How the inner workings of the Indians’ front office have helped build a sustainable winner in Cleveland
Zack Meisel 7h ago 6
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In the summer of 2002, a Mets marketing intern named Mike Chernoff chauffeured a player to an autograph signing at a Sports Authority store.
On the way back to Shea Stadium, as they approached a fire station in the heart of New York City, the player instructed Chernoff to pull over. They exited the car, walked into the building and thanked the firefighters for their service, a gesture greatly appreciated by those in the department.
Few days were so eye-opening for the intern, who still had a year’s worth of college credits to accrue before he obtained his economics degree. Chernoff helped hand out bobbleheads at the ballpark gates on game days. When he interned with the Indians a year later, he accepted minor-league pitch charts via fax and transferred every handwritten pitch result, one by one, into the team’s database.
“You felt like you were just pressing the button a thousand times, over and over and over again,” Chernoff told The Athletic.
Technological advances have eliminated some of the busywork once bestowed upon those at the bottom of the front-office hierarchy. When Chris Antonetti joined the Expos in 1997, he made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sold ice cream and served as the official scorer at Gulf Coast League games.
Once, when the Indians were on a road trip and CC Sabathia was rehabbing in Cleveland, the club needed someone to catch his bullpen session. Chernoff wasn’t far removed from his playing career at Princeton, where the light-hitting infielder was team captain. He strapped on some gear, said his prayers and received the hard-throwing southpaw’s tosses.
Those sorts of experiences occur less frequently today. A fresh-faced 23-year-old didn’t catch Trevor Bauer’s side sessions last month or retrieve Chernoff’s dry cleaning.
In fact, Eric Binder, the club’s director of baseball operations, can recall his third day in the office in 2013, after he joined the organization as an advance scouting intern. He was brewing a cup of coffee when Antonetti asked him whom that night’s opponent, the Blue Jays, were sending to the mound.
“What do we have on him?” Antonetti asked.
“I was shocked he was asking me,” Binder told The Athletic. “I was trying to walk through the scouting report the best I could. He was truly interested in what the attack was. It was just astounding to me. It really opened my eyes to the culture of the office.”
For the Indians to construct a sustainable, winning product on the field — without the benefit of a boundless payroll — development is essential. The Indians contend their player development system is a competitive advantage, and a swift examination of the starting rotation, anchored by four previously undervalued trade acquisitions who blossomed under the organization’s watch, supports that claim.
But take a peek at the staff directories across the league. Notice how many front office members have roots in Cleveland, how many stem from the tree planted by Mark Shapiro and Antonetti. For the Indians to evolve into a model, midmarket franchise — not just a short-lived, brief-occupant-of-your-memory-bank winner — it requires the right people in decision-making positions, and that requires development of people off the field, too.
“As soon as we stand still,” Antonetti told The Athletic, “that’s an opportunity for everybody to pass us by.”
For Derek Falvey, lunch was the most important meal of the day.
When Falvey interned with the Indians a decade ago, he was often tasked with ordering lunch for the office. He had nightmares of Shapiro, then the fourth-floor boss at Progressive Field, receiving the wrong meal. So, when he placed everyone’s orders, he would request the exact same meal as Shapiro. That way, if the restaurant botched Shapiro’s order, Falvey would claim the screwed-up sandwich.
“Those things were nerve-wracking,” Falvey told The Athletic.
Now, Falvey serves as the Twins’ executive vice president and chief baseball officer. All because of his innovative sandwich-securing system. OK, not quite.
When Falvey joined the Indians in late 2007, he didn’t intend on climbing the ladder toward a premier position within a major-league front office. Chernoff didn’t, either. Now, he’s the Indians’ general manager. And on his first day with the Tribe in 2003, he didn’t even eat lunch. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to stuff a brown bag with goodies or if his new colleagues would invite him to a nearby restaurant. Turns out, neither happened. Those loud rumbles echoing throughout downtown Cleveland on that day 15 years ago originated in Chernoff’s stomach.
Both Falvey and Chernoff adhered to a simple tenet that Shapiro and Antonetti stressed: Each week, complete your 40 hours of work in your particular field. It’s what you do with the rest of your time that will define your career trajectory.
When Antonetti wasn’t driving Expos prospects to and from the airport in a van, he studied player development, hitting philosophies and defensive techniques.
“It was like a graduate school in baseball,” he said.
Even as an intern, superiors encouraged Chernoff to contribute on projects he considered “way above (his) pay grade.” During his tenure in Cleveland, Falvey held roles in player development, scouting, baseball operations and administration. By his final years with the club, he joined the team on many road trips and served as a conduit between Terry Francona, the coaching staff and the decision-makers back in Cleveland.
“You very rarely heard, ‘No, you can’t learn about that area,’ or, ‘Stay in your lane,’ ” Falvey said.
And when people broaden their knowledge base, it allows for the organization to fill voids left by those who earn promotions elsewhere. The Twins poached Falvey from the Indians to oversee their entire operation. Falvey and David Stearns worked side by side as the Indians’ directors of baseball operations in 2012, before Stearns advanced to an assistant GM role with the Astros. The Brewers named Stearns their GM in 2015.
Shapiro tabbed longtime Indians executive Ross Atkins as the Blue Jays’ GM when he relocated north of the border three years ago. Neal Huntington, whom Antonetti considers a mentor, spent a decade in the Indians’ front office before he earned the Pirates’ GM gig in 2007. Diamondbacks GM Mike Hazen initiated his front-office career as an intern with the Indians nearly 20 years ago. He also held roles in advance scouting and player development.
