Wednesday, October 1, 2008
What Moves Should Cashman Make?
By popular demand. (OK, by Pete's demand.) The NY Daily News weighed in. What do you think? Me, I'm fairly ignorant about anyone who's not currently playing on the Yankees. But I DEFINITELY believe we should dump Giambi and Abreu. And I think the News is dreaming when it thinks Posada would take being moved to first base. The News also suggested the Mets should consider trading David Wright, which also seems insane. Hmm, who could we offer in a trade? (I know, I'm a jerk.) Weigh in, people.
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5 comments:
From Neil: After what I've seen the past few nights and after pondering my irrational thought process following last years post season disaster I have concluded the following:
The Yankees were a ill conceived, monstrosity of a baseball team put together by what appears to be a group of kindergartners. Hell, JoJo (my 4 yr old son) can put together a team like that using his baseball cards and a wad of Monopoly money. In other words, take the All-Stars at each position, regardless of his age or statistical trend and use a bottomless pit of money to secure their services, not a whole lot of science there, eh?
While, Torre's Dodger's trot out, Loney, Broxton, Billingsley, Kemp, etc. and supplement them with a Manny, we trot out the A-Rods, Cano's, Abreu's of the world with their "me-first" attitudes, fat wallets, and a desire to do nothing but cash their next bloated paycheck. I am far from a lover of anything Dodger, Phillie, Ray or Red Sock but.....I must admit it is nice to see homegrown talent with a hungry, selfless, attitude playing baseball as it was meant to be played. In a world where, now more than ever, cash is king its is awfully nice to watch baseball where it looks like (after living in Missouri for a number of years I am a bit of a skeptic) players are playing for the love of the game and for a chance at a championship.
So has it dawned on any of you that, perhaps, Joe Torre, et al. was not the problem? Have any of you caught on to some of the moves he has made as a manager? What we are seeing is aggressive, intelligent baseball being played AND managed at a high level by a time not laden with over the hill All-Stars at every position (sound familiar? like a team we all know and love, Brian Cashman, Hank Steinbrenner??!!).
I open up my paper this morning and I nearly barfed up my Cocoa Puffs reading about Cashman's new contract. Two million bucks a year to be Hank's ass kissing, messenger boy, what a gig! Nice work, if you can get it and I do not begrudge Cashman one penny. It takes a moron of exceptional capabilities to not trade 3 stiffs for a perennial Cy Young/MVP candidate. Mark my words, sure enough as today is October 3, 2008, Hughes, Kennedy and Milky-Way, I'd drop a couple of pounds, you fat fuck, Cabrera will be marginal (at best) MLB players. Hey, Brian, keep holding on to that Enron stock and lord knows, DO NOT trade it for something worthless like Exxon!
Yes, my friends, even here in Sunny South Florida, as I look out at another perfect day, I am suffering through the dark depression of a hopeless, Yankee-less, October.
However, I am pretty clear on why I am home watching the fucking Rays and White Sox. The Steinbrenner's will be forever stuck in Steve Kemp-mode(that's my pet name for signing big money free agent flops) and Brian Cashman is nothing more than a highly paid administrative assistant. The only thing he lacks is a pair of fake tits and a bleach blonde dye job. Hey! anyone remember Lonnie Anderson in WKRP in Cincinnati???
And on that note......Have a great weekend! Oh and by the way, I thought Biden made Palin look pretty silly on most of the issues. The only plus for America's Hockey MILF is that she did not make herself look worse than the moron she has portrayed herself to be thus far.
From Michael, responding to Neil. Huh. I don't quite follow. You lambaste the Yankees for signing big fat all-stars instead of building on youth and yet you also lambaste Cashman for NOT trading away youth to get Santana. I supported Cashman at the time when it came to the Santana deal and I don't think ANYONE came even remotely close to predicting BOTH Hughes and Kennedy would crash and burn. Zero wins? All season? I want them to go young and not just trade for superstars and you KNOW I hate hired guns and want them to dump Giambi and Abreu, at the least. Hank is not involved day to day. It's Hal. And Cashman has been saying he wants to do what you're talking about and the non-Santana deal ws the first example of it. Here's hoping he follows through.
