Via Hardball Talk, the Indians find their attendance dwindling and their financial health with it.

The business department is working on a budget pegged to attendance of 1.5 million, a figure that now looks like a longshot, especially in light of the fact that the club has sold only about 9,000 season tickets, down from a high of 26,000 at the turn of the century.

Last year, the franchise suffered a loss, possibly for the first time since Larry Dolan bought the team in 2000. Dolan and his son, Paul, were determined to minimize this year’s losses, so the payroll was trimmed to $61 million — $20 million less than in 2009 — but apparently the bottom line will still leak red.

”Even with revenue sharing, we won’t break even,” Lehman said.

Cleveland fans showed in the 1990s that they will come out in droves for a winner, and the team managed two World Series appearances. Under the Dolans and Mark Shapiro, the record is poor. They tore down and rebuilt, only to find the new team’s foundation was more sand than the rocks of the 1990s team. I like the Cleveland front office, they’re a smart, sabermetric team. They treat their players well from the minors up. They’ve had some bad luck with some players going south on them quickly (Hafner, Peralta, maybe Sizemore, the bullpen after 2007). If I can fault them, it’s that they stay with their mistakes too long, like Billy Beane in Oakland with Eric Chavez. Hafner and Peralta aren’t what the Indians thought they would be. Why not eat their salaries and start over? Trade them and pay the salary. Let this type of player go instead of hoping for one more year that they’ll turn it around.

It’s too bad. I like the Indians. I like the way they pioneered signing good players young to avoid arbitration and capture all of the peak seasons. I like the way they embrace baseball research. I loved how easy it was to work in their stadium when I was there with ESPN for the All-Star game and the World Series. I just hope they’re not about to go into another 30 year tail spin.