Winning The Ring The Hardways?
Vince Mercandetti, over at Sox and Pinstripes last week had an interesting take on Brian Cashman and the Yankees “plan” since 2005. Here’s a snip:
Heading into 2008 the Yankees spent their money resigning important players (Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada) and buying time. It was almost like a rebuilding year with an upside as Cashman and Co. knew what was going to happen at the end of 2008. They were the Red Sox in 2006 knowing what lay ahead for 2007. The right pieces, the right payroll situation, the right time to strike. The Yankees still had a formidable team and probably make the playoffs if not for major injuries to Posada, Wang, Chamberlain, Hughes and a slew of other players. Either way, they didn’t choose to trade for Santana because they knew they could have their cake and eat it too the next year.
And that’s exactly what they did.
In 2009, they used Abreu, Giambi, Pavano, half of Pettitte’s, and all of Mussina’s contracts and used them on “the right” pieces. They went out and signed Sabathia, who was the insurance policy with a bigger upside than Johan Santana. He was a player they knew they would only have to spend money on and that was the biggest strength they knew they had after the exodus of ’08. They signed Burnett because Wang was no longer a sure thing and his Free Agency would approach soon. They already had A-Rod, Rivera, Posada, Jeter and now Cano (who they extended the year before) locked in. They brought Pettitte back again, relegated Hughes and Chamberlain to one guaranteed rotation spot and in turn had the proper depth necessary to last a full season.
Then when the time and the price was right, they snagged Mark Teixeira to solidify the offense after grabbing Swisher in a trade, another insurance policy, for both right field and first base. It was a spending offseason and the Yankees still saved a few million dollars because the payroll called for that situation.
This is not the first time I’ve seen these types of thoughts expressed. In fact, I’m pretty sure that readers have shared similar ones in comments here, in the past – that the Yankees passed on Santana, for example, because they knew that Sabathia would be available the following year and would only cost money and not prospects plus money.
I cannot say, for certain, that this was the Yankees plan – and I’m not sure how anyone outside of the organization can say they know it was, for sure, either. But, if that was the plan, it was a gamble – in my opinion. Why? Because you’re assuming that those players would be on the market a year later and that they would be willing to sign with you, etc.
What would have happened if the Giants threw a boatload of money at Sabathia, and if the Red Sox didn’t screw up the Teixeira talks, and Burnett did not opt out of his deal with the Jays? Did the Yankees have a “Plan B” if those players where not there for them after 2008? Would that plan have worked as well as the “Half Billion For CC, A.J,. and Tex” Plan?
Don’t get me wrong – I’m happy that it all worked out. But, if that really was “the plan,” man, what a roll of the dice…at least to me.
But, if that was the plan, it was a gamble – in my opinion. Why? Because you’re assuming that those players would be on the market a year later and that they would be willing to sign with you, etc.
——-
Not really. The Yankees have the advantage of offering more money than any other team in baseball, and we can count on one hand how many players have taken less money to go to a specific team. Seriously, just try and name some.
99.9% of players always go for more money in free agency, and the Yankees offered so much more to CC, for example, that he would have been absolutely crazy to leave that much money on the table. He was not crazy.
This wasn’t as much of a gamble as you think. Players want money and a chance to win in free agency and the Yankees, since the late 90s, have been the best at offering free agents a combo of both.
Didn’t Brian Cashman himself say that was his plan?
I’m at a loss as to why a so-called gamble that paid off is now being analyzed as some sort of strategic failure because the *possibility* of failure existed. Only on WW.com would something that worked out be scrutinized based on such a retrospective premise.
Since your claim is that you “cannot say…that this was the Yankees plan” and similarly state that no one else from “outside of the organization can” make this claim, then how can you know that there wasn’t a potential fallback plan? If you can assume that Cashman always intended to acquire these three players, you can also assume that he had contingencies if he was unable to acquire them.
Most importantly, as YankCrank pointed out, knowing exactly what his budget was, Cashman had at least some degree of confidence that if the decision came down to money, the players he was pursuing would have one hell of a hard decision to make in turning down the highest bidder available on the open market.
