Cleveland Indians: The danger in expectations

As we all try to cope with what happened last night, the Cleveland Indians left us disappointed. Expectations led us down a dangerous path.

This is something I didn’t want to write. I didn’t want to stew over social media, and stare blankly into space. I didn’t want to make the two-hour drive home after the Cleveland Indians ended their season, wondering how we got here and what the point really is.

I didn’t want to think about offseason moves, judge Terry Francona‘s choices and dread what was to come. I didn’t want to do any of it, yet here we are. Not 24 hours have passed and I can’t stop thinking about the 2017 Indians and what went wrong. I do know one thing: I was never more confident about a baseball team, and I have never been more wrong about a baseball team in my life.

As I took the lonely drive down I-71 at 2 a.m. back to Columbus I felt this feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. One word kept rushing to my head: paradoxical. I was mad, but I wasn’t. It’s not like these guys were impervious to the results of this season and this series. It didn’t shake out the way we all saw it happening and it’s unfortunate for everyone involved.

Deep down, I can’t find myself angry at this group for not performing in a short sample size, although I have to use the word “choke” to describe it. They don’t deserve my anger, and it isn’t fair to be mad at them. They care, they really do, and if you think otherwise I just can’t agree with you.

For passionate Indians fans, baseball is our escape from the daily grind of real life – it’s our release. The players and staff may escape to a more lavish life than we do, but their passion is also mixed with their job, and I really think these guys will lose sleep to this the same way we are. They cared like we did, that’s why we grew so attached to them these last few years.

We felt a connection to the city, and the cause and the greater goal of an entire collective fan base. Everyone involved wanted it badly, and to think otherwise is short-sighted.

I was shocked, but I also wasn’t. After missing out on Game 3 I could see the writing on the wall. Baseball has a way of tilting the momentum in the form of an avalanche that sometimes you just can’t stop. The momentum is imaginary but tangible all at once.

Do I think Jose Ramirez thought about something like Tony Fernandez‘s 1997 Game 7 error and that it had an effect on him in this series? No of course not, that is a silly notion to entertain. Logic tells us that history has no effect on the immediate present, sure.

But what I can tell you is that when a city is as scarred as Cleveland (now winless in any “winner take all” game in the playoffs since the 1997 ALDS) you can feel the collective tightness. The energy shift in that stadium when Didi Gregorius hit his first inning home run was palpable.

The ghosts of a city and franchise may not have an immediate feeling that a new core of players can relate to, but they can feel the collective energy being put off by 38,000 people who have seen this act happen too many times before. I would imagine each member of the Tribe can speak to that now.

After the 2016 World Series ended, I found myself clinging to the word “heartbreaking.” Weird that I find myself clinging to a singular word, yes, but I’m an English major and for much of my life words have provided the depth I search for.

When Game 7 ended, I kept thinking that when such a magical ride that felt so destined for greatness fell apart on that November night, I felt genuinely heartbroken. I have had heartbreak in my life, real heartbreak, and obviously that is much more serious, but the way that series ended in Game 7 left me shook in a way I have never truly healed from.

Yet last night I kept coming back to one word on that trek home and it wasn’t heartbreak, it was disappointment. I am just disappointed that this is the way it ended – it doesn’t feel right. This team is so deeply talented. The way they made their push through late August into the magical September, I felt actual confidence that this group was going to win the World Series. We had the AL’s best record, a record win streak, and the likely Cy Young winner. What more can we ask?

Now, the concept of variance and randomness that cloud baseball’s callous postseason doesn’t miss me. I know there’s a layer of math that helps (or doesn’t help) it all make sense, but I can’t remove the emotion from it. I can’t accept that this occurrence of five games was all random, and we can’t think there isn’t something more at play.

The Indians failed. They failed when they were up comfortably with every advantage they could have hoped for. No other word than disappointment fits for me. They choked away an opportunity that often doesn’t come in this sport.

That brings me to the point of all of this. The point that, in life, expectations are so dangerous. After 1995’s magical run, the city of Cleveland was alive for 1996 and the regular season Indians didn’t disappoint. The concept of “next year is our year” felt true. Then the Orioles beat the Indians in four games in the ALDS and fans were left wondering, “what is next” and “will next year ever come?”

That’s where I am right now. I let the risk in expecting a World Series consume me. After Game 7 and into this year, I gained that dangerous confidence, and I let those expectations engulf my rational thinking. I didn’t believe the Yankees could actually end this thing. I thought Corey Kluber was actually infallible. I fell into it, and I’m now suffering because of it. I think, in a way, we all are.

A majority of Indians fans truly believed this season was ending in a parade. When you win 102 games, including 22 in a row, that’s natural. We had a healthy (at least we thought) pitching staff, and added Jay Bruce and Edwin Encarnacion. On paper, it made sense! But with expectations in life, we are slipping into a dangerous reality that can strike when they go unmet.

That is what we are in the midst of. We are in the midst of some of the harsh realities that come from failure when you commit so much of your time and thought process to a team in baseball. The season nearly consumes your entire calendar year. It is a real relationship, and when it ends poorly, we feel it in every fiber of our body.

Even after as depressing as 1996 was, they found deep postseason success again in 1997. But that 1997 team was flawed, and it came unexpected after a deep roster reformation. 2007’s run wasn’t the best team in that stretch, and they never found that success again. That is the danger we are all dealing with.

We can consider the window open for title opportunities, but you never know that window is shut until it is. You don’t totally see it coming, and it creeps up on you. That is what we are looking at here. We may well see Bryan Shaw, Carlos Santana and Jay Bruce all playing elsewhere in 2018, and the Indians will be worse without them.

This was their best team, their best shot at making this city’s dream a reality, and we all knew that. A miracle run like 1997 may well happen, but we don’t have that certainty. I know the young core of Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, and the entire pitching staff is under contract, I get it. They will most likely take advantage of a poor AL Central and be right back in October baseball, but baseball success isn’t always linear.

It goes up, down, backward and then sometimes, if you’re lucky, forward. We have seen the apex, the Indians didn’t reach it, but the fans have seen it. That is why this loss is so gut-wrenching and disappointing.

Next: Nightmarish end to the 2017 season

When will next year actually come to fruition? We will have to wait another calendar year to have that opportunity. I hope my expectations align properly when the time comes.