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When the Indians stripped down their 1990s powerhouse, the recovery process was supposed to be slow and painful. The team would have to build a new core, one that would hopefully rival talent like Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, and Carlos Baerga.

After Jim Thome’s departure to the Phillies following the 2002 season, only Omar Vizquel remained from the perennial winner that had revitalized baseball in Cleveland. With former GM John Hart and former manager Mike Hargrove gone as well, it figured to take years for the next generation to mature into a contender.

The Indians had other ideas. Led by a nucleus of dynamic young talent, the Tribe has come back as a contender, years ahead of schedule. After taking the first two games of its showdown with division-leading Minnesota last weekend, Cleveland needed just one more win to cap its hot streak and pull into an improbable tie with the Twins.

The Indians dropped that game and two others since then. But at 4.5 games out of first and 5.5 off the wild card lead, they remain in the thick of things. With most key players still years from free agency, we could be witnessing the birth of another great generation of Indians.

The Tribe’s improbable run leaves us with two questions: How have they done it, and can they keep it up.

Simply put, the Indians can hit. They’ve scored just over 5.5 runs per game this season, good for the second-best offense in the majors, just behind the Red Sox and a hair ahead of the Yankees.

The leader of the pack exemplifies the shape of the team’s renaissance. Travis Hafner, the team’s 27-year-old DH, was a terror in the Rangers minor-league system, hitting for prodigious power every step of the way. Skeptics questioned his game, though: Hafner was just a big, slow guy who swung hard. Old for his level throughout the minors, he’d be exposed as a one-dimensional player in the majors, they whispered. Given his problems with wrist injuries, many doubted his ability to maintain his power and stay healthy at the highest level.

Mark Shapiro, the successor to Hart in the Indians’ GM chair, saw an opportunity where others saw risk. With Hafner struggling to crack the Rangers’ loaded lineup, Shapiro sat down with Hart – by then in charge in Texas – to hammer out a deal. The Rangers needed a catcher after Ivan Rodriguez’s departure to Florida, so the Indians sent them Einar Diaz and pitcher Ryan Drese for Hafner and Aaron Myette.

Drese looks likely to outstrip Myette on the pitching end of the deal, but nabbing Hafner for Diaz was grand larceny: After an encouraging 2003, Hafner has exploded this season, hitting .315 AVG/.412 OBA/.587 SLG and ranking in the top 10 in five major offensive categories.

The lineup’s other monster bat belongs to Victor Martinez. The 25-year-old catcher has belted AL pitching to the tune of .297/.370/.528, emerging as the league’s second-best catcher behind Rodriguez. Martinez is a product of the Indians’ farm system, one that has churned out an impressive array of talent, with more on the way.

The farm system is the fruit of years of hard work by the Indians’ bright front office. Shapiro teamed with an impressive array of minds to stock the system at all levels. Though the Indians have been somewhat successful through their own drafting and development, many of the team’s best young players have come via the trade route.

For example, when the Indians realized Bartolo Colon would be too expensive and old by the time they were ready for a pennant run, they snatched prized prospects Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore, and Brandon Phillips from the Expos for him. Other prospects such as former Dodger farmhand Franklin Gutierrez figure to contribute down the road.

The Indians have also done a good job finding players who were largely unwanted by other teams. Second baseman Ron Belliard, third baseman Casey Blake, right fielder Jody Gerut, and first baseman Ben Broussard were all acquired in exchange for little talent, little money, or both.

At first glance, the team’s obvious weakness would seem to be pitching. The Tribe ranks fifth-to-last in the majors with a team ERA of 4.88. A Closer look, however, reveals more strengths than you’d expect. C.C. Sabathia and Jake Westbrook anchor an improved starting rotation, with Cliff Lee offering a third above-average option. None of the three is above 26 years old, leaving the Indians with a foundation for a strong rotation for years to come.

The relief pitching is a different story, though. David Riske, the team’s best bullpen arm last season, has seen his ERA balloon from 2.29 to 4.22. Despite maintaining strong peripheral strikeout and walk numbers, Rafael Betancourt’s hit rate has inflated. Betancourt has also seen his ERA swell to 4.41 from 2.13 in 2004.

The wild swings by Riske and Betancourt show how tough predicting a bullpen’s performance year-to-year can be. Unless you can develop your own Eric Gagne or Mariano Rivera, the most cost-effective way to build a bullpen is to land as many healthy arms with sound strikeout rates and low walk and home runs-allowed rates as possible, then hope for the best given the smaller workloads. Just as the Indians’ best arms have regressed so far this year, so too could they put together a lights-out streak the last six weeks.

Regardless of how 2004 plays out, how Shapiro and his staff build from here will determine this team’s legacy. Having pared payroll and built a young, cheap, talented core, the Indians should look to spend money intelligently, retaining their best players over the long haul and acquiring key pieces to fill in the gaps. Avoiding salary albatrosses and continuing to find the right talent will be crucial as the team attempts to return to last decade’s glory.