I know you say you’re glad it worked out and I even believe you (to a point) but I really find all this post-mortem analysis pointless. Cashman had a plan and he executed that plan. Given the entire range of possibilities and threats to his plan, I’d be pretty comfortable arguing that his risks were low in pursuing this course of action. The risks may not have been non-existent but they were low enough that Cashman clearly made the right decision to go about building the ’09 team in such a way.
Problem is, the article isn’t particularly accurate. 2008′s problem was Posada, Cano, Cabrera, Jeter and Wang among others. It wasn’t Cashman anticipating a “rebuilding year with an upside.”
Rob Abruzzese wrote:
I thought his plan was building the team thru the farm system?
MJ wrote:
Simple, I cannot imagine a “Plan B,” costing money and not prospects, that would have netted three players of the quality equal to Teixiera, Sabathia and Burnett after the 2008 season. Can you? What players were they?
I might be missing something here, but what major injury did Joba suffer from?
YankCrank wrote:
Agreed that the money threw SO MUCH money at these three that it would have been hard for the players to say “no.” But, still, “more” money alone is not a lock. Hence, the risk…and the gamble.
Corey wrote:
See: http://waswatching.com/2008/09/30/jobas-wing-still-hurting/
Steve Lombardi wrote:
It isn’t that simple. They could’ve retained the players they had, they could’ve traded for others, they could’ve aggressively promoted from within, they could’ve signed “lesser” fa’s from the market.
Maybe they win the division by a game instead of 8? Who knows?
Steve Lombardi wrote:
For some reason I thought I read that they were saying he had a major injury in 07
Also, another thought on this – the Yankees picked up Swisher to play 1B with Nady in the OF. And, it wasn’t until talks with the Sox got F’ed up that they got Teixiera. So, do we know, for sure, that picking up Tex was in their plan?
Steve Lombardi wrote:
That may have been the plan, that may not have been the plan. Perhaps the plan is more fluid than we give credit. There are a lot of moving parts that need to be considered when building a team, and entries like Mercandetti wrote are a gross oversimplification.
Having said that it appears that of the 3 players signed, only Sabathia was a “lock” given that his offer was far and away the highest. The Braves were right there with Burnett, and as mentioned Teix became available because the Red Sox screwed up.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
There you go again with that line. When has Cashman ever said that he planned on building the team through the farm system? Cashman uses the farm system only when it makes sense to but doesn’t build exclusively through that medium as he is — thankfully for all of us — blessed to have enough resources that he can pick and choose his spots between talent from within and talent from outside.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Steve,
They are all rolls of the dice, every transaction, every draft pick, every part of putting together a club together – there are no sure things.
My question, or point is, if the supposed plan fell threw and the Yankees didn’t sign one, two or three of their targets – what exactly would you expect or want them to do?
Want Cashman to resign? Want Hank and Hal to rend their garments and rub gravel in their hair? They’d do what an business does when things don’t go their way – remarshal their resources, reevaluate the landscape and continue to try to improve the system.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Show me how many times not offering the most money hasn’t been a lock in recent Yankee history? I can think of 0 times since 2000 (the year the Yankees payroll exceeded every other teams, i believe) that the Yankees haven’t landed a guy they offered the most money to. If there are lots of examples i’ll gladly admit i’m wrong. However, i’m having trouble even coming up with one.
I agree with the point that’s been made several times – this ‘after the fact’ analysis is someone pointless, even on a slow day like today.
Also, FWIW, I don’t see how a realistic person can think that the Yankees GM plans to build his team through the farm system *alone*. It’s fairly obvious that teams that win consistently and have high payrolls have to have a combination of decent amateur drafts, international free agent signings, player development, and free agent signings. Expecting the Yankees (and the Red Sox) to turn into the Twins or Marlins is not practical. Their models are completely different.
Also, and admittedly not digging through the articles, I can say with fairly high certainty that Cashman is on record as saying he preferred Sabathia to Santana purely because of the cost in dollars and lost future draft picks as opposed to the cost in the dollars and current high level prospects, respectively. He’s also on record as saying that he approached ownership about acquiring Teixeira early that offseason. It is in accurate to say that the Yankees signed Teixiera only because the Red Sox were not able to sign him. The then purported lack of interest until the very end by the Yankees is being incorrectly interpreted as a lack of interest instead of strategy used to drive down the market price of that particular player.
