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Indians and Cubs Should Be Embarrassed for Attempting Teardowns Three Years After World Series

By Sean Facey

Corey Kluber's traded to the Texas Rangers marks a shameful end of the Cleveland Indians' peak.
Corey Kluber's traded to the Texas Rangers marks a shameful end of the Cleveland Indians' peak. / Mark Brown/Getty Images

Three years ago, the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs clashed in a World Series for the ages. The Cubs ended their curse and walked away as champions while the Indians were left dazed, having blown a three-games-to-one series lead. Both, however, seemed to have bright futures, with plenty of talent to take them back to the Fall Classic.

But reality has since told a different story. The two teams have struggled to match their success from 2016 over the past few years, despite multiple playoff appearances, and now, instead of heading back up the mountain, they're trying to ship out the key pieces that won them their respective pennants.

It's a shocking display of ineptitude that both teams should be absolutely ashamed of.

They had all of the pieces to stay competitive for years. The Cubs, for example, had three of the best pitchers in the league in Kyle Hendricks, Jon Lester, and Jake Arrieta, and that's not even mentioning their star-studded infield of Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo.

But after failing to make the playoffs last year and Arrieta's free agency departure, the Cubs would rather trade Bryant than continue to try and compete with him.

The Indians underwent the exact same process. They made the world series with a star-studded pitching staff featuring Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer and Andrew Miller.

None of them are with the team anymore. Bauer was traded in the middle of the 2019 season, and Kluber was traded for pennies on the dollar. They're even thinking about moving on from Francisco Lindor, a fan favorite who is arguably the best all-around shortstop in all of baseball.

It's sad to see how far the two teams have fallen in such a short time and how little they care about trying to hold it all together, even after piling up solid seasons between '16 and '19. None matched the initial burst, though, and therefore both have decided to cut bait. It's maddening.

The Indians and Cubs were supposed to be the Goliaths of baseball for the foreseeable future following their World Series showdown. Instead, they've fizzled into middling squads who would rather flip their stars for prospects than continue to compete.

And that's on ownership.