star, for small-market teams such as the Indians, it usually means that player is on the next plane out of town.
That’s why the timing has to be perfect for teams with light wallets like the Indians. They have a small window of opportunity to win with their core players under contract before they start losing pieces of the puzzle.
Even then, the margin of error is so slim that things have to go swimmingly — few injury or performance issues — as they did for the Indians last year.
So, like it or not Indians fans, until your owner either hits the lottery or changes his small-minded, small-market ways, this is your fate, and you can expect to see more of your beloved Tribesmen leaving for greener pastures soon.
When does Sizemore’s contract expire anyway?
Contact Chris Assenheimer at 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. 

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