Tribe GM named Executive of the Year
11/08/2005INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- Cleveland Indians general manager Mark Shapiro was designated as the 2005 Major League Baseball Executive of the Year by The Sporting News on Monday during a reception for the GMs at this year's annual meetings.
Shapiro narrowly bested Chicago White Sox general manager Ken Williams, with the Atlanta Braves' John Schuerholz finishing third. Two executives from each big league club voted in mid-September for the award, which was won last year by St. Louis GM Walt Jocketty.
"I was definitely surprised," Shapiro said Tuesday about winning the award. "I'm not very big on individual honors, but it does give a chance to shine the spotlight on the organization, from top to bottom, on what we've accomplished in such a short period of time. The only way you achieve that level of accomplishment is if you get people in scouting and player development to the Major Leagues all aligned.
"That's what's happened with us. We've been able to overcome payroll discrepancy with a group of people that share values and have been driven to get to the point we're at."
The young Indians, replete with the 25th-lowest player payroll in Major League Baseball, had a tremendous second half of the season and made a run at the White Sox in the American League Central. They were eliminated from the Wild Card race on the final day of the regular season.
The White Sox, built by Williams and run on the field by Ozzie Guillen, won 16 of their last 17 games, beginning at the end of the regular season and through the postseason, and swept the Houston Astros out of the World Series, although each of the four games were decided by two runs or less.
The rebuilt Braves won their 14th consecutive division title (discounting the strike-shortened 1994 season), but were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs for the fourth straight postseason.
Shapiro, 38, joined the Indians as an assistant in baseball operations in time for the 1992 season and replaced John Hart as the general manager 10 years later.
The Indians averaged 88 losses during his first three seasons as home attendance at Jacobs Field dwindled.
But Shapiro kept altering the on-field product, adding quality young players such as Grady Sizemore, Travis Hafner and Coco Crisp.
"It gives us some national recognition for a lot of hard work that was largely done in anonymity," Shapiro said. "I'd prefer to rename it from Executive of the Year to Organization of the Year because that's more fitting. No one individual accomplishes that much without a lot of strong people behind him."
This season, the Tribe was 15 games behind the White Sox as late as Aug. 1, and after playing 35-12 ball during the next seven weeks, pulled to within 1 1/2 games Sept. 22. But the Indians lost five of their last six games -- all at home -- to Tampa Bay and Chicago.
Source: http://cleveland.indians.mlb.com/
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