2011, brian cashman, Yankees

Brian Cashman Overruled- Stat Heads Defend Cashman

The new breed of Yankees fan doesn’t want the Yankees organization to repeat the mistakes of King George I from the 1980′s. These Stat Heads love the fact that Brian Cashman is a cold mother fo’ who values the Gospel of [Bill] James. With an inside source revealing that Hal and Hank Steinbrenner overruled Brian Cashman’s firm stance not to sign free agent Rafael Soriano, these Stat Heads are up and arms protesting the Soriano deal. They do it in a most condescending and mocking manner as well. To put it simply, they say that anyone who agrees with the Soriano signing is short-sighted and ignorant.

Yes my friends, we live in an era where Brian Cashman is actually idolized by a very large segment of baseball fans. These fans also bought Cashman’s load of BS when he claimed he had full control over the Yankees. Cashman has egg all over his face now. And I love it. BRIAN CASHMAN GOT OVERRULED. THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS TO MIDDLE-MANAGERS. Too bad, chump!

I’m not a fan of Cashman. I’ll be honest with you, before he let Bernie Williams go, I was ambivalent to the man. Joe Torre’s book shed all the light I needed to know to form my opinion on him. Buster Olney’s fantastic Yankees dynasty book showed that Cashman had little influence on building the 1990′s super-power teams (Gene Michael deserves the bulk of that, along with Buck Showalter and even “lame duck” GM Bob Watson). My family never liked Cashman because he looked weak and worried all the time, and many times back in the day he looked like a lame duck. I did admire his ability to pull off great trades that no one could have predicted. Other than the occasional great trade, his other moves were frustrating: Brian Cashman’s Worst Moves.

So I was very pleased to read the gossip that he was in fact overruled. To date he has been in hiding, but will probably attempt to spin it so it was ultimately his decision when he comes out of his cave. Yeah, right.

Look, I hated The Boss’s style. I never thought I’d support the Steinbrenner brothers making a command decision. But Cashman’s “preaching patience” was skewed this offseason. All the Yanks lose is a 31st round draft pick. It is unfortunate, but Pedro Feliciano alone does not make the Yanks that much better.  The money should not be a concern to baseball fans (wake up).

Cashman was pitching Joba Chamberlain and Dave Robertson as set-up men to Hal Steinbrenner. They weren’t buying, just like true Yankees fans would not be sold on those two setting up Mariano Rivera. When you consider that Mo is fragile and should not be overworked, the fact is Joba and Robertson are too wild and inconsistent to fulfill the closer role in 2011. Soriano could at least spot-close if Mo needs rest.

Stat Heads had undervalued bullpens ever since Bill James preached that relief pitchers are pretty much interchangeable and their lack of innings makes them much like pinch hitters. Yes, James did discuss the importance of a relief ace, but the main point is that relief pitchers have a minimal effect on the number of wins and losses when you look at runs scored and runs allowed. James even disregards the important of platoon pitchers (lefty-specialists like Feliciano are mocked by stat heads).

I watch baseball day-to-day and there is a real and tangible benefit of having a knockout bullpen: the game gets shortened so a team that is leading after the 6th inning with superior bullpen can nail down the win. Very obvious examples include the the 1990 Reds, 1996 Yankees, and the 2002 Angels. Of course, it is assumed that the team can score some runs and has starters that won’t allow 6 runs in 2 innings.

The new breed of Yankees fans is anti-union, anti-player, and pro-Cashman, and pro-Moneyball.

Well, I believe the Yankees have to try and win the World Series EVERY YEAR. All the players know this and push for this. Brian Cashman just wants to roll the dice because he has accepted the Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane’s stance that the post-season is a crapshoot. Cashman was not visibly upset last year, and considered it a good season. Well, the way the pitching staff fell apart in September/October and how the hitters became unclutch in Texas is not acceptable to me, and it wasn’t acceptable to many old school fans. The Rangers series sucked @$$ and was an embarrassment to New York.

Going into the post-season, the Yankees needed to add 1-2 starters, a lefty specialist since Boone Logan isn’t enough, a right-handed bullpen professional, and perhaps two professional bench-players (infield + outfield/DH). Perhaps a major unpredictable trade could have been made.

Anyway, here is a selection of comments of what the Stat Heads are saying about the latest news about Cashman being overruled (which I had already assumed when I wrote my Soriano article and made the Soriano podcast):

‘We need Rafael Soriano’ from Hank/Hal is a different level of this sort of shit and is much, much scarier to me.

…they could have improved their chances of winning just as much by adding a backup IF like Willy Aybar or a backup OF like Scott Hairston, and it wouldn’t have cost them a draft pick and $36M to do it.

I thought Hal was supposed to be the calm and collective brother.  Michael, to Hank’s Sonny.

Fredo and Sonny. There is no Michael in this scenario.

…it’s really never a good idea to give a player leverage, like they did with Soriano. That’s why Cash is the GM, not Levine or anyone else.

I have said many times that a CFO cannot be in charge of running the business. They covet the beans too much and they can’t see the big picture.

Easy story to make up, since it can’t be proven. Maybe Cashman knew all along that he wanted Soriano, and made the statement to drive the price down.

While the Yanks spend their #1 pick paying a set-up reliever, the Rays and Red Sox are BOTH stockpiling picks in the part of the draft.

Cashman wants to build for the future and protecting his draft picks is part of that. I am told the coming draft is a really good one, so having picks is a valuable thing. Cashman can’t win in this town.

It’s very, very bad for ownership to be overruling the GM.

The Yankees could have drafted a good ball player.

the only people who approve of this move seem to be the Steinbrenners

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