RealGM

I'm actually not surprised by this. For some reason all of the Cleveland teams are hated way beyond what they deserve.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5146663

I personally question the metrics. Text analysis is not a easy study and I"m willing to bet this was done haphazardly.

I don't think the results are terribly shocking, either. Indians fans, especially those online, are not a happy bunch. Positive phrases are few and far between, and we don't have to look too hard to find some amazingly negative stuff.

I think it stems from two things. One, the team is bad. Most negative reaction in the majors bad? No, but still poor. The other is that Cleveland fans have begun to define themselves through failure. Cleveland sports is all about how bad the Indians have been and how terrible the Browns are. Before LeBron, it was all about how awful the Cavs were. It's all about being long suffering. Cleveland fans are quick to point out how bad they have had it.

It isn't that Cleveland fans are rooting for failure, it's just that they seem to anticipate it. Every misstep the Indians have leads to the chorus of "It's the 70s and 80s all over again!" They want to define all past events as failure. Success would mean that being a Cleveland fan isn't so bad, and that just isn't wanted. From 04-08, the Indians were 46 games over .500. The average fan views that stretch as a failure. Rather than looking at the overall record, they cling to one playoff appearance. They don't want the future to be a failure, but they sure want the past to be awful.

It's a terrible mindset that makes being a fan difficult. It's hard to stay interested when most people are eager to tell you how bad we all have it. It would be nice if people looked at the last 15 years of Indians baseball and realized we've had it pretty good. I don't think the Cavs get the respect they deserve. That team is downright special. The Browns . . .suck. But hey, new management! It's just not that bad, and I think lightening the mood around Cleveland would help. I'm looking at you, local press.

I think that most Cleveland fans love our teams, we just don't like it when they aren't even trying to be good.

I just think Cleveland fans love to hate on their team unless they are dramatically outperforming expectations. That's it. It's good for a laugh, nothing to be upset over, certainly.

I don't think it's fair to say that they aren't trying to win. Not trying to win is doing what the Pirates did. Give too much money to Pat Meares and Kevin Young, then trade for Matt Morris. It all shows the fans that you are trying. And when nobody is looking, you save money by drafting Moskos over Weiters. Make enough superficial moves to get the fans off of your back and rake in the cash.

Indians ownership has been good enough to not do that. What the team did this past July was wildly unpopular, but it will help in the long term. The price of waiting until this July to trade Victor and Lee would cost 13-14 million dollars. It would also mean less valuable returns, as the subsequent Lee trade has shown. Those lost assets would be extremely harmful to future chances of winning, but it would sell the false image of trying to win. I realize that the casual fan doesn't dig that deeply into it, but you would figure that after nearly a decade of Shapiro led teams that the general philosophy would gain a little traction.

I would much rather have ownership that won than ownership that showed how hard they tried. The Dolan era hasn't seen as many wins as we would all like, but I do think their priorities are in the right place. They deserve more slack from the fans than they get.