Who said the New York Yankees couldn’t win as long as Brian Cashman is their general manager?
It seems to me that I might have said something like that in questioning why the Yankees continue to retain Cashman when he would have been fired long ago if George Steinbrenner were still running the team. However, Hal Steinbrenner, who is running the team, is a different boss, and he seems to be intent on being the anti-George.
That change has benefited Cashman, and the Yankees have unexpectedly played the first third of the season in a way that is also beneficial to Cashman.
The Yankees were not expected to play as well as they have. A month ago one odds maker, Bovada of Las Vegas, had the Yankees with 16 to 1 odds for winning the World Series. Six teams, headed by the Chicago Cubs at 4 to 1, had better odds.
In the latest listing, that same odds maker upgraded the Yankees from 8 to 1 to 6 to 1 to win the American League pennant and from 13 to 5 to 7 to 5 to win the American League East title while downgrading Boston from 5 to 7 to 5 to 4.
I am not an expert on gambling odds and have never cited them. But I use them here to show the positive impression the Yankees have made with their first third 32-21 record, second best in the league to Houston’s 40-16 before Sunday’s games.
The Yankees haven’t won or qualified for anything yet, and they could still wind up in the same position they have found themselves in the past four years, but if I’m going to criticize Cashman, as I have, for the Yankees’ recent failures (one playoff game in four years despite having the league’s highest payrolls by gazillion millions), I have to give him credit for the younger team he has assembled this season.
If he had added Aaron Judge and not Gary Sanchez, it would have been sufficient. If he had added Judge and Sanchez but not Starlin Castro, it would have been sufficient. If he had added Judge, Sanchez and Castro but not Didi Gregorius, it would have been sufficient. If he had added Judge, Sanchez, Castro and Gregorius but not Hicks, it would have been sufficient.
But Cashman has built a young foundation that could keep the Yankees contending for years.
“We have a young nucleus,” Gene Michael said last Friday on the telephone from Tampa, Fla. “Gleyber Torres is a good young player. He was player of the year in the Arizona Fall League. We have good young arms. A few years ago we didn’t have that. We have more arms and more players than we had in the past. We have a nice nucleus.”
Michael, who as general manager during Steinbrenner’s suspension in the early 1990s changed the Yankees’ approach to young players, is the team’s senior vice president and special adviser. When the Yankees get a good player, especially a good young player, I automatically give Michael credit. However, he declined credit for the current development.
“Tim Naehring is one of our top scouts,” Michael said, referring to the former major league infielder who is vice president of baseball operations. “He’s very influential with Brian. He should be because I think he’s good.”
Cashman welcomed Michael’s input and now Naehring’s because he has no background as a talent evaluator. Naehring has also been instrumental in filling the Yankees’ minor league system with talented young players.
Previously, a major criticism of Cashman was his barren farm system. He brought the criticism on himself by retaining Mark Newman as overseer of the system for 15 years. Naehring has basically replaced Newman, and changes are noticeable.
“What maybe has changed,” Naehring said in a telephone interview, “is if you’re good enough to play in a Yankee uniform and you’re coming up through our system, you’re going to get a chance to play in New York. I think often times in the past minor league players thought they were auditioning for someone else because they felt they were never going to get a chance to play for the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. That culture is gone now. Guys see players going to New York and getting an opportunity and that’s a very, very good thing that Brian’s been able to establish.”
The development begs the question: Cashman has been the general manager for 20 years; what took him so long to figure out how he could set up the new plan? Furthermore, he became general manager not long after Michael held the job and initially changed the culture by showing George Steinbrenner the Yankees could retain their good young players and win.
The proof was the Core Four plus One: Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Bernie Williams.
The second coming of that group could be maturing now, beginning with the 25-year-old Judge, who has burst onto the baseball landscape with eye-popping production.
Entering Sunday’s games, he was leading the American League with 18 home runs and 43 runs scored, was second in slugging with a .691 percentage, second in OPS (slugging plus on-base) with 1.124, second in total bases with 125, tied for third in runs batted in with 41, sixth in batting with a .326 average, tied for second in walks with 32.
The Yankees landed the 6-foot-7, 282-pound right fielder as the 32nd player selected in the 2013 draft.
“I didn’t see him in Triple A,” Michael said, referring to Judge’s second and third minor league seasons. “I had a good report on him in Double A. I think we all liked him. I liked him as much as anybody or more. He is the strongest hitter I’ve ever seen. He’s athletic, too.
“The other day he took a step in and the ball went over his head. He didn’t catch up to the ball. That’s unusual. He reads the ball off the bat as well as any young player. And he’s a big guy. But he gets good jumps on the ball. He’s very athletic. I loved Dave Winfield, but he gets better jumps on the ball than Winfield. Winfield could outrun him from first to home, but this guy’s no slouch. He runs well. He runs average to 55, which is a touch above.
“From home plate he doesn’t get to first base as maybe a 55 runner, but he’s almost average. In the outfield I think he has really good judgment and he takes good routes to the ball. He’s athletic. He’s very coordinated. His hands are good. His eyes are good. He has no trouble seeing the ball, no trouble catching the ball when he’s running. He’s smooth.”
And of course Judge hits. He hits the ball so hard you don’t need Statcast, an M.L.B. gimmick, to tell you how hard. Just think Winfield and Gary Sheffield.
Judge, however, isn’t the only gem in Cashman’s jewel box.
Didi Gregorius is in there, having been acquired from Arizona in a three-team trade in December 2014. Gregorius hit .226 for Arizona in ’14, then .265 and .276 for the Yankees as their starting shortstop. This year, however, he is hitting .307.
“I saw video of him, and I liked the way he handled himself in the field and he had a strong arm,” Michael said. “At the time it looked like he might hit left-handers. He was having trouble with them, but he didn’t come off the ball. The last year and a half he’s hit them better than right-handers. That’s very unusual. The one thing we worried about was the guy who replaced Jeter was going to be under quite a lot of pressure so that tells you something about Didi being able to handle that.”
Aaron Hicks has been a huge surprise, hitting .321 with .434 on-base, .582 slugging and 1.016 OPS after hitting .217 last season following his acquisition from Minnesota.
“I didn‘t have anything to do with it,” Michael acknowledged. “But he’s a good player. He came into his own this year. He’s been a really good player for us. Hopefully he can keep it up.”
One young player not seen much of is 24-year-old Greg Bird, who was supposed to be the Yankees’ first baseman. He missed all of last season following shoulder surgery and this season has been on the disabled list for a month with a bruised ankle and a .100 batting average (6-for-60).
Bird, Michael said, “is one of the good working young players in our organization. But he got off to a bad start and he had that injury. But he should become a good hitter. He has good mechanics. I couldn’t say enough for him. When we were getting ready to leave spring training, he was our best hitter. He was our best hitter two years ago. Then he got hurt and he was out for a year. This year he got off to a terrible start with a shin injury. I still think he has a bright future.”
Not everyone in Cashman’s jewel box has been a gem. He signed Chris Carter as a free agent for a cheap $3.5 million deal, and the man who last year tied for the National League home run title with 41 has hit only 4 homers this season, is batting .180 and has struck out 48 times in 111 times at bat. Some gems just turn out to be glass.