What the Cleveland Indians Can Learn from the Cleveland Cavaliers

Cleveland sports fans have been mystified this year because the Indians, Browns and Cavaliers have all enjoyed successful seasons in the same year. That has never happened before.

While the Browns are taking baby steps toward respectability, the Cavs and Indians made big waves in 2007. Now the challenge is for those two teams to come up with an encore.

So far, the Eastern Conference champion Cavaliers are off to a 9-10 start. These problems go back to the off-season, and the Indians would be wise to avoid the Cavs' mistakes.

After losing to the Spurs in the NBA Finals, the Cavs did virtually nothing over the summer. General Manager Danny Ferry decided to bring back the same cast of characters, save for a few guys on the bench.

While that move showed confidence in the Cavs' core players, it didn't take into account the fact that other teams might get better. Most notably, the Boston Celtics (14-3) put Kevin Garnett together with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce.

Orlando is off to a 16-4 with the duo of Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis. Detroit (12-5) is not far removed from its recent dominance.

Those three teams zoomed past the Cavaliers, and it will be difficult to catch up. The contract holdouts of Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson Varajao, coupled with the lack of new talent, led everyone to doubt the Cavs ability to repeat even before the season started.

That's why the Indians need to do something dramatic at the winter meetings. I'm not saying they have to trade C.C. Sabathia (to avoid losing him to free agency a la Manny Ramirez and Jim Thome). They do need to shore up the outfield and bolster the bullpen.

The Tribe needs to be active because baseball players are not as consistent from year to year as basketball players. Just because Joe Borowski saved 45 games in 2007 doesn't meet he won't get lit up like downtown Tokyo in 2008.

The stakes got even higher when the Detroit Tigers opened the winter meetings by ripping Miguel Cabera and Dontrelle Willis away from Florida in exchange for a package of prospects. Just like that, the Tigers could get back into the World Series chase.

I won't even complain if the Indians make the wrong trades, just as long as they do something. There is no LeBron James on this team, so every player's contribution will have to count.