Well, I think I have internet access now.

Anyway, my comments the other day about Grady Sizemore solicited an interesting debate about John Hart vs. Mark Shapiro from one loyal reader. This is a topic on which Indians fans are clearly divided.

I think most fans, in their minds, equate Hart with winning and Shapiro with losing (or treading water), since the team won six division championships while under Hart, but started posting losing records as soon as Shapiro took over. The problem is that fans won't give Shapiro any credit until his plan comes to complete fruition, which, of course, is only fair. If Shapiro's Indians never amount to anything, I'll admit I was wrong - but trust me when I tell you that he's done nearly everything right so far, given his circumstances.

The losing which has occurred so far during Shapiro's tenure, by the way, is not Shapiro's fault. In many ways it was inevitable, given the front office's strategy from 1999 to 2001. But if you need to blame somebody, blame John Hart.

Hart clearly had the right idea during the period of 1991-1994, when he was building the eventual division champs, even though no one knew it at the time. I give him a lot of credit for that period of construction, during which he clearly did the best job of any GM in baseball. By the end of his tenure in Cleveland, however, he was promoting a completely different strategy - one which considerably shortened the team's window of opportunity, and ended up needlessly costing the organization a lot of money.

So, I'd like to compare the two men in a "tale of the tape" type dealie, considering the three major facets of a GM's job: drafting players, trading players, and organizational philosophy/strategy.

Drafts

John Hart did a good job of gathering young players in the early 90's, but most of them were not his own draft choices. The draft was never his specialty. For starters, Albert Belle and Charlie Nagy were not his picks; they were his predecessor's. Essentially, over a 13 year period, John Hart hit upon 6 good players in the draft (in order: Thome, Brian Giles, Manny, Sexson, Sean Casey and C.C.). After that, he hit upon a couple of borderline guys (in order: Ogea, Shuey, Jaret Wright, Danny Graves and Jason Davis). In addition, he signed two good players as amateur free agents out of Latin America (Bartolo and Victor Martinez) - three if you want to count Danys Baez - four if you want to count Einar. Even counting all the guys I just mentioned, that's 15 players in 13 years. Not a good track record.

The drafts from 1999 to 2001, in particular, are infamously horrible. It's almost as if Hart stopped preparing for the draft sometime around 1996, figuring that his chances at a championship were already tied up in the major league club, and that he'd be long gone before the "next wave" was supposed to come up. From 1996 on, he drafted C.C. Sabathia and a bunch of crap. From 1999 on, all he drafted was a bunch of crap.

As for his draft history with the Rangers, unfortunately I don't know nearly enough about the Rangers' farm system to evaluate the prospects he's drafted. It's worth noting that of the so-called "brilliant young Rangers talent" of Hank Blalock, Mark Teixeira, and Michael Young, none were drafted or acquired by Hart.

Luckily, I do know enough about the Indians' farm system to evaluate a few of the prospects drafted by Mark Shapiro. And while it's way too soon to say much about the 2004 draft class, the 2002 and 2003 draft classes are looking pretty good (especially Adam Miller, Michael Aubrey, Ryan Garko, Jeremy Guthrie, Brandon Pinckney, and others). Time will tell which of these guys make it to the majors, but only a few need to pan out for us to consider the 2002-2003 drafts successful.

Trades

John Hart's trades mostly fall into two categories: the ones that built the Indians in the early 90's (these trades were mostly good), and the ones in the late 90's, in which the Indians traded their so-called "excess" young talent for expensive veterans were weren't as good (these trades were mostly bad). Take a look:

• 1989 - Joe Carter for Sandy Alomar, Carlos Baerga and Chris James
• 1991 - Willie Blair and Eddie Taubensee for Kenny Lofton and Dave Rhode
• 1993 - Felix Fermin and Reggie Jefferson for Omar Vizquel

In these three trades, Hart basically turned the overrated, overpaid Joe Carter (and various non-essential pieces and parts) into Kenny, Omar, Sandy and Carlos Baerga, all of them still prospects at that point. Well done, John.

