Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
February 20, 2006
Sniffing Under Stones

The Yankees are going aggressively after other teams waived pitchers in hope of finding the next Aaron Small. This strategy highlights the changes in the front office this year:

Of course, as Cashman noted, when a pitcher who'd been as highly rated as Rasner suddenly shows up on the waiver wire, your first inclination is to wonder what's wrong with him. You also wonder why so many teams ahead of the Yankees in waiver wire pickings passed on him.

"This time of year, most of the rosters are full," the GM explained, "and because a lot of GMs are on vacation or have already set their rosters, it's easy to miss a guy. We're just trying to be aggressive."

"These are not scrap heap guys we're bringing in here," insisted Michael. "They're better than that and they're not just guys we signed as a favor to the agents. They're here because we wanted them."

Still, under the old "split world" order with the Yankees, Tampa invariably nixed the GM's attempts to bring in other organizations' pitching rejects. All the minor league signings had to go through Tampa and, in effect, Cashman didn't have control of the 40-man roster. It was no small thing, and just one of the conditions Cashman set down before agreeing to come back as GM last November.

It's a low risk, high reward strategy. It costs the Yankees very little money to look at these pitchers. If they find someone with a strength the team needs, they can try to develop that in the minors. Most of the time it won't work, but if you can find a gem like Small once in a while, it's probably worth it.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:32 AM | Management | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but who's Rasner?

Posted by: Jeff A at February 20, 2006 01:15 PM

Darrell Rasner claimed from the Washington Nationals. If you read the whole article it's mentioned.

Posted by: David Pinto at February 20, 2006 01:21 PM

Not only does it cost little for the Yankees to pick up a guy put on waivers, but it costs less for the Yankees relative to many smaller market teams. They could pick up 20 of these guys and not even see a dent in the payroll.

Posted by: Adam B. at February 20, 2006 04:17 PM

I wonder if they pick up sammy sosa as a 4th outfielder

Posted by: Colin at February 20, 2006 07:48 PM

Adam, you can't just pick up as many guys as you want, because they need a spot on the 40 man roster.

Rasner's signing forced the Yankees to waive Jason Anderson to make room on the 40 man roster.

Posted by: Mr. Faded Glory at February 21, 2006 02:46 AM

Picking up castoffs also hurts your development process. If you're constantly going to the waiver wire what happens to your own prospects?

Posted by: ICallMasICM at February 21, 2006 11:19 AM

Well, you can continuously be shuffling guys on and off your 40-man roster if there's no one on there worth keeping anyway.

Posted by: Trev at February 21, 2006 06:57 PM

bluelight specials. yankees are not winning the east, and still might score a 1,000 runs amazing

Posted by: Colin at February 22, 2006 10:38 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?