Yankees March Approval Poll: Brian Cashman

Ah, April. The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, the Sun is shining ... unless of course, you live in New York, which has been cold and chilly like it’s early March this week. But no matter, it’s still April, which means we finally have baseball! And with that, we bring back our monthly Brian Cashman approval poll, as we seek to find out how the fan base is feeling about the Yankees’ GM as the season at last dawns.

A lot has changed since the last time we checked the pulse of the fanbase, back in December. At the time, we asked the fans to give a report card for Yankees players. coaches, and executives. Needless to say, after a third-place finish in the AL East and a loss to the Boston Red Sox in the Wild Card Game, fans were harsh graders: Cashman’s average grade was a C-, and his most common grade was an F.

Of course, while the disappointing season had a lot to do with this grade, since the original poll opened on December 6th, after the lockout, I’m sure that the team’s decision to completely ignore the free agent market in November played a role. After all, why wouldn’t it? The Yankees, in desperate need of a left-handed bat and a shortstop, let a perfect fit in Corey Seager sign with Texas, while a small army of starting pitchers — to name just a few off the top of my head, Max Scherzer, Robbie Ray, Marcus Stroman, Noah Syndergaard, Kevin Gausman and Eduardo Rodríguez — were snatched up. It was a deep free agent pool, and the Yankees did absolutely nothing except prod at the Oakland Athletics looking to swing a Matt Olson trade.

Because of this inaction, the Yankees have had a busy winter this month, with Cashman making a flurry of moves in March in the early days of spring training to put together the 2022 squad. He swung a massive two-for-three deal, sending Gary Sánchez and Gio Urshela to the Minnesota Twins for Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and Ben Rortvedt. He brought back a pair of 2021 Yankees, Anthony Rizzo and Tim Locastro, and sent Luke Voit to the San Diego Padres.

These moves definitively made the team better, but they weren’t the flashiest moves, as the two top free agent shortstops remaining (Carlos Correa, Trevor Story), the top free agent first baseman (Freddie Freeman), and the top first baseman available on the trade market (Matt Olson) wound up going elsewhere. Additionally, the team did not add a pitcher, either for the rotation or the bullpen.

That said, the last time the fanbase was underwhelmed by an offseason was 2019, and that team won 103 games and made it to the ALCS, so maybe Brian Cashman actually knows what he’s doing as the longest-tenured GM in baseball. In either case, let’s turn the question back to you — do you, at this moment in time, approve of Brian Cashman? Obviously, I’m sure most of us could write a small book answering this question, but for the purpose of this exercise, we want to keep it simple: yes or no? Vote in the poll to give us your answer, and feel free to elaborate on it in the comment section below.