Paper Cup Cashman
Strong words from Steve Goldman today –
One of a general manager’s chief responsibilities is creating value where none exists. That is, “One of a general manager’s chief responsibilities, at least where 29 major league teams are concerned, is creating value where none exists.” If you want to know why the Yankees are willing to let Brian Cashman do a Batman impression down the side of buildings and go plummeting out of airplanes, it’s for this reason — the way he approaches his job, the way they insist on him approaching his job, means he’s entirely dispensable.
In largely relying on other team’s veteran products, the Yankees have a longstanding tradition of foregoing doing their own player analysis in favor of that of other organizations. Why gamble on your own prospects when the Detroit Tigers have scouted, signed, developed, and played Curtis Granderson to the point that he is incontrovertibly a major-league player? Why pray that your own unrefined hurler can add a changeup to his fastball/curveball arsenal when the Dodgers have shown that Hiroki Kuroda is a more-than finished product? The Yankees are in the business of certainty, hence the big disbursements to veteran free agents and, from time to time, Carl Pavano-sized disappointments, because putting your faith in an old man isn’t any more of a sure thing than putting it in a kid, just more expensive. If the Yankees had an executive and a baseball operations department whose judgment mattered, it might be different.
That the team has no faith in its own valuations is demonstrated by the team’s pathetic outreach to the retired All-Star Derrek Lee. Lee has officially told the Yankees he’s staying home. The Yankees should consider themselves lucky to have been spared this particular flight of fancy given that Lee had been idle since September 28, 2011 and hadn’t played well since 2009.
…entirely dispensable…
Well said.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/05/sports/on-baseball-lest-we-forget-steinbrenner-lurks-behind-the-euphoria.html?src=pm
Entirely dispensable: along with every other player, manager, coach and front office person and ball boy in major league baseball.
Meanwhile, this Goldman drivel ignores the fact that even though he is entirely dispensable (of course he is, along with every other professional) the Yankees organization keeps re-hiring him, and the team has made the playoffs in every year of his tenure except 2008.
Goooood Gawwwd, Steve. I thought that I was in a sour mood because of billionaire cheapness. Unless Hal knows to a “certainty” that the world economy is on the brink of collapse, or that he’s shopping the team, I can’t understand what in the hell the organization is trying to do. And in this thread, I sound like “Mr. Bluebird”
I think I have said once or twice before that the Yanks have made these types of decisions because they want certainly, and that the drive for certainty brings with it errors of a different kind and, even more so, gross inefficiencies.
If that’s what Goldman’s talking about here, I agree.
If he’s blaming Cashman for the organization’s stance going back to the days of Gabe Paul, then that’s silly.
Greg H. wrote:
Some general managers are more dispensible than others, despite the facts that an organization might re-hire him and the franchise consistently performs in the regular season at the Major League level.
How could someone with this command of language and judgment be dispensible: “[W]ould I go younger to make us worse, and forgo better choices that are older that make us better? No… In theory, I want us to get younger and better, but in reality, that’s not always realistic…?”
Raf wrote:
And Hitchock was traded with Russ Davis to Seattle for three players named Tino Martinez, Jeff Nelson, and Jim Mecir by G.M. Stick Michael – a trade Cashman has not surpassed in 15 years, “salary dump” or otherwise.