Yankees April 2018 approval poll: GM Brian Cashman

We’re officially a month into baseball season, which means that it is time for another Brian Cashman approval poll. This year’s poll began in January around the halfway point in the offseason. During that check-in, a whopping 95% of Pinstripe Alley readers approved of the job that Cashman was doing as the Yankees GM. It was nearly impossible for fans to be displeased with his efforts following the Giancarlo Stanton trade, after all. Now that we’ve seen the team in action, has your opinion changed?

There were a lot of question marks about the rotation going into the offseason, since Masahiro Tanaka had the option to opt-out of his contract, and CC Sabathia became a free agent. However, Tanaka decided to stay, and Sabathia signed a one-year deal. The addition of Stanton obviously strengthened the lineup, but it would have been nice to see Cashman do something to improve the rotation. His efforts to acquire Gerrit Cole failed, and the Yankees were a bit hamstringed by their desire to get under the luxury tax threshold. Still, the 2017 rotation was fine, and the lineup was strengthened, so most fans entered the season with high hopes. The team did not get off to the hot start that everyone expected, though.

April has been a weird month for the Yankees. During the first three weeks of the season, they mostly hovered between underwhelming and bad, and just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Everyone in the rotation had at least one awful start, the bullpen had more bad outings than good ones, and the Yankees were hit with injury after injury. Not to mention the fact that Stanton got off to a slow start, and Sonny Gray was roughed up during consecutive games.

On April 20th, the Yankees had a 7-8 record on the month. Following an 8-5 loss to the Blue Jays, they apparently made a pact to never lose another game. Since then, they have won eight games in a row. Didi Gregorius continues to swing a hot bat, but he’s not carrying the offense on his back anymore. Gary Sanchez has started to heat up, and Stanton seems to be coming around. Injuries forced the Yankees to call up Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres before they might have wanted to, but they have been exciting to watch. Andujar currently leads MLB in doubles, and Torres has made several nice defensive plays. The bullpen has righted the ship, and the Yankees have even gotten a few players back from injuries. This is the good, fun team that everyone expected to see from the get-go.

Although the team is playing better now, there are still some areas of concern moving forward. Yankees fans typically love Cashman when the team plays well, and hate him when the team struggles. In April, we’ve seen a mixture of both. So, is Cashman to blame for the way the first few weeks of the season went? Should he have made more of an effort to secure a starting pitcher over the offseason, and was the Gray trade a mistake? Vote in the poll below and let us know what you think in the comment section.