An Open Letter to Paul Dolan

Dear Mr. Dolan,

Thank you for your letter to Indians fans. Many of us understand that you tried to negotiate in good faith with CC Sabathia and made him the best offer you believed that the team could afford and still remain competitive.

CC himself came out on his website and told us that he was not going to negotiate during the season and that your best offer was just not good enough.

Many of us also appreciate that you did not trade CC Sabathia during the offseason coming off of the Indians' successful run in 2007. We appreciate your willingness to make this season a run at the title with CC and potentially lose him with only draft picks as compensation.

We are heartbroken that this season has turned out this way. Based on last year's performance, we thought we had a shot at winning it all. We are disappointed in the injuries and the regression that many players appear to have made from last year. We wanted this team to win very badly, since most of us were not even alive the last time the Indians won a World Series, and many of us have not experienced a championship team in Cleveland of any kind during our lifetimes.

You did what you had to do for the future. We hope that CC reconsiders during the offseason and signs a longterm deal with the Indians, but we know that the chances of that happening are remote, as teams with more money or better proximity to CC's California home will all be much more likely to overpay for CC's services.

We know that among many Indians fans that you have a reputation for being cheap; however, running a small market team like the Indians requires a lot of hard decisions - frankly, it's easy for these fans to have these opinions because, in the end, it's not their money. It could not have been easy saying goodbye to Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Bartolo Colon and CC Sabathia. Stay the course. Please let your general manager continue to build a team that can be a consistent winner with a shot at postseason.

We understand that CC is probably the first of many Indians to be traded before the deadline this year. We hope that the new infusion of prospects makes the rest of this year easier to follow and that with Mark Shapiro's help, the players we receive will give this team new hope to contend in 2009.

If we don't contend in 2009, however, all bets are off.

Sincerely,

woodsmeister