Fans stuck in the middle when it comes to the spending of Browns and Guardians

So here is the difference between the Guardians and the Browns, relatively speaking: When it comes to player procurement and roster construction, the Guardians hardly spend any money at all, but they almost always have a respectable, if not a contending, team. The Browns, on the other hand, spend money like your drunken uncle, and almost always have a terrible team. In the land of Cause and Effect, that is not the way it is supposed to work, but it's the way it invariably works when it comes to Cleveland's two most diametrically opposed sports franchises. One spends money. One doesn't. The team that has the money to be really good is, instead, really bad, while the team that doesn't have the money (or has it, but refuses to spend it), is really good. Really good, that is, from the standpoint of knowing how to build a team. Meanwhile, the fan base for both teams are stuck in the middle. If only Donovan Mitchell could play quarterback! As it is, one team is really good at being bad, while the other team is really bad at trying to be good. This is not the way it should work. The Cleveland team that is really good at roster building — let's call them the Guardians — too often refuses to leverage that advantage into an even more competitive advantage. Meanwhile, the Cleveland team that has the money to do it — let's call them the Browns — hasn't a clue on how to do it. In case you missed it, ESPN baseball writer David Schoenfield handed out his offseason grades for all 30 major league teams. Let's just say it was not the Guardians' finest hour. Schoenfield slotted the Guards in at No. 27, ahead of only the A's, Angels and Twins. Grade-wise, Schoenfield gave the Twins an F, the Angels a D, the A's a D, and the Guardians a D-plus which is "So you're saying there IS a chance!" Territory. Well, yes. More or less. What's amazing about the Guardians' legacy is that, whenever these best-to-worst type surveys pop up, the Guards always seem to find a way not to be rock bottom. I suppose there is something to be said for that. Not something particularly loud or proud, but enough, at least, to offer some camouflage for the Guards' meager image. One would think, however, that there is a certain, and deserved amount of bravado due a franchise that is so amazingly consistent, when these sorts of measuring sticks are thrown into the public domain. Granted, an overall grade of D-plus in any sort of meager measuring is not exactly a feather in any franchise's cap. But you take what you get and move along to the next challenge. In that regard, the Guardians stand alone in their durability. Indeed, the organization as a whole seems to be impervious to whatever derisive slings and arrows that might come whistling their way. It's not like the organization hasn't been faced with such taunting through the years. Meanwhile, the Tigers, A's, Angels, and Twins lost a combined 349 games last year. According to my abacus, the Guardians lost 74. If there is a most-annoying trait to the team that calls the corner of Carnegie and Ontario home it is the casualness of what otherwise could have been last season, had the organization been more aggressive, not just on the field, but in its approach to the competition itself. As Schoenfield put it in his offseason treatise on the Guardians' laissez-faire approach: "Cleveland hasn't added a major league hitter, despite hitting .226 and scoring the fewest runs in the American League last year." Indeed, that seems to be the continuing burr in the saddle for most of the complaints about the Guardians' approach, which seems to be this: They have no approach. Adding hitters costs money, and if there is one thing we all know about the Guardians' willingness to spend money it is this: They don't like to spend money. The irony of that, of course, is that the best way to win games is to spend money on players who can help a team win games. Let's face it, during the course of a season, Jose Ramirez can't drive in ALL the runs. The fact that the Guardians not only won the AL Central title last year, but did so with only one consistent run producer (Ramirez) is, by itself, one of the most amazing feats in recent years. Indeed, it seems like almost every offseason for the Guardians is staged to suggest the possibility of adding a run-producing hitter, but, in reality, choosing not to do so. That is a hard way to win a pennant, much less a World Series. Contact Jim Ingraham at jingraham4@gmail.com.