Overarchingly, which has also been mentioned several times, it seems unfair to flip flop between ways in which we analyze a general manager. There are two schools of thought as far as I am concerned. You judge entirely by how the trade looks in the present, or you reserve judgment for when the acquisitions get to be 1, 2, 3, 5, etc. years old. You can’t have it both ways. In this case, we’ll see if Cashman was correct on his strategy for choosing to acquire Sabathia instead of Santana when we see how the players involved (Sabathia, Santana, Chamberlain, Kennedy, Cabrera, and Hughes) play out over the next few years. As it stands now, this is how the trade worked out:
Cashman punted 2008, a season where Santana almost certainly would have helped them make the playoffs.
He kept Hughes, Chamberlain, Kennedy, and Cabrera and signed the younger Sabathia (though certainly there was a risk that he would not sign) for a contract that was about 20% larger than Santana’s. Hughes and Chamberlain could have possibly netted him Roy Hallady this winter, Melky Cabrera basically got him Javier Vasquez and Ian Kennedy got him half of Curtis Granderson. Meanwhile, Santana is now a pitcher who has lost some velocity, lost some K/9 and had a sore pitching arm for part of this year.
I’m sorry, but I can’t see how anyone can not view the course of action *that has already happened* to monumental evidence that the decision was the right one, with the already stated caveat that the careers of the players involved have yet to develop, so we can’t yet fully judge the decision.
sean mcnally wrote:
Personally, I want them to be in a position where they don’t have to rely on spending a half-billion dollars on three players to fix holes, etc.
That takes the failure option out of that plan – since then you don’t need that plan.
It always makes more sense to have yourself in a position where you have ready resources in your own shop rather than have to rely on outside resources to provide what you need…
Yes, granted, you can have a stud at AAA who is not ready for the prime time and then you fail. But, that’s only if you go cold turkey when you plug him in.
In the perfect setting, you use the Posada approach – work him in without having to rely on him – and then, once he proves he’s ready, you play him full time. That takes 99% of the risk out of it.
By the time the Yankees made Posada the full-time catcher, there was no doubt that he was ready to take over…and no risk of him not being available because he was already under your control.
That’s what I want…I want the team to select good prospects, develop them, give them some exposure without counting on them, and then moving them into holes, once needed, and once they have proven that they’re ready.
To me, that plan has a lot less risk than hoping to sign a free agent when he becomes available two years from now.
Steve Lombardi said:
I completely understand this opinion. Coincidentally to your anecdote, Jorge Posada is my favorite Yankee over the last 15 years or so. You can’t add up his WAR and compare it to his salary and tell me whether or not he was a bargain or expensive throughout his career because the fact that he’s been on the team since he started through now adds a lot of unmeasurable value to me.
But what you’re describing is not a description of how to best run the New York Yankees. The best way to run the New York Yankees is to leverage your assets a best you can. Your assets are payroll flexibility, a low first round draft pick yearly, and a team history and guarantee of yearly competitiveness that draws some free agents to choose your team when all things are equal. Once that context is understood (I choose not to use the phrase ‘agreed upon’ because the context I described is factual) and combined with the mission, the evidence that the team is being run well is clearly there.
I don’t know what it is. But everytime I hear “the Yankees spent half a billion dollars”, it makes my blood boil.
Where were you when they spent 432 million during the 07-08 offseason?
Forgive me if I forget something but, discounting incentives…
2008-2009 offseason
CC – 161
Tex – 180
AJ – 82.5
Andy – 5.5
total – 423.5
2007-2008 offseason
A-Rod – 275
MO – 45
Posada – 52.4
Cano – 30
Andy – 16
total – 432.4
H/T to Cot’s for the info
How come nobody talked about half a billion dollars then?
[20] That phrase irks me also.
If you pay attention to other media outlets, you’ll see the use of numbers in text as nothing more than an inflammatory way to make a statement. Politicians use it a lot. Hundreds of billions of dollars sounds like a lot, but is it a lot when you consider how many people pay taxes? Maybe, maybe not.
