Wednesday was another sad day for Indians fans, who know a sad day when they see one.

Indians partisans frequently have choked on their morning coffee listening to a voice on the radio announce that a favorite player has being traded, and they have spent many a dreary lunch watching a TV talking head reveal that the team’s top pitcher or marquee hitter has been labeled unaffordable by the owner.
Those kinds of revelations have become almost routine in Northeast Ohio, and folks around here have steeled themselves to the emotions that usually accompany such moves.
Last year, when CC Sabathia was dealt to the Milwaukee Brewers, expressions of fury and disillusionment were almost nil. The fans knew for many months that Sabathia was on his way out and bought into the concept that no team but the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox could afford his next contract.
But hearing that Cliff Lee was traded for four minor-leaguers — and two days later that Victor Martinez was following him out of town — was much more ominous.
Lee had one more (option) year on his contract before it expired. His 2010 salary of $9 million is not extreme to any but the most financially distressed teams in baseball. Yet, he was being sold to the highest bidder, and the coin of the realm received in return seemed far from golden.
The scenario was similar for Martinez, who could have been kept next year with the exercise of a $7 million option and who did not bring anything close to a bonanza of talent in return.
In explaining the reasons for the transaction, General Manager Mark Shapiro included this gloomy item: If he chose to keep Lee, hoping the club would contend in 2010, he would have to do it without adding a single player of value to the roster. Not one.
Shapiro retracted that statement after trading Martinez, saying that there might be enough cash in the vault to sift through the free-agent market in the off season. But it’s unlikely he was talking about adding an impact player who earns impact-player money.
Logic dictates that owners Larry and Paul Dolan had already determined the economic outlook of the Tribe was so sketchy (is dire too strong a word?) Shapiro needed to trade Lee and Martinez a year early, even though Shapiro denies it.
That left the GM with one reasonable course of action. He would try to collect as many prospects as possible and position the team to contend for several years beyond 2010.
In doing so, Shapiro insisted that he was “not directed” to dump salary. However, given the fact that Shapiro did not acquire any No. 1 or No. 2 prospects in return for a Cy Young Award winner and an All-Star catcher (remember that Baseball America’s prospect rankings were preseason, not current), it is absurd to think he made the deals for any reason other than to ease the pressure on the bottom line. If the GM was not ordered to subtract payroll, he knew enough to take a hint.
Shapiro also said he was not ready to “entirely turn the page” on contending next season. While contending probably is possible (and Paris Hilton might become a kindergarten teacher), the reality is that next year is being written off.
Shapiro is keenly aware that trading Lee and Martinez will have a devastating effect on next year’s attendance. If the Dolans were concerned about diminishing revenues before discarding Lee and Martinez, they should be in a full panic now.
Coming in on budget this year was dependent on drawing about 2.2 million fans. The club will be fortunate to fall only 400,000 short of that figure and sell about $8 million fewer tickets than anticipated. That is in addition to plunging revenues for concessions and merchandise.
I don’t know what the Tribe business department will come up with as a reasonable goal for 2010, but I’m thinking the team will be lucky to draw 1.5 million, less than half of what the Indians lured to the ballpark in the glory seasons of the ’90s.
At the moment, the team is committed to paying six players a total of $48 million in 2010. The other 19 players who comprise the 25-man roster probably will make no more than $11 million (I’m not expecting the Tribe to keep Carl Pavano), which means the Opening Day payroll will drop from $81.5 million to about $59 million, maybe a little less.
By trading Lee and Martinez, Shapiro is telling the public that he is giving up not only on this year but next, regardless of what concept he thinks he is communicating. And there are no guarantees that 2011, 2012, 2013 and beyond will mark a return to contending status.
We have come to know that if a star player or solid veteran reaches free agency in Cleveland, he will not be re-signed. That means Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner will be former Indians by 2013, and Jake Westbrook (if he pitches well enough upon his return from surgery) will be gone next year.
Even if several prospects turn out to be primary contributors — and remember, it takes three to five years after their debuts for most players to reach maturity — the veterans in a position to make the most impact will be on their way out.
This is a game that’s almost impossible to win, because just when a team is ready to become a legitimate force, a key player or two is banished. Can Shapiro get lucky and win a World Series under this sort of handicap? Sure, the Florida Marlins did it twice. But the odds are overwhelmingly against him.
For this franchise to be successful, the Dolans must sign a few selected players to lengthy contracts worth tens of millions of dollars or continue the current roller coaster ride to nowhere.
The St. Louis Cardinals signed Albert Pujols to a seven-year, $100 million deal; the Chicago White Sox locked up Mark Buehrle for four years and $56 million; the Texas Rangers are paying Michael Young $80 million over five years; Todd Helton is making $141 million on a nine-year contract with the Colorado Rockies; even the small market Minnesota Twins are paying Joe Nathan $47 million for four years and Justin Morneau $80 for six years.
If the Tribe can’t compete with these teams financially, there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the Dolans are running the club. I’m all for fiscal responsibility, but that has to mean more than trimming budgets to the bone or letting the GM sign a starting pitcher for $1.5 million.
This year has been a disaster mostly because of mistakes by Shapiro, a series of unavoidable injuries and some misjudgments by manager Eric Wedge. The Dolans have been the least of the team’s problems, but that doesn’t take them off the hook in the long term.
Unless Shapiro has the resources to win, he won’t win, and the spiral of diminishing revenues will do nothing but increase in speed and intensity, regardless of the state of Cleveland’s economy.
In 2010, all the fireworks shows and bobblehead giveaways in baseball won’t bring Indians fans out of the closet. They will spend their money on the Cavaliers and maybe the Browns (heaven forbid) and anticipate further bad news on the baseball front.
They know from experience that’s the only thing they can count on.