Indians: Cleveland baseball fans deserve better than Paul Dolan

Paul Dolan ruined the future of the Indians by trading Francisco Lindor.

A good rule of thumb in sports is that if someone with the last name Dolan owns your team, success will be hard to come by and whatever successful pieces you do manage to pick up will be sent away for spare parts. James has been working his magic with the New York Knicks for years and the New York Rangers of late, and cousin Paul Dolan has been doing the same with the Cleveland Indians.

Dolan’s cheap attitude toward the team came to a head today, as the Indians made good on months of threats by trading away superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor and starting pitcher Carlos Carrasco in exchange for a package headlined by Amed Rosario and shortstop prospect Andres Gimenez.

https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1347239184369676290

Paul Dolan’s miserly attitude cost the Indians

The Indians play in the most winnable division in baseball, have an exciting core of players young and old, and a manager capable of winning in the postseason. With attendance sharply declining even in non-pandemic years, Dolan figured that the best way to get some butts in the seats is to trade away one of the game’s best, most energetic, and most beloved players for whatever is behind Door No. 2.

As difficult as signing Lindor might be, he is one of those players an organization needs to move heaven and earth to bring back. Dolan’s directive serves as a warning to the rest of the league. Cleveland will try to be competitive, as long as they’re able to do so on a very fixed budget.

The Indians could’ve built around Lindor for the next decade, but Dolan decided that saving a few bucks here and there and making sore his millions remain untouched was a bigger priority. It could be years before the Indians, or whatever they end up calling themselves, are competitive.