Will Leitch penned a piece in New York magazine about Brian Cashman. Leitch started with the basic history of Cashman as a Yankee intern and his rise to GM, and all the proverbial bells and whistles that come along with that title. Overall, it’s a well written article while there’s nothing glaringly positive or negative about it. There are just a few lines upon which I wanted to hit.
You don’t make it that far in a business as chaotic and cutthroat as the Yankees without fighting, and winning, some wars.
This is something we need to be reminded of no matter what GM we talk about, no matter what organization we talk about. The GM fights a lot of battles over a lot of players, over a lot of personnel. We often get the impression that being the General Manager of the New York Yankees is an easy thing. After all, the Yankees have such deep pockets. All Cash has to do is ask the Steinbrenners for money and his wish will come true. We don’t get to see the inner-workings. We don’t get to see those fights Cash has with ownership. The Rafael Soriano incident over the winter was a rare glimpse at what happens when evaluators and ownership disagree. We haven’t gotten to see many other things like that, which is probably a good thing. Despite the potential for a rift in the organization, it was somewhat thrilling to see what happened in regards to Soriano. Selfishly, it showed us that Cashman or ownership was on “our” side–either the side that thought it silly to spend so much on a relief pitcher for so many years, even with opt outs or the side that thought signing Soriano could help mitigate the seemingly mediocre starting rotation. Non-selfishly, we finally got the briefest of peaks at the inside of the New York Yankees.
The publication of Moneyball eight years ago changed the way the public thinks about baseball, statistics, business, and Michael Lewis. Within the world of baseball, it created the cult of the general manager.
Leitch expands on this a bit and I’d like to, as well. Maybe it’s just ’cause I’m paying attention more than I ever have but when I was young, I don’t ever remember hearing who a team’s general manager was, let alone as much as we hear about GMs these days. We know them and their moves just as well as we know the players they sign and trade for and how those players perform. We project payroll, and muse about future moves that could be made to improve the team just as much as we muse about players and how we think they’ll perform. I wonder if, in this “post-Moneyball world”, if we’ll ever go back to the relative anonymity of GMs. With the way baseball information travels nowadays, I highly doubt that.
There is one thing that I’m not a fan of in this article:
Sad to say, though, the Yankees are the Yankees: Overpaying for expensive older free agents is their birthright. Cashman can construct a smart roster all he wants, but when the guys with the purse strings want to buy a player, who is the G.M. to say no? Why would he want to? It’s not his money.
Why would he want to say no to a certain player? Well, it makes me think that he actually cares about the team he’s constructing. Obviously, the players and their play on the field reflect on Cashman and his way of building a team. Maybe it’s selfish and he wants people to realize that he’s a good GM, but it shows that, at the least, he cares in some way.
We’d all punch an infant or three to get just a shot at having Brian Cashman’s job, but it’s at least partially thankless. He’s ridiculed when he makes bad moves, then sometimes gets minimal credit when he makes a good move. It’s not quite the rock-and-a-hard-place that most people go through every day, but it’s gotta great on him at some point. For what (little) it’s worth, I think Mr. Cashman does a fantastic job of handling the stress of his office.
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14 Responses to Riffing on Cashman a Bit
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TIQ IQ
(nods head in agreement)
Leitch knows less about the inner workings of the Yankees than he thinks he knows about the “cutthroat” inner workings of the St.Louis Cardinals. This is not reporting as much as it’s simply the perpetuation of the politically correct stereotype of the Yankees as somehow different from the way other teams do their business. Tell that to Walt Jocketty.
Hear! Hear!
In re Soriano: I still think an owner signing Soriano was a good thing-Cashman wasn’t the one to push the payroll that much higher, and I imagine he still has close to the same amount he had before Soriano was signed. The BP became lights out, and Cash still can spend on a trading deadline arm if the rotation is still bad in July.
As an aside, several GMs got a lot of press in the 70s-even some non-Yankee ones. I think writers seem to focus on things as a group, like a flock of birds all turning at the same time.
Obviosuly you’re wrong because Cashman sucks and Epstien is a genius/best GM ever… ESPN told me so.
