Are the Cleveland Indians the most overhyped team in baseball? I ask as someone who’s done his fair share of the hyping. Before the season I rated Cleveland with Boston, New York, and Detroit as the class of the American League, and just two weeks ago I proposed it was unlikely that they would trade ace C.C. Sabathia because, although they had a losing record, they also had a lot of talent and had outscored their opponents, a situation which set them up for a strong run in the second half. They then proceeded to lose 12 of 14, fall into last place, and trade Sabathia to Milwaukee in a deal made official yesterday.

This may just reflect badly on me, but then I’m hardly alone in my respect for Cleveland. Pirates president Frank Coonelly, no dunce, called Cleveland the “the model franchise” last fall when announcing that he’d hired Neal Huntington, a veteran of the Indians’ front office, to run his own club. USSMariner.com, the sharpest baseball Web log around, referred to Cleveland as “the best run organization in baseball” while stumping for their beloved Mariners to hire Indians assistant general manager Chris Antonetti as general manager. Very few teams are held in this kind of broad regard, and rightly so. The Indians’ use of technology, keen eye for talent, and prudent payroll management really do serve as models for other teams in small and medium-size cities.

At some point, though, results count. Over the last five years, the Indians have had an impressive crew of cheap young talent headlined by Sabathia, center fielder Grady Sizemore, catcher Victor Martinez, and designated hitter Travis Hafner, all of whom have rated among the best players at their position in the sport. During that time, the Indians have won their division once, finished second once, and lost more than they’ve won twice (not including this year). Cleveland has put together dominant talent, but it hasn’t built a dominant team, or even a consistently good one. At some point, even granting that they’re in a tough division and have had some plain old bad luck, the franchise’s reputation should start to reflect that.

All of this comes to mind because of the Sabathia trade. Having fallen out of the race largely because of injuries and/or unforeseeably horrible play from key players including Martinez, Hafner, and starter Fausto Carmona, the team moved quickly to trade its most valuable asset for prospects from Milwaukee’s deep farm system. The best, 23-year-old left fielder Matt LaPorta, was perhaps the top college hitter in last year’s draft, in which he went seventh overall. He’s hitting .291 BA/.404 OBA/.584 SLG at Class AA this year, should be ready for 2009, and is probably fair as the main return on half a season’s worth of starts from a defending Cy Young award winner.

This is exactly the sort of thing that wins Cleveland praise: They properly judged their situation, made the right decision, keyed in the return they wanted, and moved quickly to seize it. From Seattle to Cincinnati to New York, there are plenty of teams without the wherewithal to do any of these things, let alone all of them. As is the case more generally with this organization, though, to fixate on the admirable process is to miss the less admirable results, which are, in the end, what count.

After all, while this may have been an aggressive and sophisticated move, it was also a puzzling one. For one thing, the rush to make a deal is slightly odd, given that the Indians didn’t exactly rack up a set of building blocks. Zach Jackson, a 25-year-old left-hander, didn’t rate among the top 30 prospects in Milwaukee’s system coming into the season, according to the Baseball America 2008 Prospect Handbook, and he was a 7.83 ERA this year. Rob Bryson is a 20-year-old reliever in Class A ball and thus a lottery ticket. Final judgment will have to await the identity of a player to be named later, but if it’s 21-year-old infielder Taylor Green, as Yahoo!’s Jeff Passan reports, the deal will look a bit more puzzling. Green, another Class A player, profiles as an average major league hitter who may be able to handle second base, which isn’t nothing, but shouldn’t have anyone dancing on the banks of the Cuyahoga, either. Even LaPorta has his issues, as he isn’t much of a defender and will have to develop into a true middle-of-the-order threat to become a star. What’s more, he was completely and thoroughly blocked with the Brewers, who have Prince Fielder at first base and Ryan Braun in left field.

The days when a team could acquire prospects the quality of Sizemore, Brandon Phillips, and Cliff Lee for a rental, as Cleveland did when they traded Bartolo Colon to the Expos six years ago, are over. And if LaPorta turns into the second coming of the Hebrew Hammer while Bryson does a passable K-Rod impression and Green develops into the new Jeff Kent, I’ll certainly tip my hat to the Indians for a job well done. For right now, though, you have to wonder whether the model franchise might have made a mistake in not stirring up a real bidding war over the more than three weeks remaining until the trade deadline.

As baseball is a zero-sum game, every mistake is someone else’s coup, and the real story here is about how well-run the Milwaukee Brewers are. They won’t miss anyone they traded — as noted, even LaPorta was blocked by one 24-year-old who set the rookie record for slugging average last year and another who hit 50 home runs — and they picked up an absolute monster. Sabathia, who will take the hill for his new team tonight, has failed to pitch seven innings once in the last two months, and, since giving up 18 runs during two starts in April, he’s pitched 104.1 innings with a 2.16 ERA.

He’ll see a dip in his performance; that kind of ERA is hard to keep up, and as a ground ball pitcher, he’ll suffer the effects of Milwaukee’s occasionally brutal infield defense while not enjoying the full benefits of its much better outfield. Still, with Ben Sheets he forms a devastating 1-2 punch, easily the best in the game, and the Brewers now have to be considered strong favorites for the wild card and a real threat to win the World Series. Cleveland, whatever their problems, truly is a model for teams such as Kansas City to follow. Increasingly, though — and never more than now — so is Milwaukee.

tmarchman@nysun.com