Cleveland Indians and Fans Should Be Cuckoo for Coco Crisp Trade

Living in a “small-market” baseball town such as Cleveland, one gets used to the fact that most big free agents aren’t going to want to spend their summers by glorious Lake Erie. Instead, we as the fans of the Cleveland Indians are witnessing a different approach to the building and rebuilding of a team, as performed by General Manager Mark Shapiro. This particular approach taken by the Indians’ front office may appear to the average fan to be cheap or downright the product of a GM with the mind of a two-year-old on an acid trip. To most other fans, though, Mark Shapiro is a wheelin’ and dealin’ genius with the mindset to take the Tribe to the World Series, as is evident in the recent Crisp deal.

Just look at the name: Coco Crisp. There isn’t anyone that wouldn’t fall in love with a player with such a great name like that (excluding Milton Bradley because nobody likes a nutcase). That is precisely the reason why so many Indians fans fell in love with this guy over his brief tenure in Cleveland (and that’s exactly what it was, short, but people seem to think he has spent 15 years here). I’m not here to say that he was a bad player, because he was a pretty good little player, but he was nothing more than an average outfielder with above-average speed and a below-average arm. When talking to most people about the trade, they seem giddy to include in their argument for Coco the fact that he was “so darn fast!” Sure, he had some speed, but the man only stole 15 bases in 2005. He only attempted to steal 21 times. The league leader, Chone Figgins, had 62 stolen bases. That’s just a little bit more than Coco.

Getting back to Mark Shapiro now, it seems evident that mentioning all that the team got in exchange for Crisp seems to quiet the critics of the trade. First off, the Indians received the number one prospect in all of the Red Sox organization in Andy Marte. The number one! This guy plays third base and is believed to be able to make an impact as soon as 2006 should Aaron Boone falter again. Shadowed by Marte is Kelly Shoppach, a power hitting catcher who was the seventh rated prospect in the Boston organization. Shoppach is believed to challenge for the backup catcher duties during Spring Training.

That brings up an interesting point. Shoppach is considered to have such a good bat that he needs to be in the lineup more often. One rumor is that Victor Martinez could move to first base, allowing Shoppach to be the full-time catcher. Victor didn’t come up as a catcher, so it shouldn’t be a detrimental shock to Martinez to move back to the infield.

The man replacing Coco is Jason Michaels, traded from Philadelphia for reliever Arthur Rhodes. He is a right-handed bat (which the Indians need) and he gets on base more than Coco. Michaels drew the same number of walks (44) as Coco in 305 less at-bats and had a higher on-base percentage (.399 to .345). Michaels has never had a full-time gig in the outfield, so this is his chance to prove what he can do, but at this point I would take him over Coco for everything else received in the deal. Of course, I can’t forget to mention that the Red Sox are just giving the Indians $1 million in cash and a player to be named later.

Basically, this all comes down to the old saying: What’s in a name? Apparently in this case, a whole lot. I find it hard to believe that if Coco’s name was something like Jeff Johnson, people wouldn’t have such a hard time letting go. It will only take a small amount of time for people to realize that Mark Shapiro is making the right moves for the team, regardless of cereal names or fan popularity.