Neil, you need to calm down and look at these past few years holistically and logically.
Have the Yanks been saddled with a number of large contracts? Absolutely. Are they working their way out of those contracts? Time will tell.
Michael is right that not pulling the trigger on Santana is exactly the kind of signal we've been waiting for that the Yanks won't chase ever big name player. And the careers of Melky, Hughes and Kennedy are not over, so let's see how they do over the next 10 years before passing judgement.
As for the Dodgers, before we go patting them on the back for being so supportive of their youth, let's not forget that Torre and the Dodgers brass wouldn't let their young kids play early this season over the likes of Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre who are complete rubbish and exact kinds of rent-a-veterans that we despise. Were it not for their horrific record they wouldn't have made the changes to youth and only due to the ineptitude of the entire NL West did they make the playoffs. The Yanks won 5 more games than the Dodgers yet finished 6 back of a playoff spot! And how about further evidence of supporting their youth? Trading away Andy LaRoche (a huge 3rd base prospect that Torre refused to play) for the likes of Casey Blake and Manny Ramirez - more over-the-hill veterans. The moves worked out and now the youth that Torre was forced to play are paying dividends for him in the playoffs, so I guess all is forgotten.
Cashman seems to have a plan and that plan is to load up on talented young pitching and fill in the offensive holes through free agency. We're just now starting to get some of that pitching to the big leagues, so the next 3 or 4 years will be telling. I'll write off Cashman's philosophy if we are still struggling in 3 years.
But as for this year, if it weren't for the Rays making the leap we'd have been the Wild Card and if it weren't for the run of injuries (especially Wang and Joba) we'd have been fighting for a playoff spot until the end.
Please allow me to clarify. I am hardly opposed to going with homegrown talent when it comes to building the Yankees. In fact, given the success they had during the glory years (1996-2001) and who the key players were (Pettitte, Bernie, Jeter, Mo, etc.) how could I not support that philosophy? My issue with Cashman is his over valuing talent and I can support that complaint by simply going to ESPN and reading Keith Law's comments on the Yankee prospects in question. I am far from the only person who feels that the Yankee prospects Cashman so fiercly guarded are destined to be marginal, at best. Mike, whether or not Hank, Hal or The Boss is calling the shots is simply semantics. It is the prevailing "Steinbrenner attitude" that irks me. With regard to the Dodgers, who cares if in May they wanted to play Jones and Pierre? On that note, go back and read a bit, Torre was NOT a Juan Pierre fan at all. So much so, Pierre even commented at one point that he was curious as to why Torre did not like him. The bottom line is that after watching Jones flop one too many times, he was yanked from the line-up. Furthermore, given his obscene contract I applaud the Dodgers for admitting their mistake and for pulling the plug on him so quickly. That brings me back to why I appreciate their approach so much against the back drop of so many years of Jason Giambi. Yes, he has teased us with occasional production but he has not performed up to anywhere near the level of his contract. Other than a brief flirtation with a demotion to the minor leagues, the Yankees have not taken the drastic step of pulling the plug on him, as the Dodgers did with Jones. I am sure you are going to pull up his 2 homeruns in the 2003 ALCS game 7 but I would hang my hat on that as much as I would Boone's game winner. I'll close by saying that I do not hold Cashman in high regard in terms of being a talent evaluator and I am not optomistic about the future with him at the helm.
How do you guys find the time to follow all these other teams? As for Giambi, I WON'T bring up any home runs in 2003. The guy's a bum and a cheat (but a great pal in the locker room) and should never have been signed. They should have traded him when he was the Comeback of the Year an people might have been tricked into wanting him an his fat contract.
I don't know about Cashman's talent evaluation. But I don't think it's just semantics as to who has been in charge. To me, Hank and George equal big fat contracts for aging vets and whomever is considered the big get each season. Hal and Cashman equal patience and young talent. Maybe they aren't good at spotting the right young talent but at least it's a step in the right direction.
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