Brian Cashman’s Tenure, Part 1

I don't get no respect. No respect at all.

Brian Cashman has a very strange job. He’s the general manager of a baseball team with the net worth the size of a mid-sized African nation’s GDP, and an annual expectation of making the postseason by both fans and owner(s), who constantly threaten to bake him into a Steinbrenner Ogre Family Pie.

Cashman became GM in February 1998, and his dealings with King George were of constant interest in the New York tabloid papers. It was no secret that Steinbrenner was a demanding Boss^TM; by most accounts Cashman didn’t gain full control of personnel moves until after the 2005 season, so it’s hard to tell what transactions were Cashman’s and which came from on high. Newsday’s Ken Davidoff has his thoughts on the subject, but some of this is still conjecture and hearsay.

Whatever deals have been solely his – Kei Igawa, Carl Pavano? – Cashman has to answer for at least some of 1998-2005, and all of 2006-present. Despite barely tolerating Hank Steinbrenner this past season, Cashman signed a three-year extension this past September, a contract that will take him through 2011, when the A.J. Burnett and C.C. Sabathia deals can be properly judged, re-judged, and judged again over ogre pie.

I don’t know what Cashman would do if he were to actually go, as it’s always rumored, to another ballclub like the Nationals. No idea if he’d be able to work under far different parameters – like, uh, one-fifth the budget. So I thought I’d examine the Yanks’ transactions since February of ‘98, in full admission that some of these were not his idea. I just thought it’d be fun.

Under his tenure, the Yankees have:

*Signed marquee former All-Stars on the downswing of their careers (save Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens, though this latter for, uh, different reasons).

*Made headlines by signing splashy international free agents (Cuba, Japan, the Dominican Republic).

*Traded for a number of key role players to fill a spot in the starting lineup, rotation, or bullpen for the playoff stretch.

*Drafted horribly (due, in part, to the loss of draft picks), with the exception of – and we’re still waiting on – Joba, Ian Kennedy, and Phil Hughes.

Here’s part one:

Major Marquee Domestic Acquisitions

 February 6, 1998 – Received Chuck Knoblauch from the Minnesota Twins for Brian Buchanan, Cristian Guzman, Eric Milton, Danny Mota, and cash.

Okay, it’s not fair to include this because Cashman didn’t have the GM throne of blood until later in February. But I bring this up for the following sidebar: It’s not ridiculous to ask whether Knoblauch would be finishing up a Hall of Fame career right now had he never demanded a trade out of Minneapolis. He was granted his request at 29 years old, a four-time All-Star, Rookie of the Year, sporting a .304 batting average and a .384 OBP. It’s possible that his throwing problems were connected with his personal problems (divorce from his wife, father’s Alzheimer’s disease), but it’s also possible that New York intensified it. And he may never have gotten all HGH-y had he stayed in Minneapolis.

Mets Trade 2008 Bullpen for Half-Eaten Plate of Pasta, Striped Sock, and Blurry Photo of What Looks Like Tina Youthers

Why yes, I'll happily trade you Duaner Sanchez for this old sneaker.

Well, this is what I imagine would’ve been fair value for them, had you asked any average Met fan over the last three months. But somehow, Omar Minaya has actually gotten return on – so far – Aaron Heilman, Joe Smith, and Scott Schoenweis. Duaner Sanchez and Luis Ayala better be next in this Shea Putsch.

 Let me now quote famous men:

 ”Athletes, like surgeons and concert violinists, know the dry mouth of pressure. It costs them sleep and shapes their dreams…Pressure can stunt an athlete, but evidence argues powerfully that a major league ball player is fully grown. To make the majors at all, a man first survives other pennant races, other play-offs. As he rises, pressures rise with him. A Little Leaguer feels the eyes of his parents and his neighbors and his teammates when he comes to bat. If he wriggles helplessly, he has found something out. High-pressure competitive baseball is not for him. A minor leaguer, driving toward the majors, has coaches and scouts studying him every day. The man who collapses into tremors with men on base dies, as the saying is, in Peoria.”

-Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer

 This is in the passage preceding Clem Labine’s concession that he didn’t want to face Bobby Thomson at the Polo Grounds on October 3^rd, 1951. Labine was a very successful reliever that year, and had struck out Thomson the day before, but he was nervous about pitching to him with two runners on base. When Labine used a sore arm excuse to beg out of warming up, Ralph Branca’s entrance became history. The thesis here is that ballplayers can handle pressurized situations, but for the love of God, they’re still human.

Proper Met Homage to Pat Burrell

No more Burrell nightmares for me, thanks.

I find the New York Times to be a funny paper when it comes to metropolitan news and sports reporting. It’s like they do it because they know that by tradition, they’re forced to have these sections, like: “Yes, we realize some of our button-down, work-a-day-johnny readers care about such drivel like ‘what’s to be done with the MTA’ and this new-fangled sport called Base Ball, which seems to be an upstart mix of the gentlemen’s athletic endeavors of rounders and kick the can.”

The Times has good journalists in the sports section; George Vescey, William Rhoden, and Richard Sandomir are all very good writers. The problem is that the Grey Old Lady’s sports writers are not, uh, kept up to date that much. I’ve already cyber-mocked Murray Chass’s similarity to Ted Stevens; but generally, the Times’s baseball writers are either waxing nostalgic about pitchers throwing 500 innings a year or using batting average to determine a player’s overall worth. (Not that the Daily News or the New York Post are much different on this steadfast refusal to reevaluating what “worth” is in MLB.)

