In Cash We Trust
by jscape2000 on Dec 24, 2008 2:33 PM EST
in Analysis
33 comments
I know I'm a homer.
I know that it's often popular to bash Cashman. But he has proven, once again, why is ranks among the best GMs in baseball.
He sat this one out. Told the hold world he was sitting this one out, and maybe he meant it, too. If the Red Sox had gone to $190, maybe Cash would have shrugged and moved on with Nick Swisher at first. But he refused to set a number, and he refused to be used to drive up the price on himself or anyone else. It was stealthy, it was shrewd, it was calculating the cost of Teixeira now vs. a less perfect fit later, it was preparing to spend the money the new Stadium will bring in (and keep from being sent out [this link probably deserves its own post in the next day or two, I've been ruminating on it since I read it back in early December, and I think we've gotten a taste of how the Steinbrenners intend to enjoy their tax shelter- and I like it]).
Let's be honest- Teixeira's claims about wanting to be a Yankee all along aside- it's about the money. The Yanks offered $12 million more than the next club, but that still seems (to me) a closer assessment of Tex's actual value than we would have paid had we been actively bidding against the Red Sox all winter the way Boras wanted. And Cashman gets credit from me for not escalating this any more than necessary. Let the Nationals make first offers, let the Angels give deadlines- we're the MF Yankees, and we're playing by the rules of the game.
So we have a retooled lineup, a rejuvenated rotation, and a chance to make a deal without an overwhelming need. Send some cash, get a prospect or two back? Trade value for value and get a bench player who can help in 2009? Stand pat with a rotation of players in the outfield and DH? Whatever Cashman does next, whatever plan he develops, I'm on board.
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Just have fun having no draft picks...
..and only 1 in the top 100.
BOOYA! You got Slurved!
by Slurvey on Dec 24, 2008 3:20 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
On the other hand
it’s better to lose first, second, and third round picks in one year than to lose a first round pick each year for three years.
We have protected picks in the first and second rounds because of players we failed to sign last draft, so we still have those.
"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."
by jscape2000 on Dec 24, 2008 3:34 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
wrong
the yankees didnt lose their picks like jscape said they have protected those picks with players that they have lost, ESPN has said it they have picks in each round still
by I Bleed Pinstripes on Dec 24, 2008 4:53 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Because we are willing to go overslot in every single round
not having high draft picks isnt a big deal. Like it was already stated we still have a first and second round pick for not signing gerritt cole and scott bittle. There is first rou8nd talent scattered throughout the draft every year because of varying degrees of signability. We gave our 50th round pick Nik Turley a 6’6’’ lefty prep pitcher second or third round money and now he is a very promising young pitcher.
Strikeouts are boring- Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.
by CasanovaWong on Dec 25, 2008 3:01 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
dude
a few points.
1. a draft pick is NO guarantee of ANYTHING. MLB has the highest ‘bust rate’ of all the major sports.
2. the Yankees DO still have a 1st and sandwich rd pick bc they failed to sign their top two picks last draft.
sorry to burst your bubble.
by Travis G on Dec 26, 2008 7:18 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Merry Christmas
A.J. was nice; C.C was very nice, snatching Tex from those stinky sox was a kick to the nads for the Sox and flabbergasting move for the rest of MLB. My co-worker had M. Tex marked in permanent ink on his Red Sox line-up card – whoops. Now I am supposed to believe they really don’t need or want him.
What was classic is that Oh-Henry thought Boras was bluffing, thought he had the inside track and tried to get a bargain (MLB standards). It was a stealthy move on the Yankees part. Also, the Yankees have a lower payroll compared to last year.
He (Henry) may need the money for his true love Fenway-Rouse (NASCAR), the racing world is hurting. Ford needs a huge bailout. It will be hard to race without a car.
Let’s take a hard look at CC and Tex; they must feel they have some security now Tex was traded by Texas, to Atlanta, then out west. CC shipped to the Brewers.
Merry Christmas Yankees fans we must have been nice. Coal in the Bean town stockings.
by Lyle40000 on Dec 24, 2008 6:58 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Hitchcock, Karsay, Hammond, Pavano, Wright, Farsnworth passing on Beltran and Santana
and all the awful relievers he’s traded for andyou think he’s one of the best GM’s in baseball. If he can’t win a World Series for 8 straight years with his economic advantage, what kind of team do you think this moron would build with an 80 million dollar payroll?
by RealityCheck09 on Dec 24, 2008 9:52 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
I forgot about the
great Kei Igawa
by RealityCheck09 on Dec 24, 2008 10:03 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Passing on Johan Santana??
