BEFORE YOU BLAME CASHMAN, READ THIS

The Wall Street Journal (HERE) had a brilliant piece about Brian Cashman and his inability to make offers to players.  According to the Journal, it had nothing to do with Cashman and everything to do with Yankee brass. It's very interesting and here is a large portion of the Journal's piece:

"The situation was first brought to light by agent Scott Boras, who quietly suggested Wednesday that Cashman lacked the power to make offers.

'He had indicated that right now, he’s working with ownership on getting advance authority. He really is not involved in a lot of dealing right now, but is doing due diligence to go back and meet with them about that,' Boras said Wednesday.

On Thursday, people within the Yankees organization confirmed that this was in fact true: Cashman arrived in Nashville unable to make offers to players, and without that power, targets like Jeff Keppinger and Eric Chavez took deals elsewhere.

The Yankee general manager went back to ownership and made his case, and Cashman was allowed to move forward with offers – the Yankees made a one-year, $12 million offer to third baseman Kevin Youkilis Thursday morning.

Another Yankee official downplayed the seriousness of the situation, saying that most general managers would have to go back to ownership to vet potential deals.

'What does Scott Boras know? Are you kidding me?' the official said, arguing that Boras is trying to stir things up because he lacks good markets for his players. 'The only reason that Cash didn’t have the authority at that point, if you want to use the word authority, is that he wasn’t making any offers, there was nobody out there that he thought, at these prices, that he should make offers on.'

But another official confirmed that this represents a departure for the Yankees, who have given Cashman more authority in the past.

The Yankees are working to get under a $189 million payroll ceiling by 2014, but it was not clear until recently how much that frugality would affect the 2013 payroll as well. Combined with the significant money other teams are spending in free agency, the Yankees have been on the outside looking in so far this winter."

A few thoughts here from my perspective.  I'm no fan of Scott Boras and I happen to agree with that Yankee official that Boras was stirring it up.  It's ridiculous.  Secondly, I knew something was up.  Brian Cashman is a smart General Manager and I knew that something didn't make sense if the Yankees didn't "pursue" Eric Chavez for $3 million and then offered Kevin Youkilis $12 million.  It didn't jive.

I'm curious what happens next...

Excellent piece and Kudos to the Wall Street Journal

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