Steve, I’d be shocked if he did as well. Given the market for pitching, I would be surprised if he got a base contract for league minimum.

Just like Ponson will wind up somewhere, so will Pavano.

thenewguy – do you really think that Pavano is going to sign a contract for anything less than $5 million a year?

Me? I would be shocked if he did.
There’s no way he’s signing for something like $400,000. Zip.

He’d rather retire than do that – betcha.

Everyone is over analyzing this situation. If Cashman gives him the league minimum (or near it) and incentives, there is NOTHING WRONG WITH THE MOVE. There is nothing wrong with ANY MOVE where the GM pays the players very little and only assures him a try-out or a minor league contract. How can this go bad? NAME ONE WAY? Nothing is expected from him, so anything is positive? Right? If he does terribly in the minors, WHO CARES? Nothing is lost. Nothing is wasted (except the LEAGUE MINIMUM contract.) There can be NO blackmark on Cashman’s contract if he signs him to the league minimum.

Steve, IF you believe that it’s a bad move to sign Pavano to a league-minimum, minor league contract, then you truly hate Cashman more than you like the Yankees. If you don’t feel this way, good.

“Actually, if Cashman does bring Pavano back, I expect the result will be the same as before – Pavano getting paid and not playing. ”

What if what he is getting paid is so little that it doesn’t matter? If the Yankees were given 100 Pavanos, and Cashman discarded all of them instead of giving them a minimum-contract, and then only one of them became a Cy Young Winner, or World Series MVP, I would blame Cashman for not re-signing that player. However, if Cashman gave an extremely small contract to every one of those Pavanos (like he did for Zambrano and Milton) and none of them succeeded, I wouldn’t have a problem. I would applaud the effort on his part to make sure that nothing slipped through his grips that only cost the league minimum.

Money is nothing to the Yankees. Especially contracts under 1 million dollars. What do the Yankees care? What do they have to lose? Whereas, they could actually gain a pitcher that could, maybe someday, do something good again.

But, if the Yankees sign Pavano and he doesn’t pitch, it’s just another black mark on the Cashman card…
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If the Yankees sign Pavano and he does pitch, it’ll be a black mark on Cashman’s card.

As I’ve said before, more often than not, Pavano has been bad, I wouldn’t gamble on him being good in 2009.

And I’ll say the same if he wins 20 games, the Cy, and pitches the Yanks to a Series win.

Just to clarify a bit…

I’m not hoping for the Yankees to bring Pavano back so that bad things happen for the Yankees in 2009.
Shoot, I hate it when the team doesn’t win consistently. I’m pissy when it happens. In fact, I lose sleep over it. So, why would I want that?

Actually, if Cashman does bring Pavano back, I expect the result will be the same as before – Pavano getting paid and not playing. And, I suspect that would not hurt the Yankees – unless Cashman is actually counting on the guy to make 30 starts and then passes on another pitcher.

But, if the Yankees sign Pavano and he doesn’t pitch, it’s just another black mark on the Cashman card that would CLEARLY be “all-Cashman” – like signing Pavano the first time or bringing in Igawa.

And, that is what I’m rooting for here – more black marks on Cashman’s record – so that those in charge will catch on and get rid of him.

But, if possible, I don’t want those black marks to lead towards the Yankees playing poorly – I just want them to show that Cashman is not a good G.M. – and makes moves that are a waste of money and other resources.

Make sense?

Raf, I don’t disagree. My point was merely that even the obvious “NO!” moves require due diligence.

As I said, I don’t believe Cashman will bring Pavano back. I truly don’t think there’s even a remote possibility.

That last sentence doesn’t look right… Anyway point is (keeping with today’s theme) Vote ‘NO’ to PavaNO

A good GM doesn’t rule out anything, even if it risks offending a large swath of the team’s fan base.
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Be that as it may, Pavano has large enough a body of work that says “STAY AWAY!” He had it after the 2004 season, and he definitely has it now.

Think about how that sounds.
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Sounds reasonable to me, considering Steve was probably against the hiring in the first place.

If a “horrible losing season” is what it takes for the Yanks to get back on track, then so be it. Sometimes you have to punt a year to get back into it; we saw it with the Red Sox in 2006.

While I don’t necessarily agree with this premise, other people do.

A good GM doesn’t rule out anything, even if it risks offending a large swath of the team’s fan base.

That being said, I’ll believe it when I see it. I think the odds of Cashman keeping Pavano around for 2009 are at 0.0%.