Remember how everyone regarded Brian Cashman after he failed to sign Cliff Lee and revealed that his glorious backup plan was "patience"? Anywhere in the news, where you saw the word "Yankees" on the Internet, there was bound to be a plethora of comments along the lines of "FIRE CASHMAN!" following the article. I know BYB was critical of Cashman too, but it was a temporary upsetting feeling and that has long since disappeared.
Well it's true, Brian Cashman failed to sign Target #1 and then made literally no attempt whatsoever to try and compensate by say, keeping Crawford interested in the meantime which many people cried out for him to do. But let's take a quick look at what Cashman did do this offseason besides failing to sign Cliff Lee:
- Signed Russell Martin
- Signed Bartolo Colon out of the bargain bin
- Signed Freddy Garcia out of the bargain bin as well
- Signed Luis Ayala... also out of the bargain bin
- Publicly spoke out against signing Rafael Soriano to a monster contract
- Refused to pursue Carl Crawford
- Refused to overpay someone like Jeff Francis to be a #5 guy
- Fired Dave Eiland and hired Larry Rothschild as the new pitching coach
- Vehemently refused to rush up minor league prospects
- Traded Sergio Mitre for Chris Dickerson (Casey's favorite, although i think he misses him)
- Signed Pedro Feliciano
- Signed Andruw Jones
Let's get the obvious part out of the way: Muscle (my submission for Martin's new nickname byh the way), Big Bart, and Freddy Garcia have been God sends. Bart and Freddy have both thrown far more gems than bad games and have maintained ERA's below 4.
(photo: Getty)Muscle has been one of the Yankees most productive hitters, especially if you ignore his brief slump that dropped his average down to .250 before rocketing back up. His .275 batting average and 9 home runs is exceptional by any standard. Perhaps, most importantly, is how well he's handled the pitching staff, he's made
AJ Burnett look like a straight up ace for the most part and has been a great guiding light in keeping Nova on track.
(Read
WHY THERE'S AN ACE FACTOR for more on this.) Sure there are guys like CC, Freddy, and Colon who don't really need much help from the catcher, but even they throw the occasional wild pitch or get run on, and when those things happen, Russell is always there to block the ball or throw out the runner.
Andruw Jones was always intended to be a utility player with the Yankees. Yesterday, against the Blue Jays, he proved to everyone why he needs to be in the Yankees lineup more. 3 hits, 2 homers and 4 RBI's. Talk about delivering, that's what we need from Andruw once in a while. Casey wrote about Andruw Jones back in February in a piece titled
WHY JONES WILL SUCCEED. In it, he says that the Yankees need to keep Jones moving and not to keep his bat idol, because that can lead to ineffectiveness. Maybe he's onto something.
Another great pickup is Luis Ayala, who Jesse Schindler recently wrote about in a great piece titled
WHY AYALA IS A SECRET WEAPON. He may not jump out at anyone, few long relief pitchers do, but his ERA is a team 2nd best AT 1.50 (barely behind Robertson's phenomenal 1.47 ERA). From the second I saw him throwing in Spring Training, I knew he was good pick up. The guy knows how to pitch out of a jam, and his stuff is pretty nasty. He's 1-0 and has yet to blow a game outright, more than you can say about Rafael Soriano.
(photo: Getty)Speaking of RaSo, how big do you think Cashman's now permanently formed grin is, and how badly do you think he wants to just run down the street yelling "
I TOLD YOU SO!"? Soriano got off to a poor start and is now facing not days or weeks on the DL, but months, even a full season. Of all the offseason moves the Yankees made, the only one Cashman opposed is the one that isn't panning out. I'm not gonna stand here and lie: I was a HUGE supporter of the Soriano signing. I thought it'd give the Yankees an unstoppable bullpen, and theoretically it should. But Cashman knows something I don't, he knows that $35 million/3 years is simply absurd for a guy who can barely handle New York yet. I'm sure Soriano will come back at some point and be very effective, but even so, Cashman will have been right all along simply because of the bad start and injury.
I also mentioned, his refusal to sign for Crawford for this reason: Crawford has played horribly for the evil Red Sox, and they owe him gobs of money for 7 years. Looks like Cashman dodged a bad pickup by letting the Sox have him.
Then again Swisher hasn't exactly been productive, but you know what Cashman did in case something like this happened? He traded away the often hated Sergio Mitre for Chris Dickerson, who has done far more than expected in Swisher's place while Swish works out the kinks. He's a center fielder by trade, and therefore an excellent fielder, and has been clubbing at the plate (.333 BA, .429 OBP, .845 OPS). Looks like Cash dodged another bullet.
I don't think I even need to mention Rothschild too much, he's one of the best pitching coaches in the business and has done an excellent job, which in addition to giving the Yankees a surprisingly formidable rotation has insured that Banuelos and Betances will be given adequate time to develop rather than either be hastily traded away or brought up too young.
The only guy of Cashman's ideas that haven't really worked out is Pedro Feliciano. Feliciano was his only option for a lefty reliever, so he went for it, even if he thought there was a good chance he would hurt himself.
Cashman did all this, for what? $10 million all together, not counting Soriano because he opposed it. That's amazing. Cliff Lee alone is costing the Phillies an average of $24 million over 5 years and Carl Crawford is running the Sox $20 million a year over 7. Each individual signing Cashman made for the Yankees has been more beneficial to the team than either of those $20 million men and each one of them cost about twice as much as all of the Yankees' offseason signings put together. He managed to patch up practically all the holes in an already exceptional team by spending even less money than the Padres might spend in a big year.
Either Cashman is the luckiest man alive, or he's a genius. Either way, there's certainly no reason to fire him. How about an extension Hal?
--Grant Cederquist, BYB Staff Writer
Please comment and let me know what you think and follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and join the group Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook, just type it in.
Here's a little nugget that will tick you off as much as it did me. It involves Joe Girardi. Big surprise.
This was in today's Bergen Record. It literally was a small blurb called Talking Points in the sports section. I read it and looked at my watch and realized it was Sunday. The running mistake happened Friday night. You're going to tell me as a manager of one of the top teams in all of sports, you hadn't gotten around to "chatting" about the error? Are you serious? Look, I'm not saying you shame Nunez, I'm saying you let him know he blew it and make it clear it cannot happen again. Scare the crap out of the kid... do something. That annoyed me and I had to get that off my chest.
