Cleveland Indians in 2010: The Case For Bobby Valentine

Raise your hand if you think Eric Wedge will still have a job managing the Indians in 2010.

No one?

Didn't think so.

Thus the million (or maybe four million) dollar question is: Who will take Wedge's place at the helm of this struggling franchise? Who will take on a team that was supposed to go so far in 2009 but instead failed to such a spectacular degree that no one saw it coming?  Who would take a disorganized, underachieving team with a lack of both motivation and direction and turn it into something vaguely resembling the potential champion that it was supposed to be?

I doubt anyone will be surprised when no one is beating down the Indians' door begging for the job.

So where on earth will we find someone who would relish this sort of challenge? Whose greatest skill is in turning a loser into a winner? Who knows how to guide a team to greatness that is saddled with a roster rife with young, inexperienced players and fading veterans?

With such a daunting set of requirements we truly might not find such a person anywhere, but I know where I would start looking: Chiba City, Japan, home of the Chiba Lotte Marines, current employer of the soon to be out-of-work Bobby Valentine.

Allow me to be the first to admit that luring Mr. Valentine to Cleveland to fix our crippled franchise is highly, highly unlikely. But baseball is a game of hope, where we perpetually "wait until next year", and thus we can indulge in the optimal, if unlikely, possibilities.

Valentine, a major league ballplayer with a 10 year long entertaining, if lackluster, career, got his start as a manager in Texas in 1985 with the Rangers.

While Valentine ultimately failed in his nearly eight year long stint at the Rangers helm and never produced a team that finished any higher than second place and never reached the playoffs, his promise as a manager was evident.

After being fired by the Rangers in 1992, Valentine resurfaced in 1995 as the manager of Japan's Chiba Lotte Marines in what was to be the first of two stints with the team. There he guided a team that had not won a pennant since 1974 to a second place finish.

He was fired at the end of the season, but only because of a personal conflict with the team's GM and certainly not because his performance was inadequate. Here was the first indication that Mr. Valentine had a gift for turning a struggling franchise into a winning entity.

Valentine then returned to the states and took a job managing the Norfolk Tides, the Mets AAA affiliate. At the end of the 1996 season, he took over as the Mets manager, a job he would hold until 2002.

He immediately began to resurrect the flat-lining Mets, taking them to a finish 14 games over .500 in 1997 and 1998, and producing a wild card berth in 1999 where the Mets made it all the way to the NLCS before being eliminated by the Braves in six games.

A year later his Mets made it to the World Series, and though they were defeated in the big show, it was clear that in little more than four seasons, Valentine had taken a franchise with seemingly no prospect of success in the near future and turned them into a team that made it to the highest level of competition offered by Major League Baseball.

If this reads like an admiring biography of Valentine, it is only because I wish to show how he is capable of taking a team which has little hope for success and morphing them into a winner.

The Indians are in need of someone with just this ability. Someone who can take a team in the throes of failure and efficiently mold them into a real contender.

Valentine knows how to mature youngsters whose talent is raw and unhoned and help them evolve into viable professionals. He knows how to take B-grade veterans and turn them into productive players who make the most of what they've got.

Take a look at the Indians roster. It is stocked with exactly the types of players from which Valentine, unlike many others, is capable of extracting greatness.

It is also no secret that Valentine relishes a challenge. The Rangers, the Marines, and the Mets were all struggling desperately when he assented to be their leader.

After being fired by the Mets in 2002, Valentine returned to Japan for a second turn as the Chiba Lotte Marines manager, where he once again took a struggling team and turned them into a winner.

After taking over the Marines in 2004, Valentine made them a Japan Series' champion in 2005 after just one year there, and also went on to manage his team to victory in the Asia series later that fall.

Valentine was also reportedly offered the manager's job with the Dodgers and the Rays during the time he was in Japan. While he accepted neither offer, he was reportedly closer to taking the job in Tampa Bay, proving once again that the man craves a challenge.

For reasons that appear to be mostly financial, Valentine will not be returning to the Marines in 2010. Fortuitous timing for the Indians, who will likely be needing a new manger next season. There is no doubt that their current situation would provide the requisite challenge that Valentine seems to thrive on.

Further, Valentine has a little something more that would be especially beneficial to a team like the Indians: he is a charismatic, spark plug of a man.

Think of the infamous incident in 1999, when Valentine was so incensed after being ejected from a game that he returned to the dugout sporting a disguise comprised of glasses, a change of clothes, and a fake mustache scribbled on with eye black.

Bobby Valentine: character, non-conformist, spark plug, the antidote to the the passivity and stagnation that is characterized by Eric Wedge.

Seven years under Wedge has caused his team to grow up to be just like him. They appear disinterested, unmotivated, and generally disengaged with the game they are paid to play. Someone like Bobby Valentine could change that.

Ironically, this last quality possessed by Valentine may ultimately be the very reason he will never take the Cleveland job. A man as vivacious and charismatic as Valentine needs a big stage, and Cleveland is a secondary market team with a small payroll and little appeal for someone who seems to be predisposed to be a star.

Columnists have alluded to Valentine taking over the Nationals next year or even returning to the Mets. New York and Washington DC both seem more likely destinations for the effervescent Valentine.

And yet, Cleveland offers the enigmatic appeal of the type of challenge on which Valentine feeds, the opportunity to manage a team that is seemingly lost and downtrodden but has potential and eagerly awaits its savior.

Will Mr. Valentine perhaps accept this challenge despite its humble origins?

We can only hope and wait until next year, which in Cleveland is what we do best.