Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
February 06, 2008
Building for Another

Joel Sherman notes Brian Cashman might be building the Yankees team for another GM:

Cashman has just one year left on his contract. No one would be surprised if he returned again, that his love for the job and his long history with the Steinbrenner family produce another contract. But no one around the Yankees - or really around baseball - would be surprised either if VP of scouting Damon Oppenheimer, like Reese, graduates from heading a draft room to directing the big room. Oppenheimer's outstanding recent drafts have provided much of the backbone to support Cashman's vision of restoring youth and financial sanity to the Yankees roster.

But youth usually takes time. Eli Manning, after all, needed most of his four seasons to navigate from promise to promised land. Cashman is savvy enough to know that no general lessons are going to be learned from that journey. It isn't like New York fans and the New York media will find a collective patience with Hughes or Joba Chamberlain or Ian Kennedy in memory of how, just a month ago, most of the tri-state region had rendered a final, merciless report on the bust that was Eli Manning.

"There is going to be growing pains," Cashman said.

It's actually rather sad that the Yankees can't take a step back and fully reload and rebuild. The poor teams of the early 1990s set up their success later that decade. Of course, after all these years it seems strange to me that teams like the Yankees and Braves who make the playoffs every year can be considered failures for not winning the World Series.


Posted by David Pinto at 07:51 AM | Management | TrackBack (0)
Comments

The Boss, media, and fans set the bar at "win every year." No team can, hence the frustration. Cashman was dragging to rebuilding by the game and the organization's failure in free agency. Buying the games biggest pieces ala Giambi, Johnson...failed.

Posted by: abe at February 6, 2008 01:13 PM

It's a miracle he's last as long as he has. I would think that he's gone unless the Yankees win the WS this season. Be kind of funny if the next GM wins with Cashman's players -- kind of like Cashman winning with Watson's players.

Posted by: Tom at February 6, 2008 01:41 PM

Not all fans set the bar like that. I, and many other Yankee fans have wanted to go young for a number of years now. We have seen the futility of a Randy Johnson, an aging Mussina, etc. and have advocated what we are seeing now for quite some time--the Cano's, Hughes', Joba's etc.

Posted by: Mike S. at February 6, 2008 05:52 PM

I don't think the failure is from a lack of rings. The record in 1st round the last few years is pathetic. The list of errors is long. Sooner or later he has to take responsibility.

Posted by: Mark at February 7, 2008 04:03 PM
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