How Rasner Ended Up A Yankee
As many know, the Yankees claimed Darrell Rasner off waivers from the Washington Nationals on February 11, 2006 (and let reliever Jason Anderson go to make room for Rasner on their 40-man roster).
Here’s more behind that move via a Bill Madden Spring Training report from February 20, 2006:
Nobody in the Yankee high command is willing to say this “scrap heap” platoon of minor league free agents and waiver pickup pitchers invited to camp is an indictment of the Tampa-based player development department that has not scouted, signed, developed and delivered a top quality pitcher to the Bronx since Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera.
…Brian Cashman and Joe Torre decided it maybe was time to start looking under more rocks for pitchers. “It’s the old ‘sift the nuggets’ theory that Stick (former GM Gene Michael) taught me,” Cashman was saying yesterday. “You bring in a lot of guys who’ve been recommended by your scouts and, out of them, you hope to sift some nuggets.” Of this group, Jose Veres, a 6-5, 230-pound righthanded reliever signed as a minor-league free agent out of the Rangers’ organization, and Darrell Rasner, a righthanded starter recently claimed off waivers from the Nationals, have “nugget” potential.
Rasner was rated the Nationals’ No. 4 prospect as recently as two years ago and had decent numbers (6-7, 3.59) at Double-A Harrisburg. Of course, as Cashman noted, when a pitcher who’d been as highly rated as Rasner suddenly shows up on the waiver wire, your first inclination is to wonder what’s wrong with him. You also wonder why so many teams ahead of the Yankees in waiver wire pickings passed on him. “This time of year, most of the rosters are full,” the GM explained, “and because a lot of GMs are on vacation or have already set their rosters, it’s easy to miss a guy. We’re just trying to be aggressive.” “These are not scrap heap guys we’re bringing in here,” insisted Michael. “They’re better than that and they’re not just guys we signed as a favor to the agents. They’re here because we wanted them.”
Well, if you shoot enough rounds of buckshot into a tree, eventually, you’re going to end up with a bird for dinner – even if you’re not known as being a great hunter. You know what they say: Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.
But, hey, better to be lucky than good, right? I’m just happy that, for now, the Rasner pick-up looks like it might start paying dividends for the Yankees – no matter how big the net used to get him was…in reality.
Well, Veras has contributed a little bit as well and is on the roster as we speak. Not to mention Edwar Ramirez, another scrap heap guy that has turned in 6 or so scoreless this season. So I guess the blind squirrel has a good sense of smell?
About a year ago, I saw an interview with Stan Kasten (former president of the Braves), and he said that the Braves would always cast a wide net for pitching. They would draft pitching. They would ask for an extra pitcher or two in a trade. They would do anything they could to stockpile pitching. And he felt that philosophy was primarily responsible for creating the quality Braves pitching of the last 15 years.
Its the “law of large numbers.” Out of many, a few will inevitably shine. Kudos to Cashman and the baseball people for embracing it.
JeremyM – See the link to the Madden column. How are Brooks, Corey, Childers, and Bergman working out?
Why does every post have be about that you hate Cashman? Your hate is unending.
baileywalk – it’s not hate. At least not hate of him.
It’s “hate” of the fact that some only want to focus on the few moves that he’s made that have worked and ignore the many, many, others that have failed.
So, more than hate, it’s love..it’s the “love” of wanting to ensure that the whole story is told, that the other side of the coin is not ignored, that the whole picture is examined.
It’s a positive thing. If you, or someone else, doesn’t want to see that, I suppose you’re just flexing an “unending” hate towards me, no?
I think there are failures for every GM but since we are Yankees fans we don’t notice all the other little moves that fail for the other teams.
I don’t like or dislike Cashman but I’m not sure he’s any worse than the other GMs and the credit has to go to the organization as a whole for trying to develop some more young players.
I don’t think everything should fall on Cashman nor do I think he should get all the credit. However, Cashman should at least get credit for embracing the overall philosophy, whoever is behind it all is another question.
Honestly, I think it’s pretty silly to nitpick every move, draft pick, minor league pickup, etc. and say that Cashman is a bad GM because I’m sure if we looked at other GM’s they would just as bad or worse.
However, I also think it’s silly to claim Cashman as God of GMs, because I don’t think he has proved to be head and shoulders above the other GMs but I do feel that he is capable of doing a good job. I don’t think he is imcompetent.
Its the “law of large numbers.” Out of many, a few will inevitably shine.
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Where were you in ’89?
Steve, I don’t get your point. To me, a 33% success rate on a bunch of guys off the scrap heap is pretty good (in the article, 6 guys are listed, 2 of which are on the team now). It’s not like it cost anything to acquire those guys. Yeah, the four names you list didn’t amount to anything. So what?
It means that Cashman is not genius, nor does he have a magic touch. Anyone who wants to give him gold stars for finding Rasner is ignoring that. Basically, he gathered a large group of cast-offs and one of them clicked. Any GM could have done the same.
Steve–I don’t think anyone here is giving Cashman “gold stars” for being a brilliant evaluator of pitching talent. But I do think he deserves credit for changing a long-standing organization mindset about building pitching from within. And I’m not so sure “any GM could have done the same”–certainly not any Steinbrenner-employed GM.
Any GM could have done the same.
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Many don’t.
I don’t think he’s a genius, but that doesn’t mean I won’t give him credit where it’s due. And it’s not just Rasner, he’s pulled Edwar Ramirez, Veras, Bruney, and Albaladejo from the trash pile. Anyway, you proved he wasn’t a genius, so point proven I guess. Hurrah.
~~~he’s pulled Edwar Ramirez, Veras, Bruney, and Albaladejo from the trash pile.~~~
And, just what exactly have they proven at the MLB level? Not much, according to their stats.
~~~But I do think he deserves credit for changing a long-standing organization mindset about building pitching from within. And I’m not so sure “any GM could have done the same”–certainly not any Steinbrenner-employed GM.~~~
Didn’t he also “do” that 8 years ago?
http://tinyurl.com/6ygq9m
Did it work then? If you want to give him credit for trying it now, do we not also have to mark his record for trying it, 8 years ago, and failing then?
I don’t think that 8 years ago the Yanks had a conscious plan to stockpile pitching and develop from within. If they did, they certainly went off track in the years that followed. Also, eight years ago Cashman was a 32 year-old relatively new GM in constant battle with George and his Tampa baseball people. But if you want to fault Cashman for what happened with the prospects from 8 years ago–fine.
Cashman staked his job back in 2005 on having full control and a long-term plan to build from within. I think you have to give the guy some time as the true head of baseball operations to fully evaluate his performance. I would give him another 3 year deal and then see how things have worked out.
I don’t think that 8 years ago the Yanks had a conscious plan to stockpile pitching and develop from within.
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I think most, if not all organizations try to do that. Check the number of pitchers on a NRI list sometime.
~~~he’s pulled Edwar Ramirez, Veras, Bruney, and Albaladejo from the trash pile.~~~
“And, just what exactly have they proven at the MLB level? Not much, according to their stats.”
Well, Edwar has thrown nearly seven scoreless so far this season so there’s hope there, Bruney had a decent run and looked solid to start this year before getting hurt, Veras has flashed potential in his limited innings, and Albaladejo was also showing potential before getting hurt (wasn’t it just you that was upset about Girardi “causing” him to be injured?). But let’s just be ridiculously negative about the whole thing.