phillipmike wrote:If you are giving AA credit for drafting Kris Bryant and not signing him then you have to give Shapiro credit for drafting and not signing;
Tim Lincecum, Desmond Jennings, Adam Warren, Max Muncy, and more recently Nick Madrigal.
And give Shapiro the players he helped develop as the director of player development from 1993-1998:
Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Brian Giles, Jeromy Burnitz, Kenny Lofton, Bartolo Colon, Richie Sexson, Sean Casey etc.
Shapiro was the Player Development Director during Cleveland's world series run in 1995 and 1997. Cleveland made the playoffs in 1996 too.
If you are giving credit to AA for being apart of the Dodgers success as VP of Baseball Ops then you need to give Shapiro credit when he was VP of Baseball Ops for Cleveland from 1998-2001:
Cleveland Indians;
1998 - 1st in the division - Lost in the in the ALCS
1999 - 1st in the division - Lost in the in the ALDS
2000 - 2nd in the division - 90 win team - missed the playoffs by 1 game
2001 - 1st in the division - Lost in the in the ALDS
And you need to give credit to AA when he was the AGM for the Jays:
2006: 2nd in the division - missed the playoffs
2007: 3rd in the division - missed the playoffs
2008: 4th in the division - missed the playoffs
2009 - 4th in the division - missed the playoffs
Becomes even worse if you account for Anthopoulos' time in the Expos front office because they were terrible and the team folded.
In Shapiro's 27 years in a baseball front office he has made the playoffs 9 times, making it to 2 World Series.
In Anthopoulos' 16 years in a baseball front office he has made the playoffs 4 times, making it to 1 World Series.
Not to mention Shapiro was the GM and/or President of the Indians when they drafted, signed or acquired;
C: Yan Gomes
1B: Carlos Santana
2B: Jason Kipnis
SS: Francisco Lindor
3B: Jose Ramirez
OF: Michael Brantley
OF: Lonie Chisenhall
OF: Tyler Naguin
Corey Kluber
Carlos Carrasco
Trevor Bauer
Danny Salzar
Josh Tomlin
Cody Allen
Bryan Shaw
Mike Clevinger
Looks like a World Series contending team. Not to mention;
Bradley Zimmer, Shin Soo Choo, Francisco Mejía, Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, Asdrubal Cabrera, Coco Crisp, Jhonny Peralta etc.
CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee, Tristian Mackenzie, Drew Pomeranz, Chris Archer etc.
All while operating with a payroll never higher than 90M in Cleveland and his payroll was 20th or lower from 2003 to 2015.
Come on now. Facts needn’t be stretched.
Shapiro ran cleveland as Gm for 15 years. He had 4 winning seasons. Four.
Attendance when he started went from 3.1 million and dropped by 70% during his tenure to 1.3 million. I guess it’s Cleveland’s fault it is not a baseball town as others have opined. Amazing how when your treat players like commodities, fans start to care less.
His draft record has been incredibly poor as documented before.
If you want to claim budget restrictions. Fine, but other teams faced similar issues and getting an epic pass on this doesn’t mean he is good. It just means there might be some mitigating circumstances. That doesn’t indicate talent.
The only reason Shapiro is gm now is because Rogers gave him a long contract otherwise this effer would have been gone a long time ago. It is just desserts for Rogers who knifed double A at the start of 2015. Unfortunately it is bad for us fans.

















