With today’s Alex Rodriguez press conference and the trade deadline moves, has Brian Cashman FINALLY been given full power with the New York Yankees?
Brian Cashman has been part of the Yankees organization for 30 years, so it’s easy to understand how he’s worked his way up the ladder to his current role as the general manager, though Cashman’s relationship with the organization hasn’t always been pristine. Cashman was brought on to the Yankees due to a friendship between George Steinbrenner and Cashman’s father. He had an internship with the Yankees during college, and he was immediately hired after school was completed.
Once George passed away in 2010, the relationship between ownership and Cashman went downhill, and he’s never really had that relationship be necessarily “good” ever since. With non-George ownership, it seems as if every new contract for Cashman requires a lot of work to get extended and in general they talk up to the deadline before Cashman would be walking away before making a decision. Currently, his contract runs through next season, which had led speculation that he may seek open GM positions this offseason if the price was right.
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Cashman has struggled with the direction he’s received from the ownership as they’ve pushed hard to get the cream of the crop into the Bronx, and he’s attempted to keep a pipeline of talent coming at a rate that’s affordable and sustainable for the team. One notable example was the Alex Rodriguez contract, as Cashman did not want to re-sign Rodriguez when he opted out of his previous deal, but he was instructed that he needed to do just that.
In the last three weeks, however, we’ve seen a flurry of moves that more fits the guy who created the professional scouting department with the Yankees and can quote the current and future salary obligations of the team without hesitation when asked. Each one of the Yankees’ deadline deals showed that Cashman’s voice was reigning supreme in the decision-making center within the Yankees, but the deal that truly put the bow on that ribbon was the Carlos Beltran deal. In the deals trading away Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman, the Yankees received back pieces that were either immediately going to be in the major leagues or would have a legit chance to open 2017 with the Yankees.
In Beltran’s deal, the New York Yankees received three pitchers, none of whom have spent more than a day at a level higher than A-ball. This was a real deadline deal, but most importantly, it got the Yankees a guy who just last summer was the #4 overall pick in the draft along with another player that the Yankees had drafted coming out of high school before he chose instead to go to college. They’re arms to dream on, and that means heavy volatility for sure, but that sort of gamble can pay off tremendously as well, and having the ability to make a deal like that was not something Cashman seemed able to do even just last offseason.
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Now with the news from Alex’s press conference this morning, it’s fairly clear that Cashman has his hands firmly on the steering wheel of the Yankee organization, and he’s not going to be sliding over to the shotgun position again anytime soon!