“The BP became lights out”
We should probably wait and see before we assume that. Relief pitching being so volatile from year to year, it’s hard for me to believe that Soriano, Feliciano and Logan will be as effective in 2011 as they were in 2010.
Some of their ineffectiveness may be mitigated by improvements from Chamberlain and Robertson but, even there, it’s by no means a sure thing.
I understand that middle relief from year to year is extremely volatile and from year to year the same guy can’t be counted on, this however doesn’t apply to Soriano, he is not a middle reliever and he has been a proven closer capable pitcher everywhere he has ever been.
2003- 53 IP, 11.55 K/9, 2.04 BB/9, 1.53 ERA, 1.80 FIP, 2.63 xFIP, 1.6 WAR
2006- 60 IP, 9.75 K/9, 3.15 BB/9, 2.25 ERA, 3.43 ERA, 4.00 FIP, 1.1 WAR
2007- 72 IP, 8.75 K/99, 1.88 BB/9, 3.00 ERA, 4.17 FIP, 3.80 xFIP, 0.4 WAR
2009- 75.2 IP, 12.13 K/9, 3.21 BB/9, 2.97 ERA, 2.54 FIP, 2.99 xFIP, 2.0 WAR
2010- 62.1 IP, 8.23 K/9, 2.02 BB/9, 1.73 ERA, 2.81 FIP, 3.81 xFIP, 1.6 WAR
This is every healthy season Rafael Soriano has had since his rookie season and while some are certainly better than others I would personally take any one of the 5 seasons on the list for this season. The only risk involved with Rafael is his health, as you can see simply by this list and the missing years in between he has missed three seasons (2004,2005,2008) in his career due to injuries and he never accumulated more 14 innings in any of those seasons.
If Soriano is healthy he is going to put up at minimum an acceptable season for a setup man with a K/9 over 8 and a BB/9 under 3.5 and at best an all star like season, Soriano makes out bullpen better without a doubt and if he is healthy he will have a good season.
I see some good years in there (2003, 2009) and some so-so years in there (2006-2007). Given the flyball tendencies, the new ballpark, the injury history and the drop in quality OF defenders from TB to NY, I honestly wouldn’t expect another 2009 from Soriano.
Now, if he turns in something like a 2006, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world…except that he’s being paid to be a lot better than that.
I won’t say that Soriano is a turd — he’s obviously not — but even a slight to moderate regression from Soriano leaves you with a solid but unspectacular reliever. When surrounded by the rest of the iffy arms in the bullpen (specifically Feliciano, Logan and Robertson, and possibly Chamberlain as well), I just think people are overrating the Yankee bullpen a tad.
I’m not one that thinks a bad bullpen is necessarily a doomsday scenario. The Yanks have shown a willingness and an ability to recast their bullpen during the course of the season. I’m just saying that, counter to the original comment that the “BP became lights out”, we might want to slow down on proclamations of greatness.
How is a 1.6 WAR a good season but a 1.1 WAR a so-so season? It’s a difference but not a very big one, I also wouldn’t say a 2.25 ERA is so-so even if he got lucky with the ERA and his FIP was over 4.
The only so-so year in the group is 2007 and when you consider he has never had another sub 1 WAR healthy season he isn’t likely to do that, also when you look at the overall trends of the WAR I think it’s safe to assume he will be worth 1.1-1.6 WAR and that is more than fine in the bullpen.
Feliciano has been one of the most consistent pitchers in baseball over the last few years and as long as he isn’t taking on righties a lot he also has no issue other than injury.
Robertson got off to a slow start last year but he turned it around quite well and has managed to put up back to back .7+ WAR years and for a reliever who doesn’t pitch any later than the 7th inning that is damn valuable.