Next he went through what I call the "middling" phase. The highlights:

• 1996 - Carlos Baerga and Alvaro Espinoza for Jeff Kent and Jose Vizcaino
• 1996 - Jeff Kent, Jose Vizcaino and Julian Tavarez for Matt Williams
• 1997 - Kenny Lofton and Alan Embree for Marquis Grissom and David Justice
• 1997 - Matt Williams for Travis Fryman and Tom Martin

Hart basically turned Baerga into Fryman, and Lofton into Justice. He was mostly keeping house with these types of moves, juggling contracts and filling holes. Nonetheless, he gave up Jeff Kent, and we all know what happened to him.

Next, as I see it, Hart began his shift in strategy. He decided he no longer had time to wait for players to develop - he had to win now - so he began shipping off all the young talent in the farm system and on the Indians' bench for expensive veterans who, in the end, didn't really help the club very much.

• 1997 - Danny Graves, Jim Crowell, Damian Jackson and Scott Winchester for John Smiley and Jeff Branson
• 1998 - Brian Giles for Ricardo Rincon
• 1998 - Sean Casey for Dave Burba
• 2000 - Richie Sexson, Kane Davis, Marco Scutaro and Paul Rigdonfor Bob Wickman, Steve Woodard and Jason Bere

Looking back, would you rather have seen the 1999-2001 Indians with Giles, Sexson, Casey and Graves, or with Burba, Rincon, Woodard and Wickman? Considering that the first group was (a) a lot better during those three years and (b) paid less, I would have chosen to hold on to those guys. The problem was that the team perceived a kind of "excess" wherein they figured that having Richie Sexson was pointless if you had Jim Thome, or that having Brian Giles was pointless if you had Manny Ramirez/Juan Gonzalez. Hart never recognized that only by breeding Sexsons and Gileses to replace the Thomes and Ramirezes when they became expensive could the team have stayed competitive beyond the inevitable departure of the Thomes and Ramirezes. No army of Bob Wickmans will ever change that.

Since 2000, John Hart's trades have mostly been a mixed bag. He certainly hasn't shown evidence of having much of a "master plan". Getting a few prospects (Westbrook and Zach Day) for David Justice was wise. Getting Milton Bradley for Zach Day seems like a good trade in retrospect, though Day is getting better as we speak.

As the Rangers' GM, he's made some questionable moves. Trading Travis Hafner to us for Einar Diaz ended up being a disaster for Texas. All in all, the Texas Rangers don't owe their 2004 success (which may be a fluke, mind you - they're still the same team we all thought would finish last, and they still lack pitching, and it's still only July) to John Hart. He wasn't the one who brought in Blalock, Teixeira, and Young. In fact, he hasn't seemed to have done much of anything since taking over in Texas, short of swapping A-Rod for Soriano, which was probably dictated by the team owner.

Now, as for Mark Shapiro's trade history, I have very few complaints. Shapiro took over the Indians job knowing full well that he was going to have to turn the team's veterans into prospects in order to make up for the terrible drafts of the previous few years. Here's what he got to replenish the farm system:

• 2001 - Jacob Cruz for Jody Gerut and Josh Bard
• 2001 - Robbie Alomar, Danny Peoples and Mike Bascik for Matt Lawton, Alex Escobar, Billy Traber, Jerrod Riggan and Earl Snyder
• 2002 - Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew for Lee Stevens, Brandon Philips, Cliff Lee and Grady Sizemore
• 2002 - Chuck Finley for Coco Crisp and Luis Garcia
• 2002 - Paul Shuey for Ricardo Rodriguez, Francisco Cruceta and Terry Mulholland
• 2002 - Einar Diaz for Travis Hafner
• 2004 - Milton Bradley for Franklin Gutierrez and Andrew Brown

