With the afterglow of #27 creating an even more insatiable appetite, I’ve been checking out blogs I’ve pushed to the wayside. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to remember why Was Watching was crossed off my list. In addition to the incessant and inane Cashman hating as a major theme, crude humor has been added a specialty. How anyone could find humor in someone referring to the Boss is sickening. Hopefully, they never have to deal with a loved one in a similar state.

It’s time to permanently cross WW off the blog list…hopefully I don’t make the same mistake after #28. Sad.

no=know

and i’m sure there are more:)

Given the current economics of the game and the financial situation of the Bombers and management’s season-to-season demands, spending a ton of money is the primary means by which any general manager would and will operate. I am not particularly impressed by Cashman as a person or talent evaluator, but he’s competent. There is also something to be said for his ability to deal with the odd power dynamics within the organization.

I’m not sure how to articulate this without offending anyone, so please no this is not my intent, but I almost find the discussion of whether a general manager is good or not, based on trades and signings, overly simplistic. There are tons of different processes at work for a general manager to oversee, that a discussion of money spent and trades seems short-sighted. Furthermore, the nature of a general manager’s role seems almost entirely predicated on the nature of the organization he works for, and the nature of that organization is entirely influenced by economics both long-term and short-term. For instance, if the Yanks aren’t moving into a new stadium this past season, do they still open up the pocket books for CC, Tex and AJ? How much did the 2009 moving date factor into Cashman and management’s plans in the preceding years?

I’ll say this, as Yankee fans we’re incredibly lucky to be able to be in a situation where our team is likely the team of the decade and we’re discussing (both sides making legitimate points mind you) whether the general manager is good or not.

Steve Lombardi wrote:

I’ve said this before, so, I’ll say it again: In the end, Cashman’s plan to retool the Yankees for 2009 was to spend about a half-billion dollars on three free agent players.

If it were only that simple… Don’t forget bounceback seasons from Jeter, Cano, Cabrera, and Posada. Those were just as important if not more than the signing of those 3 free agents.

From a RS/RA POV, the problem in 2008 was the offense. It wasn’t the case in 2009. Why no one seems to bring that up I don’t understand. Guess ZoMG $500M!!!!1!!1!!!1!! makes a better story?

Brian Cashman, 2009 World Series winning General Manager.

That is all.

Steve, I like this blog a lot, for the most part, but I’m with the folks that are annoyed seeing negative posts about Cashman, pushed at the reader ad nauseum every other day during the season, and continuing now. I kinda see your position and where you’re coming from on this, though I don’t agree with it. Thing is, your readership doesn’t much agree with you on this either, for the most part. I asked for a survey a week ago, and as you can see, you’re quite alone in your assessment of Cashman, at least in the company of about 100 folks that participated (http://waswatching.com/2009/11/03/november-2009-survey-question-1/).

This topic has been chewed up and spat out so many times, with quite polarizing opinions. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all just agree to disagree on this and leave it alone? I don’t see much point in antagonizing the majority of your readership over this, do you? We know where you stand on this, you know where most others do, why not leave it at that and make life easier in this part of the Yankee blogosphere?

And another thing about Sean Pendergast’s sorry little smack-whine. What – he can’t round up a few good ol boys around Texas who have an extra few mil burning a hole in their pockets?

C’mon, Sean, y’all can play at this baseball thing too, can’t ya? From the land of more is better? The land of the first truly obscene contract (A-Roid polished his act on your coin, buddy)! What happened to the plan? Too rich for y’all? Maybe yer jest sore about having to pay Alex all those sheckles to hit homers in the Bronx. I understand that.

How come with all that oil money laying around, the Astros are nickel and dimers, and the Rangers can’t seem to take their cute lil ol’ 4 team division stacked with the awesome A’s and mighty Mariners?

Sounds like ya’ll could stand to take a page out of Mr. Pepto Bismol’s book.

Steve Lombardi wrote:

Live in an ivory tower much?

That’s not really what living in an ivory tower means.
From Wikipedia: “From the 19th century it has been used to designate a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life.”

As such, criticism of your criticism of Brian Cashman doesn’t come anywhere near this definition.

Writers sometimes forget that the message that they write, the message they intend, is not always the message received by the reader. For years you have expressed in various ways your disdain for Cashman. Occasionally, those remarks have come off, when read, as irritable, annoyed, and yes, sometimes, angry. Especially 2007-2008, when the Yanks slipped from division winners to wild card winners to out of the playoffs. But my first sentence in this paragraph was not talking about you, especially, but about what I wrote in my last post.

It seems to me, reading all you have written this season, that, for some reason, you spent the better part of the year trying to demonstrate that this was not a Yankee team capable of winning a title. (I spent a lot of time and effort trying to prove an easier case: that this team could win a title.)

As the Yankees successes increased in the 2nd half, as they progressively slayed one demon after another: the Red Sox, the White Sox at home, the Angels in the regular season, the Twins in the 1st round, the Angels in the ALCS…you kept on looking for new rationales as to why they couldn’t win, and each time you thought up something else, frequently tried to attach it to Cashman (and sometimes Girardi as well, because he’s a Cashman ally, or so it seems).