You’re gonna use that as an excuse? The mets paid the twins in prospects and then had to give him a monster contract. We just signed sabathia for the same contract and is a year younger and we still have all our young pitchers. The beltran decision was made by george steinbrenner himself because he wanted to trade for Randy Johnson. Incase you forgot about Pavano-Palooza about 10 teams wanted to sign him when he became a FA, the media cobverage was insane. Jaret wright was brought in to be a back end starter not a savior. And seriously the rest of your knocks against Cashman are hitchcock karsay hammond and krazy kyle farnsworth?? Thats your material? a bunch of releivers?? Nice try dude.
Strikeouts are boring- Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.
by CasanovaWong on Dec 25, 2008 3:11 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
They could've had Santana and Sabathia
instead of Burnett.
by RealityCheck09 on Dec 25, 2008 9:27 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Aceevedo, Osuna, Heredia, White, Witascik
Benitez, Stanton and Nelson II, Vizcaino and all the other failed trades for relievers and free agents. Every major free agent reliever signed was a bust and you defend his record.
by RealityCheck09 on Dec 25, 2008 9:36 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Dude
bullpen arms are the most volatile substance in baseball. All those guys listed are journeymen who have played for hordes of different teams in their careers. Every team signs these guys, and to use a tired phrase “tries to catch lightning in a bottle” for a year then cuts bait. Some dont work out some do, jose veras, edwar ramirez, brian bruney and jon albaladejo to name a few. And for the record luis vizcaino resulted in a supplementary pick this past draft a 21 yr old lefty out of Stanford Jeremy Bleich. Flash Gordon turned into Joba Chamberlain. As for the santana trade dude used to average about 95 or 96 on his fastball, this year? 92.75, and hes got like 6 years 110 million coming his way. Lets wait more than a year to judge ok?
Strikeouts are boring- Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.
by CasanovaWong on Dec 25, 2008 10:07 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
You like to avoid the obvious
Every big ticket free agent reliever this moron GM signed has failed and and how many relievers has he traded for had even two successful years in a row for this team. How about Gabe White and Felix Heredia who stunk after they were acquired and this stupid GM re-signs both to two year deals as free agents and neither lasts the entire next season.
by RealityCheck09 on Dec 25, 2008 10:58 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Heredia
was picked off waivers from cincy in 2003 combined went 87 IP with a 2.69 ERA. 15Ip with a 1.20 era for the yanks he was 28 at the time. A 2 year deal doesnt sound that ridiculous does it? 2004 he was miserable and traded to the mets for mike stanton who had been very solid for the yankees for like 8 years prior. Stanton went on to pitch 15 innings and was released. Gabe white pitched under 40 innings for the yankees in 03 and 04 combined.
If bringing up journeyman relievers who last pitched for the yankees 4 or 5 years ago is the best you can do to discredit cashman then thats just sad. Every single general manager in baseball has made mistakes before it’s part of the game. Cashmans biggest blunder to date was taking the word of his scout in japan (who has since been fired) who said kei igawa could be a serviceable 5th starter in MLB. Yeah they paid a big posting fee for him but hes only making 5 mil a year, definitely not ace money and definitely not unmovable. Besides, his mlb personnel moves he is personally responsible for revamping the entire farm system starting in 05. It went from being the laughingstock of mlb to top 5 a year ago before the graduation of chamberlain kennedy and hughes.
Strikeouts are boring- Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.
by CasanovaWong on Dec 26, 2008 12:13 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
oy
you can look at the resume of every GM and find bad moves. and especially in the area of middle-relievers.
what about Abreu, Arod, Mussina, El Duque, Clemens (1st time), Brosius, Matsui, Knoblauch, getting something for RJ when he wanted out, etc.?
NOT trading for Gagne?
c’mon. every GM in every sport makes some bad moves. i dont have the actual stats, but i would bet that the Yanks have more wins than any other team since Cash became GM.
by Travis G on Dec 26, 2008 7:26 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I like the signing
but I don’t think it makes Cash some kinda GM genius. He gave a great player at a position of need the most money. OK, great, we got him, but it wasn’t exactly clever.
Too many of Cash’s moves haven’t worked out for me to ever believe he’s a top-notch GM, especially considering the financial advantages we have over everyone else.
by BrianByron on Dec 24, 2008 11:23 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
I agree with you 100% Brian
And we haven’t had a quality bridge to Mariano since Mendoza, Nelson, and Stanton have been gone.
by RealityCheck09 on Dec 25, 2008 2:48 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
You'll be surprised to see how quickly a bridge to
Mariano appears once the Yankees get a staff that regularly pitches into the 7th inning.