You could really only argue that one of these trades didn't work out beautifully, and that's the Alomar trade. And while the argument "Well, it's OK, because Alomar went on to be horrible in New York anyway" doesn't exactly exonerate the trade, it's worth noting that Shapiro definitely had the right idea with that trade. Turning Alomar into prospects was a controversial decision, but it was the right decision. Having kept Alomar (and, assumedly, also held onto the other veterans in an attempt to contend in 2002 and beyond), the Indians would have continued to operate a barren farm system, while the major league roster would just have gotten more and more expensive (meanwhile, the division title would have gotten harder and harder to win as the players got older and the rest of the division started pulling itself together). Not to mention the fact that Alomar's eventual trade value would only have gone down, like those of the other veterans. The fact that Alex Escobar (a classic "tools" guy, ugh) didn't pan out is indeed a knock against Shapiro in our little "tale of the tape", but it was the right strategy, and since the other "replenish the minors" trades worked out so well, it matters little. What's ironic about the Alomar trade is that, in the end, Matt Lawton was probably the most valuable player we got. Who would have thought?

The recent "Ryan Church and Maicer Izturis for Scott Stewart" fiasco has been the lone blow-up among Shapiro's trades. It was a decent idea - we had way too many outfielders in our system, and Ryan Church was very, very far down on our list - but the Indians ended up getting nothing in return for him, which is unacceptable. The whole episode, however, is not very important in the scheme of things. Church may be tearing it up now, but when we had him, he was just okay. Maicer Izturis, too, is nothing special. If nothing else, Shapiro gains back the stupidity of the Scott Stewart deal with the sheer brilliance of the 2001 Jacob Cruz deal, in which he totally hosed Dan O'Dowd six ways to Sunday.

To recap: Shapiro basically gave up Robbie, Bartolo, Finley, Shuey, Einar and Milton, while picking up Jody, Josh Bard, Matt Lawton, Traber, Sizemore, Cliff Lee, Brandon Philips, Coco, Hafner, Francisco Cruceta, Franklin Gutierrez, and Andrew Brown. The last three guys I mentioned are, at the moment, among the best prospects in baseball. All of the others have reached the majors for at least a game (most recently Grady); excusing Lawton, all of them look to have great futures and are cheap.

Shapiro's trade history reminds me a lot of John Hart's 1988-1994 period. The difference between the two GM's at this point in time, as far as I'm concerned, is that Shapiro doesn't have a period like John Hart's 1999-2001 marring his record, and that gives him the edge in my book.

Organizational philosophy/strategy

John Hart's original strategy for building the team was brilliant; today it is legendary, as evidenced by the fact that at least half the other GM's have tried to copy it in the last ten years. Here is an excellent (if a bit technical) article detailing the principles of Hart's Big Plan, from a blog called Management by Baseball. What's clear is that John Hart was able to gain a competitive advantage by doing something no one else had thought of yet. Once the plan started to show its rewards, however, that advantage was lost because the other teams were already trying to do it themselves.

Ultimately, I don't know if I consider John Hart a genius GM who "figured out" the right strategy for the Indians in the late 80's, or just a decent GM who "happened upon" the afforementioned "right strategy". Because, when the Indians' competitive advanatge started to expire sometime around 1997, John Hart didn't have a new "right strategy"; he just started acting like a typical, short-sighted GM: letting the team get expensive and old, without regard for any sort of self-sufficiecy (ie: the draft). The moves he made between 1997 and 2001 weren't Cam Bonifay awful, of course, but they sure weren't John Hart brilliant.

Mark Shapiro has done most things right since taking over, but he certainly didn't come up with a strategy of his own like John Hart did. If anything, he's trying to recreate John Hart's original strategy, using some quasi-sabermetric tools like "Diamond View" to give him his would-be competitive advantage (instead of simply having the best scouts, which is more or less how John Hart did it). I think the edge in this category might have to go to Hart, because what he accomplished in the early 90's was a lot harder and a lot more unexpected.

So, I think I've summarized all the important points about the two regimes. You can decide for yourself who's done the better job (or, perhaps even better: who you'd rather have as your GM right now). It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Mark Shapiro. Most of the people over at Baseball Prospectus think he's doing as good a job as anybody in baseball right now. John Hart may simply have "gone out of date". His way of doing things was perfect for the early 90's but he's struggled to adapt.

Sorry this post wasn't funny. I promise to be more amusing next time.