The last attempt was trying to apportion blame to Cashman and Girardi for going to a 3-man rotation for the World Series, if the team lost the last two. This at a time when the Yanks were one win away from a title, and heading home for games 6 and 7.

There’s laconic, there’s pessimistic, and then there’s stubborn. There’s a difference between trying to figure what went wrong and why, and assuming 100 things are wrong that will sink the team, and assuming only one person is to blame.

And so, I got the impression from the recent, post-Series writings that while you were celebrating the title, as all Yankee fans do, you were miffed that Cashman was rightfully getting credit. So I tried to point out that this was a waste of time and energy, as he’s now staying on as GM for the foreseeable future.

Now, you say this is not the case. Very well, I take you at your word.
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When you write, in various modes, that Cashman is an idiot who should’ve been fired long ago, you irritate those of us who think that he’s fairly intelligent. Sometimes, intelligent people make mistakes, but those mistakes should be judged within the context of their occurrence.

You attack Cashman, and some of us readers defend him. You point out the things he’s done wrong; we point out why the things were done, or who else might have done them. Or we point out the things he got right. Or we point out that other GMs, even more successful ones, made the same judgements as Cashman, but didn’t have his money, and didn’t win the bidding. You can’t really expect to criticize Cashman as often as you do, and for as many different things as you do, and not expect that those of us who think differently will argue back.

Occasionally, if you debate long enough, sometimes you lose a battle. This year, the battle of Cashman is over. Next year may be an entirely different story.
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One last thing. You have the blog. It’s yours. You can ban whom you want. I don’t have a say about that. But as long as I’m allowed to reply here, I’m going to tell you what I think, too.

It is not my desire to make your life worse by posting here. My hope is that you find the exchange useful. But if you find it painful, or not worth your time, put it down. Or put me out. I’m a grown-up; I can find other bloggers to argue with. You don’t even have to outright ban me, just tell me I’m not welcome, and I’ll leave. I mean it.

If it’s the blog as a whole, if it’s a bunch of us, just stop. Life is too short. I have given up things I thought I loved; thought I needed, because they caused needless pain or simply were wastes of my time.

I hope you don’t stop. I hope you don’t tell me to leave. I find this place valuable, useful. Yankee fans come here to discuss and debate the team. I’ve enjoyed this. I’ll miss it if it’s gone.

The thing I don’t understand about this is that people that use the “Best team money can buy” argument to discount the Yanks (or Cashman’s) success, have an emotionally sound but deeply flawed argument. Cashman’s acquisitions over the last of season (with the exception of CC, who we HAD to have no matter what price, could have easily ended up elsewhere, and if those GMs were any damn good, they would have. Cash offered slightly more for Tex and AJ than the Sox, Angels and Braves, respectively. The case could be made that the Angels would likely have beaten us with Tex, possibly the Sox too. Either way, they would have been much improved. Same with the Braves and Burnett. I fault their GM’s for not getting it done. Where were they this post season? Oh that’s right, they were watching TV.

To placate the “best team money could buy” argument, scientifically, you would need to do one of two things: 1) Cashman could be required to spend less money on players, but about 50-60M per year. OR, one team, ANY team, could adopt the Yankees approach for a couple seasons and see how easy it is to buy the best team.

As for #1, that’s probably not going to happen. Why won’t Cashman spend 60M less? Because he doesn’t have to, and because the Yanks are happy to invest that money in the team, provided the results are there (no pressure).

As for #2, I have no idea why it doesn’t happen. You think Moreno couldn’t have splurged an extra few mil on Tex? Atlanta on Burnett? I read somewhere that Stein’s 1.5 Billion net worth ranks him at about the 50th percentile in baseball owners. If this is true, then that is a staggering statistic. That tightwad owner of the Twins – could have easily had a dynasty by now if he had just loosened his pockets a LITTLE bit. It’s easy, right? All you have to do is open the checkbook, just look at Cashman.

I give Cashman credit. Ben Reiter in SI wrote a perceptive piece on his body of work as a GM: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/ben_reiter/11/05/yankees.construction/index.html

The argument of “all he had to do was write a check” is untested and thus it just doesn’t fly for me. Epstein is famously “shrewd” when it comes to drawing his lines in the sand and not budging. I’m not impressed that he lost Damon, Tex, and others to that logic. Woould you have had Cashman do that with Posada? Not me.

For the Red Sox to use that argument is a crock of bull. The system may be unbalanced, but I cannot fault Cashman for exploiting it to his advantage, and to the advantage of my beloved Yankees. And any team with the resources (but not the nerve) to buy the pieces they need, who whine that the Yankees outspent them and that’s why they lost, is lame. With Stein’s checkbook last season, he basically rebuilt the team around two younger stars, Tex and CC, both of whom have tremendous “makeup” and both of whom were extremely productive. And all it took was money. It was the right move, and this time it paid off.

Tresh Fan wrote:

Does Cashman have it easy? From where I sit it seems so. All he has to do is outbid the other GMs for free agents, and with George’s deep pockets that’s easy enough.

Really?

How’d it work when free agents were signed and players were traded for that could’ve worked out, shoud’ve worked out, but didn’t, for one reason or another?