Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird and Aaron Judge have yet to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame, but in the view of some, maybe many New York baseball writers and columnists, as well as Yankees fans, Brian Cashman himself should be elevated to the corridors of Cooperstown.
Cashman, in his 20th year as the team’s general manager, is receiving accolades for his plan to turn around the Yankees, who have played (and lost) one post-season game in the past four years despite a payroll expenditure of $904,000,000. The Yankees’ four-year total was exceeded only by the $1,093,000,000 the Los Angeles Dodgers spent on players’ contracts.
The Dodgers, however, at least got something for their money – four division titles. They also won more games than anyone but St. Louis, 369 to the Cardinals’ 373. They didn’t win any prizes for that achievement, but the Yankees averaged 7 fewer wins a year and got nothing for their mediocrity but disdain from their fans.
Cashman, competing on an uneven playing field with his fellow American League general managers, deserves nothing better than disdain, though he really deserves to be fired. Under other circumstances he would have been long ago.
But Hal Steinbrenner is not his late father, who would not have tolerated Cashman’s squandering all that money. Spend it and win, OK, the elder Steinbrenner believed. Spend it and lose? The exit is that way.
Actually, it wasn’t about money. George just didn’t like to lose, whatever he was spending, and Cashman would have been gone with George in charge.
The younger Steinbrenner, though, is determined to be the opposite of his father. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Cashman seems to have a job for life no matter how poorly he performs, and he has performed poorly.
Cashman, who typically didn’t return telephone calls seeking comment, is additionally protected by the New York media corps. He has been around so long and has built such a relationship with the writers that he is apparently immune from criticism or even critical scrutiny.
As a result of these various factors, Cashman conducts his business in a Teflon cocoon and he doesn’t take criticism well. It’s as if he’s too good to be criticized.
The last time I talked to Cashman, in February 2015, he was aware I had written a column suggesting the Yankees needed a new body at his desk at Yankee Stadium, and he responded gruffly. “Why are you bothering calling me?” he barked. “Lose the number. Write your shit.”
His supporters can point to the World Series the Yankees have won with Cashman as general manager and make a good argument in his defense. They won it in 1998, ’99 and 2000 and then again in 2009. The first three, though, represented a carryover success from Gene Michael’s work in the early 1990s and Bob Watson’s World Series-winning team of 1996. Cashman’s fingerprints were not too noticeable on those teams.
The irony of that era was the fact that Cashman was not responsible for the nucleus of the players who were instrumental in the Yankees’ success but rather it was another long-time general manager who played a key role in their presence in the Yankees’ lineup.
Brian Sabean wasn’t on hand for the Watson-Cashman festivities, but as the Yankees’ vice president for scouting and player development he was instrumental in the scouting and signing of the core four – Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Andy Pettitte.
Sabean subsequently left for San Francisco, where as general manager of the Giants he produced World Series championships in 2010, ’12 and ’14. In gaining those titles, Sabean spent far less on player payroll than the Yankees did in gaining a wild-card berth in the playoffs and a division title.
In those three years, the Yankees’ payrolls totaled $670 million, the Giants’ payrolls $401 million.
It’s not all about money, but the Yankees have it and largely squander it while other teams spend with greater restraint and some win nevertheless.
Except for the post-Watson World Series championships, Cashman has not matched what Billy Beane did in Oakland or Terry Ryan in Minnesota, let alone Sabean in San Francisco.
Yet Cashman is exempt from question or criticism.
As an example of the free ride Cashman gets in New York, The New York Times recently ran a 2,300-word piece headlined “Can This Man Revive the Yankees?” Readers can find nary a negative word about Cashman’s 20-year tenure.
“Cashman wants the Yankees to stand out again,” Tyler Kepner writes 150 words into the article. But he never questions Cashman decisions or moves that stopped the Yankees from standing out.
