It's a 'bittersweet' postseason for Indians brass as CC and Lee shine

Cleveland came within one victory of reaching the 2007 World Series. That must seem like a long time ago to the Indians, who are currently rebuilding around youth and interviewing an extremely varied final four of managerial candidates (more on that later). Meanwhile, they can't help but notice the Indians' influence on the 2009 postseason. In one obvious way, this has been an Indian October.

Ex-Indians aces CC Sabathia (now a Yankee) and Cliff Lee (now a Phillie) are perhaps the two most important players and easily the best pitchers this postseason. They are also exactly the type of dominating starters that are vital to a team's October chances. Sabathia and Lee potentially could meet in Game 1 of the World Series, yet another reminder of what could have been for the small-market Tribe.

"Bittersweet," is the way Indians GM Mark Shapiro describes his emotions watching the ex-Indians thrive in the postseason.

Sabathia and Lee, the only two starters with multiple wins this postseason, have been absolutely dominant. Sabathia is 3-0 with a 1.19 ERA, Lee 2-0 with a 0.74 ERA. Both pitchers have 20 strikeouts and three walks in their three starts apiece. If the Yankees wrap things up in the ALCS on Saturday, Sabathia and Lee will open the World Series as opposing starters (though the Angels still have something to say about the Yankees' participation).

"You wish they could be doing it in an Indians uniform," Shapiro said of Sabathia and Lee.

Each pitcher won a Cy Young Award with the Indians. But their tenure in Cleveland was never going to be long-lasting. Shapiro chalks that up to the "realities of the business." In other words, they are just too good to stay into their free-agent years.

Shapiro said it's been so long he couldn't recall exactly what the Indians offered Sabathia for him to stay in Cleveland, but one source back in the spring of 2008 pegged the figure at $72 million for four years, which turned out to be $89 million shy of Sabathia's $161 million Yankees haul. Shapiro did say the other day that the Indians understood that their offer was probably "unrealistic," but the franchise clearly loved Sabathia and wanted to give it whatever small shot they had. The Indians, though, long have had an unwritten policy against paying any one player an inordinate percentage of their small-market payroll, and Sabathia's true market value would have made the Indians' payroll about the most lopsided in baseball.

In the case of Lee, the Indians never made an offer. Lee put together a stunning 22-4 Cy Young season in 2008, and some baseball people saw it as something of a mirage at the time. (Those people may have been wrong.) In any case, the Indians decided against making another unrealistic offer to a pitcher coming off a Cy Young season when they met in the spring of this season, so they tabled the talks.

Lee's market value wasn't nearly as high as Sabathia's the spring before, as Lee's poor 2007 season raised an issue to some about whether 2007 or 2008 was the aberration. Plus, with an extra year to go before free agency (the Indians held a $9 million option on Lee for 2010), Lee couldn't expect free-agent market value at that point. Nonetheless, the Indians made no offer, as perhaps they themselves wondered whether 2008 was the aberration. (This spring, another Indians person did suggest to me that they didn't view Lee as being in the class of Sabathia, though that isn't exactly an insult.)

Considering the Indians still held that 2010 option on Lee, the Indians entered the 2009 season with no real intention to trade him. However, when they got off to a terrible start for a second straight year, the "realities of the business" hit them.