2008- 30.1 IP, 10.68 K/9, 4.45 BB/9, 5.34 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 3.73 xFIP, .3 WAR
2009- 43.2 IP, 12.98 K/9, 4.74 BB/9, 3.30 ERA, 3.05 FIP, 3.20 xFIP, 0.8 WAR
2010- 61.1 IP, 10.42 K/9, 4.84 BB/9, 3.82 ERA, 3.58 FIP, 3.79 xFIP, 0.7 WAR
Pre All-star game 2010- 5.46 ERA
Post All-star game 2010- 2.27 ERA
Robertson isn’t going to be a closer any time soon and he does walk too many batters but he has been surprisingly consistent for a middle reliever who rarely even sees the 8th inning and this year he will be required to pitch in much less stressful situations.
I wouldn’t expect a sudden sub 3 ERA from David but I imagine at the end of the year he will be worth 0.6-0.9 WAR and have somewhere in the neighborhood of a 3.5-3.8 ERA and be K’ing over 10 inning and any reliever who can give you those kinds of numbers as a 6th, 7th inning guy is valuable.
Logan is likely for a regression.
That’s exactly the distinction I was making between “good” and “so-so.” The FIP/xFIP numbers look to me like 2006-2007 represent degrees of luck that made the seasons look better than they might’ve been.
If you want to argue that Soriano is a fantastic pitcher, you’re more than entitled to that opinion. I’m a little less bullish on him than others.
I won’t even discuss Robertson. I don’t care if he’s pitching the 5th inning or the 7th inning, he allows far too many baserunners to be considered much more than an average relief pitcher.
In the end, I’m not particularly interested in a spirited debate on this because, again, all I’m saying is that it’s too soon to declare the Yankee bullpen to be dominant. There are more question marks than I think you’re willing to admit but, bottom line, I guess I just don’t care that much about the topic. It’s a bullpen, it can be fixed along the way. Not that important.
Punch an infant?
Just a turn of phrase. I have infants and thought it was humorous.
“I won’t even discuss Robertson. I don’t care if he’s pitching the 5th inning or the 7th inning, he allows far too many baserunners to be considered much more than an average relief pitcher.”
That’s kind of the point isn’t it? That he is an average reliever pitching in the 5th or 6th inning and not a below average reliever as is the case with most bullpens that early in the game.
“There are more question marks than I think you’re willing to admit”
I’m willing to admit it is a bullpen and by that very nature someone could get injured and the whole pen would need to be redefined and at that point wouldn’t be all that good but I’m not saying they are likely not going to be that great as you apparently are.
“If you want to argue that Soriano is a fantastic pitcher, you’re more than entitled to that opinion. I’m a little less bullish on him than others.”
I never said he was destined for the hall I have simply said that he has always been a closer capable pitcher wherever he has gone and at no point in a healthy year has been bad, when he is healthy he can be one of the better closers in the league and because of that he is at minimum as good as Kerry Wood could have been for us this year and everyone was more than in love with that idea.
“2006-2007 represent degrees of luck that made the seasons look better than they might’ve been.”
When you look at the outcome of what happened he was valued very similarly as his other seasons and even if some luck got the job done in those years all the years together show a very consistent pitcher who got luckier some year than others which is how baseball works.
“bottom line, I guess I just don’t care that much about the topic.”
You sure talk a lot about something you don’t care about…
I was simply responding to you saying the bullpen pieces won’t be as good as they were in 2010 but I am simply pointing out that even if Feliciano and Soriano aren’t as good as last year their careers still say they will be some level of good as long as they are healthy, and if Robertson doesn’t do any good at all he is nothing more than a 5th and 6th inning guy which still means the pen is more than fine.
You may be saying the pen has more holes than people want to give credit for but I am saying you are poking more holes into it than are there. The biggest concern for this pen is health, as long as they remain mostly healthy which is always a risk they will perform, history shows this.
“[Soriano] is at minimum as good as Kerry Wood could have been for us this year…”
Kerry Wood had a ridiculously high walk rate and an unsustainable strand rate last year. If you want to argue that Soriano will be great for the Yankees, using Wood as an example isn’t the best way to go about it. Wood did his job last year and I enjoyed watching him pitch but his performance was unsustainable and I’m glad the Yankees didn’t overpay him for something he couldn’t have recreated in 2011.
[...] I. addressed this topic in an excellent post on Monday, but I didn’t get around to reading Will Leitch’s profile on Brian Cashman in this [...]