The Yankees didn’t spend ‘half a billion dollars’. They spent $423.5 million. Rounding $423.5M to $500M is glossing over $76.5M. To put that in context, that’s the equivalent of Roy Halladay’s 2010 salary, his 3 year extension, with $750,000 left to spare. Using the word billion instead of million is, again, inflammatory.
And with my list, you can plainly see that they were keeping their own (aside from A-Rod, although a case can be made for keeping their “own” in that case too).
Is this what you want Steve? OR, would you like to be like the Marlins and develop the players to play for other teams?
Bottom Line: “half a billion” is “half a billion” no? No matter how you slice it. So who cares where they come from as long as they are chosen with care.
Corey wrote:
they being the players.
jay wrote:
No, it wouldn’t. The problem with the 2008 Yankees was the hitting, not the pitching. Cashman did not punt the 2008 season, injury to Posada and Wang, and sucktitude from Molina, Cano and Cabrera as well as Jeter having an off year torpedoed the 2008 season.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
That is an inaccurate statement. They didn’t have to spend the money, they chose to spend the money.
This is obviously hair splitting and arguing for the sake of arguing.
I’ll rephrase and say that Santana certainly would have been a valuable asset considering the 170 or so innings that ended up going Ponson and Rasner.
The point remains that it does go in the minus column when comparing acquiring Santana and Sabathia – if you chose Santana, you would have had his contribution for 2008.
jay wrote:
Not quite
RS/RA
09: 5.65/4.65
08: 4.87/4.49
07: 5.98/4.80
The pitching wasn’t the problem in 2008, the offense was the problem.
Raf wrote:
If they wanted to win in 2009, based on the crappy pitching and need at 1B they had, they had to spend it – or else not make the playoffs.
Corey wrote:
When you control the player, and extend him, and then end up paying him, it’s not the same as when you have to hope he becomes a free agent from another team and then signs with you. In the former, there’s little risk – because you know the player and are not bidding against 29 other teams. In the latter, you have to first hope he becomes a free agent and then hope he likes your team and offer. And, that’s a gamble.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
They didn’t make the playoffs because Cano, Cabrera and Molina were automatic outs, and Jeter had an off year by his standards.
They made the playoffs with pitching staffs worse than the one in 2008.
Yes, got it. The offense was the problem in 2008. I agree.
But pick your head up from the BR page and read what I am writing. You seem to keep missing it.
When comparing the two strategies – that is, acquiring Santana and acquiring Sabathia – in the offseason going into the 2008 season, one obvious ‘con’ of acquiring Sabathia is that you had to wait one year. If you had chosen Santana, you would have had him in 2008. Had the Yankees scored 175 more runs in 2008, perhaps we’re talking about a team that fell short in the first round of the playoffs because of starting pitching issues.
Or are you trying to argue that it was forseeable that, should Hughes and Kennedy not work out in 2008, and Wang would get injured half way through the season, that the Yankees run prevention would be fine with 200 IP from Sidney Ponson, Darrell Rasner and Dan Giese?
MJ wrote:
amen. cares if he had a plan b or c or d or z. plan a worked. every yankee fan should be happy bout that.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
alot fo the team does come form the farm system. aside from jeter rivera posada and andy, you also have cano, melky, joba, hughes, cervelli, gardner, and much of the bullpen.
Back to Steve’s point: Did they have a Plan B? In 08 everyone expected the Yanks to go get Santana. Not getting Santana and going for CC could be called a Plan B (I’m sure they studied “Plan A” – Santana trade option- very carefully. I’m guessing here of course, but once Santana was discarded, then CC became Plan A. That was their #1 need. Period. They made sure they locked CC up first, right away. That cost a premium, but we were flush, and got the man.
Nailing down Swisher gave us flexibility and a starting 1B so that we were able to lurk while Tex played the market. That plan had it’s own backup – if Tex goes somewhere else, we already have 1B covered inexpensively and we need another OF.
Last season, Burnett became Plan B and Tex a distant Plan C. We almost didn’t get Burnett and probably figured that Wang was good enough to come back. Not getting Tex, we would have needed another OF, not that tough to do, especially with AJax and Gardner in the wings.