Everything looks nicer when you win. The girls are prettier. The cigars taste better. The trees are greener. --Billy Martin
by garp on Dec 25, 2008 11:39 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Where was the bridge for Clemens, Mussina and Pettitte?
or maybe you just have selective memory?
by RealityCheck09 on Dec 25, 2008 11:46 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Uhm...Scott Proctor until his arm fell off. Not sure what you are
referring to since Clemens and Mussina pretty much sucked that year and Pettitte was meh. So thanks for proving my point.
Everything looks nicer when you win. The girls are prettier. The cigars taste better. The trees are greener. --Billy Martin
by garp on Dec 26, 2008 12:34 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Couldn't....
agree with you more. Don’t get me wrong, I love the move. I thought they needed Teixeira more than Burnett. But one of the best GM’s in baseball? Anybody with the resources he has could make that move. He made a no -brainer signing. Now if he would unearth a gem in a trade from another team’s minor league system I would be more impressed.
by celerino73 on Dec 25, 2008 7:10 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
The minors are a crap shoot
Swisher for spare parts, Abreu for spare parts.
The jury is still out on the pitchers we got back for Sheffield- we’ll see if Humberto Sanchez can take the next step after recovering from TJ surgery last offseason.
Ohlendorf got turned into Nady and Marte.
He traded for Jonny Albaladejo to be part of that bridge, but he promptly got hurt.
Cash’s revised minor league approach has churned out a string of strike throwing relievers- none of them special, but the interchangability between Veras, Edgar and Robertson allows Joe G to use one up to protect the rest of the pen in a blowout then option him down. Saving that money on the pen, rather than giving out 2 or 3 $4M contracts frees up the resources to sign an impact player like Tex.
We have so many young arms worth looking at that we lost 5 pitchers in the Rule 5 (3 in the major league portion, 2 in the minor league portion). Those 3 have to stay on an MLB roster all season or we can have them back.
And with the verterans added to the front of the rotation we have all the time in the world to give Hughes, Coke, Joba, Melancon, IPK, Aceves, and company time to get some experience without placing the expectations of a championship on their shoulders (I’m still rooting for Alan Horne to switch to the bullpen).
"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."
by jscape2000 on Dec 25, 2008 9:52 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Let's be realistic
Cashman has done good and bad things as a GM. The premise of this post is strange, in that, as pointed out, signing the known top 3 FAs for 1/2 billion dollars when no one else can hardly constitutes an indicator of strategic genius. As has been discussed above, Cashman has been involved in many ill advised signings, but also some smart ones that are either obvious and smart (eg the Teix and Swisher signings) or helpful and forgotten (eg Chacon and Small in 2005). BTW- “Abreu for spare parts” is silly. That is a salary dump signing. Similar to the Sox trading for Schilling (salary motivated) but distinct from the signing of David Ortiz, who was essentially released, or the trade of Hanley Ramirez and Anibel Sanchez for Beckett/Lowell which was motivated both by strategy and by money.
I think Cashman gets a bit too much s*it from others. Strategic moves are less needed if you have the cash the Yankees do, and the pressure to compete every year from within and without makes long term planning difficult. He has passed on what would have been good trades, and he has signed guys for contracts that are too long, without a view toward flexibility on the field. He has neglected sabermetric analysis and overall defense. On the other hand he has matained and built a decent farm system, made some good draft picks, and made some important and useful moves. On other sites (eg DRaysBay) Cashman is considered one of the worst GMs in the game. I think that is unfair, but he is hardly an elite GM. Just look at the moves the Rays have made. We can all say that the got strong by being crappy and drafting high, but that is not true. Crawford, Upton, Shields, Longoria, Sonny and Price were all picks (Sonny and Shields very low ones), but Pena, Iwamura, Bartlett, Kazmir, Garza, Navarro, Gross, and the entire BP were savy moves by a team that has a payroll of 1/5 that of the Yankees. That is good GMing.
by Buzzy on Dec 25, 2008 10:33 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I guess what I see
is an effort to build a farm system that compliments our massive wads of cash.
Maybe it’s too much apples to oranges to be objective about at all. But if he were running the Yankees like the Rays or the Phillies we’d be grinding our teeth. The Yankees have a different business plan than the other 29 teams in baseball (though I see no reason the Mets and the LA teams couldn’t keep pace if their owners chose).