Has Cashman made any questionable decisions in the past four years that have put the Yankees in this position? Readers don’t get any hint of that from Kepner’s Cashman-boosting piece.
Kepner also quotes Cashman as saying, “We’ve been brought down — some of it by decisions we’ve made that haven’t worked out, and some of it by market constraints,” he said. “Now we’re going through that process of cleansing, and we’re bringing ourselves back up.”
However, Kepner gives no indication that he asked Cashman to talk about the bad decisions to which he referred. Is Kepner, the chief baseball writer for a newspaper that has abandoned the coverage of baseball, trying to protect the general manager from himself, or does he not know how to ask questions that might elicit revealing answers that Times readers might like to know?
Kepner also avoids asking another relevant question. This may be his most egregious journalistic sin. This one stems from his blatant failure to ask a question in response to Cashman’s comment about the Yankees’ minor league system.
“Even so,” Kepner writes, “the Yankees’ farm system — fortified by the additions of Gleyber Torres, Clint Frazier, Justus Sheffield and Dillon Tate — now ranks second in overall talent, according to Baseball America. There are no banners for that, either, but the Yankees finally seem committed to cultivating the kind of low-cost, high-impact talent base that will allow them to spend lavishly on free agents again.”
Where is Cashman’s answer to the question about why the team’s farm system was so dreadful for years and years? Oh, that’s right. The Times’ chief baseball writer didn’t ask it, and his editors apparently didn’t ask him why he didn‘t ask it and didn’t tell him to go back to Cashman and ask that question and others that he missed.
Now that the Times doesn’t cover baseball news, do the editors even read baseball stories, or are they too busy with stories about croquet and cricket and cup-stacking?
As for the Yankees’ futile farm system, the explanation they always give is they don’t draft high enough to get the best players. But that’s a lame excuse. The answer, I believe, is the lame executive who ran the scouting and development department, Mark Newman. He finally retired or was invited to retire following the 2013 season.
Cashman, however, has to share the blame because Newman’s tenure basically matched Cashman’s as general manager, and Cashman could have made a change at any time but didn’t, letting Newman remain his position until after the 2013 season.
Perhaps Hal Steinbrenner should take a hint from Cashman’s tolerance of Newman in dealing with Cashman, but it’s very unlikely he will.
Maybe Steinbrenner will just let Cashman’s contract expire at the end of the season and not renew it. That’s what Cashman did with Joe Torre when his managerial contract expired at the end of the 2007 season and Cashman wanted a new manager.
If this were a Shakespeare play, that would be a fitting turn of events. We might even be able to make a case for Hal playing the role of Hamlet, the melancholy Dane.
Let’s not forget Cashman’s Hall of Famers-in-waiting. Through the first two weeks of the season, Judge was leading the team with 3 home runs and 7 runs batted in but hitting .242; Sanchez was on the disabled list with a sore bicep and a .150 average and Bird had 1 hit and 13 strikeouts in 26 at-bats.
LOST ART: THROWING STRIKES
In all the years I have watched and covered baseball, one aspect of the game has befuddled me more than most others: Why can’t major league pitchers throw strikes?
This question has come to all too vivid life this season, and I will cite two examples. I’m sure I could find many more, but I watched these two and they will suffice for now. It’s a subject I may deal with more as the season progresses.
On Saturday, a St. Louis starting pitcher threw 58 pitches in the first two innings, walking six New York Yankees’ batters. He also struck out six in those two innings, but those strikeouts just elevated his pitch count more.
Carlos Martinez, a 25-year-old right-hander, pitched 5 1/3 inning over-all, throwing an additional 60 pitches and incurring a 3-2 loss to the Yankees. Among his 118 pitches he threw 71 strikes and 47 balls, not a major league ratio.
Robert Gsellman threw 97 pitches in 4 2/3 against Miami. Gsellman, a Mets’ 23-year-old right-hander, threw 55 strikes and 42 balls, not a recommended ratio for winning. He allowed 8 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks.