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
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Sorry if this is an ignorant question, but who's Rasner?
Darrell Rasner claimed from the Washington Nationals. If you read the whole article it's mentioned.
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.
I wonder if they pick up sammy sosa as a 4th outfielder
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.
Picking up castoffs also hurts your development process. If you're constantly going to the waiver wire what happens to your own prospects?
Well, you can continuously be shuffling guys on and off your 40-man roster if there's no one on there worth keeping anyway.
bluelight specials. yankees are not winning the east, and still might score a 1,000 runs amazing