The familiarity certainly helps ease communication between the Indians and other front offices. And it offers up-and-coming executives examples of the benefits of working in Cleveland.
“Chris has said this a lot: ‘We’re just looking for good ideas,’ ” Falvey said. “ ‘We don’t care where they come from. I don’t care if it’s from the intern who’s been there for three days or a tried-and-true person who’s been there for 20 years.’ If we have a good idea, we’re trying to bring it to the table.
“That’s really valuable, because it’s no longer just a system based on the time you put in. Too often in a lot of industries — and in baseball for a long time — it was, ‘You have to put in the time before you can have that conversation with the general manager.’ In (Chris’) case, it was, ‘I value your input. I want to see it. Bring it to me and we’ll find ways to incorporate it.’ That really is empowering for a junior employee to know that they have that level of direct access. And then it’s not only empowering, but then you feel a sense of obligation, where you have to keep to that level of standard and that becomes a cycle. If you keep that cycle going, that becomes the environment and culture that you’re supporting and, ultimately, you’re building.”
The Indians have never forked over nine figures for a free agent. Their payroll ranked in the middle of the pack this season, a franchise record of about $142 million.
Misfires on Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn hamstrung them for a bit. Edwin Encarnacion has paid dividends, though even his lucrative contract creates some hurdles.
There’s little margin for error when functioning with such restrictions. The Indians aren’t alone in that regard. Billy Beane’s bunch built a 97-win club in Oakland this year with one of the league’s stingiest payrolls. Now, is it sustainable? The Athletics hadn’t qualified for the postseason since 2014, and they haven’t escaped the ALDS since 2006.
The Indians have amassed more victories since 2013 than any other AL club. This will be their fourth foray into the playoffs in that span (sorry, Kenny Lofton). But they’re also staring at the sport’s longest title drought, which stands at 70 years.
When operating with limited financial resources, unearthing other competitive advantages is essential.
“There’s a lot of focus right now in the development space,” Falvey said.
The player development system is the backbone of any big-league organization. That’s especially valid with the Indians, since free agency isn’t the most accommodating avenue by which to acquire talent.
Patience is often the key to the exercise, as evidenced by the paths that Carlos Carrasco, José Ramírez, Trevor Bauer and others traveled to reach stardom.
Before the Indians acquired Mike Clevinger, he was contemplating other career choices in wildlife control or biology. Indians scouts identified some attributes they liked, and when they completed the trade with the Angels for Vinnie Pestano, they overhauled Clevinger’s pitching delivery. A few years later, he bloomed into a 200-inning, 200-strikeout hurler.
The Indians converted Corey Kluber from a non-top-30 Padres prospect into a two-time Cy Young winner, thanks to pitch refinement, instruction and plenty of diligence from the right-hander.
It’s different for everyone. Shane Bieber breezed through the Indians’ system in two years. Conversely, the Indians were careful with top prospect Triston McKenzie this season. Brady Aiken didn’t throw a single pitch for an Indians affiliate, as he spent the summer in Arizona working on his velocity and command.
They have worked to enhance their drafting process over the years, an initiative Brad Grant spearheaded when he took over as amateur scouting director in 2007. Grant handed off those reins to Scott Barnsby last winter. After a decade of spending 200 nights a year in various Marriotts from Carlsbad to Cape Cod, Grant assumed a role supporting Antonetti and Chernoff in a cozy, fourth-floor office.
They have made strides on the international front, as well, especially at the lower levels. This year, Anna Bolton left her post as team translator to, among other assignments, implement a curriculum for the prospects at the team’s Dominican academy. If players can communicate better, learn more quickly and feel more comfortable in their foreign surroundings, it will aid their pursuit of a baseball career.
“All of these areas,” Falvey said, “that, when I came into the game, certainly there was some focus, and we felt in Cleveland we were a little bit ahead of the game.”
The Indians have discovered ways to stand tall in each facet of the front office. That’s the most sensible way for a club based outside of New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago to compete on an annual basis. Even with a handful of players destined for free agency next month, the Indians plan to contend again in 2019 and beyond.
Clevinger (through 2022), Ramírez (through 2023), Bieber (2024), Brad Hand (2021) and Francisco Lindor (2021) are under team control for the long haul. Carrasco and Bauer are tied up through the 2020 season.
As those years pass, there will surely be changes to the Indians’ staff directory. It seems as though the club has a never-ending pipeline.
Six years ago, Binder was pitching for the Trinidad Triggers of the independent Pecos League and the Joliet Slammers of the independent Frontier League. He also spent time at the Texas Baseball Ranch, where he and Bauer developed a friendship and studied lower-half pitching mechanics.
He interviewed with the Indians for an internship, started his new job and, a couple of days later, delivered a scouting report to Antonetti. Now, he regularly travels with the team, acting as a resource for the coaches and a liaison between the team and the rest of the front office.
“It’s like, ‘Hey, what are you seeing on the field? How can we support that?’ ” Binder said. “ ‘What can we dig into for you guys to help see what we see in the numbers?’ And then, we really just try to work with them the best we can, and they have a great feel on how to break it down or how to present it to the players. We have a really healthy back and forth and really get to a root cause and effect.”
The collaborative culture has paid dividends, and the Indians continue to churn out capable front-office executives, whether they’re pinpointing a potential tweak in a pitcher’s delivery, unearthing a talented prospect or catching an ace’s bullpen session.
“I talk to a lot of my peers,” Chernoff said. “It’s unique. And it’s why, even though a lot of people have obviously left for great jobs, a lot of people have made decisions to stay here.”