I actually like Ben Shpigel’s reporting in the Times; much like the older journalists, he has a good feel for putting together coherent copy. But something like this from this past Friday makes me want to eat my own hand:

The gist of it is “The Phils signed the amazing unbelievable Raul Ibanez, and he will make life living hell for the Mets’ pitching staff unless the amazing unbelievable Oliver Perez is re-signed.”

Huh. Okay. Shpigel lauds Ibanez’s RBI total over the last three years and his lefty bat as the main reasons this 36-year-old outfielder deserves $31.5 million over three years instead of Pat Burrell.

As a Met fan, here is a partial list of things I would rather see at the plate against us instead of Pat Burrell with the game on the line:

Any other MLB player, except Chipper Jones

Zombie Ted Williams

Megatron

The embodiments of Famine and Pestilence

A man made out of maple, parallel-grained wood

The Thing about that Level Playing Field

Don't worry, KC. We've got a plan. And here it is. *cough*

So the Yankees sign C.C. and could very well sign A.J., the Mets sign Francisco Jose Rodriguez (for info on boycotts of bad nicknames, read this), and the Red Sox could sign Big Tex. Much is written every winter about how lavish splashy contracts don’t mean anything come baseball season – look at the Rays last year, the Twins for much of the decade, and, conversely, the Yankees’ repeated failures in the last handful of autumns.

Well, duh. Signing Jason Giambi, Ol’ Whistlin’ Bat, Trainwreck Pavano, and the Big Unit didn’t do anything for a Bronx World Series drought. Small market (this is a misnomer – let’s say small owner) teams have been doing quite well in the won-lost column, thank you – the Marlins beating up on the Bombers in ‘03, the Brewers nabbing a wild card berth over the Mets’ Collapse^TM v2.0 in ‘08, etc. So, yeah, for the Fall Classic, landing Johan Santana or Manny Ramirez in January is rarely the definitive solution.

But here’s what a big splashy contract can do: Keep fans engaged.

Blyleven, Dinosaurs, and My Dad’s Distate for DVRs

Someday, maybe.

Why the Baseball Writers’ Association of America should vote Bert Blyleven into the Hall of Fame:
Rich Lederer says this and Rob Neyer is all that, and Dayn Perry goes.   

Why the BBWAA won’t:
Jon Heyman garbles this and Mike Nadel mumbles that. 

The guys who make the cohesive argument for Blyleven (e.g. Rob Neyer) are not members of the BBWAA, though they did famously turn Cowboy Tracy Ringolsby onto their side two years ago. The guys who don’t (e.g. Jon Heyman, who voted for Francisco Rodriguez as AL MVP this year) still value wins and winning percentage and winstuff and windom as the big metric, and often point to one or two famous games as proof. Though Bill Mazeroski was one of the two best defensive second basemen of all time (Frank White the other), the Veterans’ Committee voted him in probably due in some part to his famous homer (and his popularity), despite the fact that he was a fantastically shitty hitter.

Thanksgiving All-Stars

Pumpkin Pie Traynor?

Ok, I’m a Johnny-Come-Lately here on this topic, but my calendar’s been a bit off. In light of all the holiday festivities, here’s a collection of the Best Thanksgiving-Themed Players. Notice that there’s no middle infield. See, I imagine that Pie and Stuffy have the horizontal range to make it work. Also, teams would be so freaked out about playing a collection of zombie All-Stars (Berryhill and Bean not withstanding), that they wouldn’t be able to hit. You know, what with the fear of brains being eaten if they reach base.

1B: Stuffy McInnis
Between 1921 and 1922, McInnis went 1700 fielding chances without making an error. That’s ridiculous. McInnis also posted a lifetime .307 batting average and won four World Series with three different teams.

Albatross Contracts and Baseball Wisdom in Recessions

Anybody going to a ballgame next year?

In January 2002, Chan Ho Park was coming off a career year with the Dodgers, sporting a 1.17 WHIP, 218 Ks in 234 IP, and an All-Star appearance. Despite the preposterously large home/away difference in Park’s ERA and batters’ SLG, not to mention Park’s second-half downturn, and the fact that he was coming off five straight years of 192+ innings pitched, the Texas Rangers awarded him with a five-year deal for $65 million.

The following is a list of pitchers who have or had been given albatrossy contracts similar to Park: Mike Hampton (signed Dec 2000, Colorado Rockies, $121 million / 8 years); Denny Neagle (Ibid to both, $51 million / 5 years); Carl Pavano (Signed Dec 2004, New York Yankees, $39.95 million / 4 years); Barry Zito (Signed Dec. 2006, San Francisco Giants, $126 million, 7 years).

Here’s the difference with Park’s contract, and why I’m bringing it up now. In January 2002, while Wall Street was making a moderate recovery from the terrorist attacks of four months prior, indicators were not rosily optimistic (and for good reason, considering the upcoming recession, based largely on those attacks, the dot-com burst, and all those Enron/Tyco/ImClone type dealies that questioned accountability).

So on September 30, 2008, the Cardinals signed a fairly solid #3 pitcher, Kyle Lohse, to a four-year, $41 million contract. This was after all economic indicators showed that a big pile of corn-ridden poo was heading towards the fan. In the three weeks before the signing, Lehman Bros. had filed for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was sold, AIG was in the middle of getting $85 billion from the government, Goldman Sachs became a bank holding company, WaMu was sold to Chase, and it was pretty damn clear to most four-year-olds that the economy was in the tank for the foreseeable future.

So, what the hell?