CLEVELAND (92.3 The Fan) - “The problem we’re trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then there’s fifty feet of crap. And then there’s us.” – Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) in ‘MONEYBALL’

“Us” would be the Cleveland Indians.

Larry Dolan needs to hang a for sale sign outside his office at 2401 Ontario Street.

It’s nothing personal but he’s got to sell because he simply can’t compete financially.

Not yesterday, today or tomorrow.

The Detroit Tigers dropped a bombshell Tuesday by agreeing to a 9-year $214 million contract with Prince Fielder.

The best the Indians – who one could argue were a Prince Fielder away from owning the division themselves – could do this offseason was to offer minor league contracts with spring training invitations to the refuse of baseball.

That’s the story every year in Cleveland.

That is when they aren’t trading prized prospects, All Stars or Cy Young Award winners.

What happened to that blockbuster trade general manager Chris Antonetti teased us all with during the winter meetings?

As long as Dolan or his immediate family owns the team, the Cleveland Indians will have no chance at a World Series Championship.

Period.

Since the Dolan family bought the Indians in 2000, the team has made two playoff appearances (2001, 2007).

To be fair, Dolan was crippled and destined to fail from day one.

His childhood love for the Indians led him to overpay Dick Jacobs for the franchise to the tune of $323 million in change.

At the time the sale closed, his youthful exuberance led him to promise multiple world championships to a fan base that hadn’t seen one since 1948.

It was a standard that he set publicly but hasn’t come close to meeting.

Under the first few years of his ownership, Dolan ran the team like a fan.

Need $10 million for Juan Gonzalez in 2001? Not a problem.

The top 5 highest payrolls in franchise history have come under Dolan’s ownership – not Jacobs’ – but it hasn’t been enough.

In 2002, Dolan along with then general manager (now team president) Mark Shapiro made the difficult decision to blow up the team and trade away overpaid older players for top tier prospects.

The plan was not well received by fans who had become spoiled by October baseball for 6 of the previous 7 years, including two trips to the World Series.

They abandoned ship and have not come back to the ballpark since.

But Shapiro’s plan worked – sort of.

In 2005 the team was poised to return to the playoffs before they lost 6 of their last 7 games to miss the cut.

In 2007, they won the AL Central for the first time since 2001 and held a 3 games to 1 lead on the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS. We all know how that story ended.

They’ve not sniffed October baseball since.

That’s it.

One playoff team and almost a second one in 10 years since Shapiro implemented his master plan and handed it down to Antonetti.

Dolan has also been very unlucky when he has broken the bank.

On July 11, 2007 the Indians signed Travis Hafner to a four-year, $57.5 million contract with a club option for 2013 that will most assured not be picked up. In 2008 a degenerative shoulder put him on the shelf and he’s never been the same since.

Jake Westbrook missed 18 months after undergoing Tommy John surgery just five starts into a three-year $33 million contract extension that he had signed a year earlier. Westbrook had averaged 30 starts a season for the previous four years.

On Dec 13, 2008 the Indians signed Kerry Wood to a two-year, $20.5 million contract to be their closer. They got one full season and a combined 28 saves in 81 appearances before pawning him off on the Yankees in 2010.

That’s $111 million for three players and the Indians have virtually nothing to show for it so it’s understandable why they are gun shy about long term contracts.

There will be misses but Dolan just doesn’t have the stomach or financial resources to withstand them.

Fair or not – the margin for error for the Indians is as thin as a sheet of paper. They’ve tried to ‘out smart’ everyone for a decade and that hasn’t worked.

You need a franchise player for a fan base to rally around but the Dolan’s are unable and unwilling to keep its own stars let alone bring in one for big money.

The fans know it.

That’s why they’ve stopped coming to the ballpark – even when the team is winning – opting instead for watching from the comfort of their living room.

Their existing “window” to compete with the core team they have now expires in 2013. Then they may have to blow it up and start over – yet again.

After trading away Cy Young award winners C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee in back to back years, Shapiro had the gal to admit that their only chance to compete for a World Series was to hope to reach the playoffs every 3-4 years and then see what happens.

Seriously?

Dolan and Shapiro’s master plan to winning a World Series has come down to hoping to get lucky?

In the unluckiest city in all of professional sports?

Sadly, they are dead serious because it’s the reality that they live in.

Cleveland fans deserve more from their teams and ownership than relying on luck to win it all.

Dolan and team management have tried to be creative to generate fresh revenue streams for the club. See Sports Time Ohio or “Snow Days” (which bombed two years in a row).

The Indians were 1 or 2 players away this offseason but ownership forced management to sit on their hands and do nothing other than re-sign their own players, who were up for arbitration, which raised payroll nearly $18 million.

Just keeping the existing team that finished 15-games out of first place last season in tact was a stretch and strain for ownership to endure.

That is why Dolan needs to sell.

He has yet to live up to his promise and commitment of spending when the time was right to contend because he can’t.

That time was this offseason.

So now the Indians and their bitter fans should just cross their fingers, light a candle, grab a rabbits foot or wish upon a star that they might compete in 2012 or beyond.

Because ownership is too broke to compete on or off of the field year in and year out.

He bought the Indians with the best of intentions but it’s time for Dolan to sell to someone who can actually afford to run the team.

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