I see Cashman as having created and implemented that plan. Maybe the original post didn’t come out the way I wanted it to (if I have to say that, I don’t need to say maybe, do I?), but my point is that I feel like the Yankees have a plan that they have been executing for the last 3 or 4 seasons that is distinct from the plan of the 80s and the early millennium.
I’ll agree that genius is too strong, but we are run by a smart, competent GM who has the full backing of the ownership. Not too many teams can say that.
(PS. totally agree about neglecting defense- but at the core positions, C-SS-CF, Cashman has only had the chance to upgrade CF during his tenure. He learned his lesson from not signing Beltran when he had the chance, which this season landed both Sabathia and Tex).
"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."
by jscape2000 on Dec 25, 2008 11:39 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
scouting and players make GM
genius or idiot
the Yankees improved this off-season, but they needed the most improvement. they were third in the East, and just barely fighting off Toronto
on paper, the Yanks are competitive now
but you have to see how they do on the field. Girardi is a liability. Jeter doesn’t get to that many balls. Arod is a head case. Tex is a big upgrade over Giambi, but not clear if Tex will dominate. Should be good, but even if great, not enough alone. Will Cano bounce back? Matsui and Damon over the hill. Will Posada recover?
Sabathia and Burnett could be good, or not.
Wang is very good, in my opinion, if healthy. Is he?
It is true that the Sox need a bat, and wanted Tex. But they don’t need Tex — they need a bat
in summary, the Yanks have caught up — on paper. Nothing more
by Frank Malzone on Dec 25, 2008 1:43 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
The Yanks don't....
have to “catch up” to the Red Sox. They were still 9-9 against Boston with a makeshift pitching staff(Ponson,Rasner etc..) As for your evaluation of the Yanks roster, the Sox have some question marks also. How will Lowell bounce back from surgery ? He’s not getting any younger. Have to be concerned about Popi. After Manny left he was not the same fearsome hitter he was previously. Red flag has to be raised about Beckett and his inconsistency as witnessed in the postseason. Ellsbury has been somewhat of a disappointment. Only Pedroia and Youklis are sure things in their starting lineup barring a move. I know you don’t win games on paper but you have to admit the Yankees have improved significantly.
by celerino73 on Dec 25, 2008 6:41 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Happy New Year
You’ve thrown down the gauntlet- I’m going to address your claim on the front page, if not today, then tomorrow morning.
"Have faith in the Yankees, my son. Think of the great DiMaggio."
by jscape2000 on Dec 25, 2008 2:16 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Smart, Competent GM
is absurd. Pat Gillick, Theo Epstein, Billy Beane deserve those adjectives, not a guy who can make as many blatant blunders as the Cash. Like I said what kind of team would he build with an $80MM payroll if he can’t even come close to sniffing a title in the last four years with the most resources in baseball?
by RealityCheck09 on Dec 25, 2008 11:05 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Nady and Marte
were salary dumps by the Pirates. It wasn’t as if Ohlendorf was this attractive young arm that Pittsburgh wanted. The bottom line is you made Cashman out to be some genius with the three free agent signings that a ten year old could have pulled off. By the way let me throw in the great signing of Latroy Hawkins last year and the decision to go most of the season without a lefty in the pen and you’ll find out next season that Marte is not a quality reliever.
by RealityCheck09 on Dec 26, 2008 12:12 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Actually pittsburgh did target ohlendorf for that trade.
And cashman gave up virtually nothing in return. 2 mlb guys for a bunch of junk from the minors. Tabata used to be a good prospect but turned out to be a head case was out of shape and under performing. Marte has a career era+ of 137 which is very very good incase you were wondering, is a lefty whose home games will be at yankee stadium. And please we had one of the best bullpens in the majors without a lefty most of the year. 3.79 bullpen era last year good for 7th in mlb, yeah they were really suffering without that lefty.
Strikeouts are boring- Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic.
by CasanovaWong on Dec 26, 2008 12:25 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Not sure
who “Cashmen” signed, and who “Steinbrener” signed. some of those signings coulda been pressured by the Boss.
"Hey Derek do you actually drive the Edge?","I don't drive that piece of crap!"
by Da Shiz on Dec 25, 2008 12:40 AM EST reply actions 0 recs
Except..
it appears the Nationals gave slighty more money and were willing to go higher had they been given a chance to counter the Yanks’ offer.
by daneptizl on Dec 25, 2008 12:09 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
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