IS BRIAN CASHMAN THE BIGGEST LOSER?

NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” helps Americans lose weight and gain confidence.  So, everyone on the popular reality show strives to be “The Biggest Loser.”  Yet in baseball, it is a different kind of reality.  Here, it is about gaining weight to your line up, and unfortunately for us Yankee fans, Cashman is coming up too short.  Unfortunately, he is “The Biggest Loser” of the winter and not in a positive sense and frankly, it’s going to show this spring.

According to the article written by Peter Botte published in the New York Daily News (HERE) this week, “Hal Steinbrenner acknowledged Thursday that the Yankees’ off season work is not yet complete, but he doesn’t believe criticism over the team’s perceived lack of inactivity this winter has been warranted.”  

Hal can balk all he wants, but I ain’t seen nothin’ yet, Pal!  He’s not running from the press though like Jeffrey Loria and David Samson like BYB wrote in our post LITTLE WOMEN here.  Hal is out there and Brian is out there, but they just are not performing the big deals. 

I realize the luxury tax is not something to take likely.  According to the article posted this fall on NESN.com, HERE, “In the luxury tax era, baseball is entering a new age of parity, and Cashman has been slow to adapt to the economic realities that even a deep-pocketed team like the Yankees now face.”  And as a result, the Yankees have had to be thrifty.  And yes, we have been losing with this new, cheaper mindset after making too many financial mistakes on overpriced long-term deals. 

Now, it is true, that Cashman is looking for a right-handed outfielder.  It would be a great feat if we could get a young, bright star to replace the arrogant smiling Nick Swisher.  Michael Morse could have been a viable candidate, but we couldn't close the deal. Disappointing.  Read  ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL. MICHAEL MORSE TO SEATTLE for BYB's take.

Our rapid rise to jumping too fast has now hurt us as we move into the future.  We ate too many sweets and now we need to go on a diet.  Terribly, this diet has very little flexibility and Cashman knows it.

According to sources within the Yankee organization, as stated in the CBS Sports article Scott Boras: Yankees won’t let Brian Cashman spend money, “the reason Cashman didn't make offers was because there were no players he wanted to make offers to in this market. Another official told the newspaper confirmed that Cashman was under tighter control over spending than in the past.”

However the facts are clear, too many big contracts over the years have rendered the Yankees organization relatively ineffective as far as ramping up its 2013 team.  And now it’s time for us to be lean.  It’s time for us to be more selective.  But in order to remain competitive in today’s game, we have to spend so we don’t get voted off the biggest reality show airing this fall- The World Series.  Let’s go Brian, do your best with what you have but do us a favor, get us some more players so we can be in it at the end.

--Suzie Pinstripe, BYB Opinion Columnist
Twitter: @suzieprof




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