Jim Ingraham: For the Indians, change just comes with the territory

So apparently when Trevor Bauer proudly declared the last couple of years that when he became a free agent he would only sign one-year contracts he meant, "unless the Dodgers offer me three years and $102 million." Yes, money talks. Still. Louder, even, than Soapbox Trevor Bauer, who, in exchange for plying his trade, will accept from the Dodgers $102 million over the next three years, including $40 million this year, which will make him not only the highest paid player in baseball history, but, according the Spotrac, be more than the projected payrolls of three major league teams, including your Cleveland Indians. Speaking of Bauer, remember the glorious night of Sept. 14, 2017, when he still called Cleveland home? That was the night Jay Bruce's RBI double down the right-field line in the bottom of the 10th inning gave one of the three greatest Indians teams ever a 3-2 victory over the Kansas City Royals. It extended the Indians' winning streak to an American League-record 22 games, which was over three times longer than the their nine-game winning streak earlier in that magical season. It was a year in which, from July 21 through the end of the season Cleveland had a winning percentage of .783 (54-15). From Aug. 24 through the end of the season the Indians went 33-4 (.892). Because they lost three straight after taking a 2-0 lead over the Yankees in the best-of-five Division Series, we forget how great that Indians team was. Of the 120 teams in Indians history (since 1901), the 2017 team won more games than 119 of them. The 2017 Indians included two 18-game winners. One (Corey Kluber) won the Cy Young Award. The other (Carlos Carrasco) finished fourth in the voting. The 2017 Indians included three players who finished third, fifth and seventh in the MVP voting (Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor and Kluber). Anchored by arguably the best pitching staff in Indians history, and one of the great ones in major league history, the Indians went 102-60. The only Indians team to win more games was the 1954 pennant winners (111-43). The 2017 team was better than the 2016 team that made it to the seventh game of the World Series. The 2016 team had a run differential of +101. The 2017 team had a run differential of +254. The point is that the Indians were really good in 2016 and spectacularly good in 2017. The arc of excellence should have continued, but then a not-so-funny thing happened. The team disappeared. The 2017 Indians happened only three baseball seasons ago. There were 19 pitchers that appeared in games that year. None of them are still on the roster: Kluber, Carrasco, Bauer, Josh Tomlin, Mike Clevinger, Danny Salazar, Cody Allen, Bryan Shaw, Andrew Miller, Dan Otero, Nick Goody, Zach McAllister, Shawn Armstrong, Boone Logan, Ryan Merritt, Tyler Olson, Joe Smith, Craig Breslow and Kyle Crockett. Allen and Shaw, gone for a couple years, recently signed minor league contracts with the Indians, but are not on the major league roster. Going back to the 2017 Indians' 22nd win in a row, only one player from the starting lineup that night — Ramirez — is still on the team. The other eight are gone: Lindor, Lonnie Chisenhall, Carlos Santana, Edwin Encarnacion, Bruce, Yandy Diaz, Abraham Almonte and Yan Gomes. Of the other position players that year, only two, Roberto Perez and Bradley Zimmer, remain. The others are gone: Michael Brantley, Jason Kipnis, Greg Allen, Austin Jackson, Brandon Guyer, Tyler Naquin, Francisco Mejia, Giovanny Urshela, Daniel Robertson, Erik Gonzalez and Michael Martinez. The bottom line: On the 102-win 2017 Indians, a total of 41 players appeared in games. Only three remain: Ramirez, Perez and Zimmer. We're only talking three baseball seasons ago. Obviously, the Indians don't miss most of those guys, but they do miss a handful of them. That handful would have been enough for a run at the World Series in each of the last three years. It's not like the Indians have fallen off the baseball earth since 2017. They've reached the playoffs in two of the three years. That's a credit to the team's roster builders and player development system. It also underlines the fact that the Indians' roster builders and player development system HAS to be better than most teams. Because to be among the best every year the Indians have to compete with teams that aren't forced to unload star players in the primes of their careers because they can no longer afford them. In the big picture, that's not an Indians problem, that's a baseball problem. There are more teams that can't than can keep their home-grown star players. For other teams, the Indians groomed and developed Lindor into a likely $300 million player and Bauer into a $102 million player. It's like Max Bialystock's great line in The Producers: "Where did we go right?" Contact Jim Ingraham at jingraham4@gmail.com and follow him @Jim_Ingraham on Twitter.