Tribe Attendance - The Manager Doesn't Make the Difference

It seems like a fair time to compare the last two Cleveland Indians managers:  Eric Wedge and Manny Acta.  The team's performance has been polar opposites, except they end up in the same place.

With Wedge, the team started slowly every year.  It was a constant complaint, and was used often as a reason the team's attendance was down.  The team was pretty much out of contention every year by May because of the slow starts. 

Even in 2007. the team started slow and then really put it together, compiling the best record in baseball over the last two months of the year to take the division, only to fall one game short of the World Series.

Acta's teams have been the exact opposite, starting fast, and fading quickly when the weather got warm.  We will see if they can recover this year, but the same things that led to last year's collapse are still evident.  And attendance is the lowest in the majors.

The roster is paper thin.  They have only one star player, Asdrubal Cabrera, and he plays at a position, shortstop, that isn't going to carry a team.  The other talented players, Choo and Santana, are still young and subject to long slumps.  The rest of the team is young and barely talented enough to be in the majors.

They aren't any budding Thomes or Mannys in this group.  The pitching has shown promise, but lacks much depth.  Any injuries at all on this team means that role players like Jason Donald are going to get significant playing time. 

So, Wedge vs. Acta?  Though they are different, the results are pretty much the same.