Point is, there were lots of options and weapons that resulted in a fluid plan which leveraged all our assets quite effectively. It worked well – very well. I give Cashman credit for such a plan actually having plenty of backup. Players were in the wings. Was there one waiting behind every position? Of course not, no team has that luxury.
For what it’s worth, citing the salaries in the aggregate is blatantly misleading. A single season’s worth is what they spent, the aggregate is what they committed to, barring trades, etc.
@ Steve Lombardi:
theres a risk in every plan a team has in every offseason. look at this offseason granderson is a big risk: what if he doesnt cut down on the K’s, what if he doesnt hit 30 hrs. look at the javy trade: what if hes the same javy from the second half of ’04, what if melky ends up getting better and hits 20 hrs and bats .275 and becomes above avg player, what if they dont sign another of and gardner absolutely sucks in left field and with the bat? theres no move that you can make thats a sure thing. he took a calculated risk and it paid off real well. cashman knows what hes doing theres a reason hes brought 5 WS trophies to new york and its not just the money.
YankCrank wrote:
Well, the Yankees DID get a guy who they didn’t offer up the most money for (I dare not type his name), but I agree.
Brent wrote:
Lol I know who you’re talking about, so please don’t type his name.
steve’s ideal plan is good in theory. but it is totally unrealistic. sure, we’d all like everything to be nice and neat like posada. star prospect, gets fully groomed in the minors, then gets an understudy from a productive veteran at the major league level, before fully taking over and becoming one of the best offensive catchers in baseball history. the problem is posada’s situation is one in a million. if steve’s plan worked, other teams would be successfully employing it. it doesn’t require a ton of money. and having more money doesn’t guarantee you anything in this regard either because prospects/drafting/international free agency are so uncertain. so what the yankees do, as many others are saying in this thread, are using their biggest advantage (money) to sign other team’s posadas. because no team can develop enough from within to consistently dominate the way the yankees do. if they could, you would see them doing it. but show me a team that has come within a galaxy of the yankees’ success in the last 10 years. you can’t do it. that’s because the yankees’ way is a lot better than everybody else’s way. and that’s where yankees fans that take steve’s approach totally lose me. the money is there to spend, they spend it, it’s working, what could possibly be the issue?
also totally off base that the only option to not signing the free agents was missing the playoffs. especially in the thread of a post where steve argues that nobody knows what is going on inside the yankee organization except for those in the organization. maybe they had potential trades as a plan B? but they went with plan A (the free agents) because they were better players and didn’t cost prospects? but plan B would have been good enough to make the playoffs? who knows, there could be a million things. it’s not like the yankees needed cc, aj, and teixeira level production to make the playoffs. they won their division by 8 games and had the wildcard by 16! they could have downgraded at both rotation spots and first base and still made the playoffs. so to say that the alternative to not spending all that money on cc, aj, and teixeira is missing the playoffs is simply inaccurate. there cold have been a million alternative moves that still net them a postseason appearance.
jay wrote:
And that has little to do with Santana being acquired. Especially since the Yanks have made the playoffs with pitchers of lesser caliber than Santana.
Raf wrote:
If i had a penny…
The biggest thing I like about this current team is the mix of home grown veterans and younguns…with the occasional hired merc.
Its been a long time since we’ve had that. I love it when haters talk about all the mercenaries we bring in and then gloat about their studly, young team. (Rays fans) I like saying…uh oh…the Yanks are getting younger too…and smarter.
The Yankee strategy for a long time was to load up on just past their prime DHs and over the hill starters. Jason Giambi is the classic example. He never had with the Yankees quite the year with the bat that he had with the A’s and of course his glove was always suspect. The pitching side is even worse. Randy Johnson, Kevin Brown.
At some point, someone realized that getting high quality pitchers was the way to go. So, the Yankees started developing them and signing them as free agents.
Now, if they can just not sign Jeter to a $100m extension. . . Take a flier on Arnoldis Chapman and five more like him, instead.
jdg wrote:
are you saying you dont want the captain back at all??? and if u are r u insane???????