Grading Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees front office at midseason

Overall

The statistical profile of Cashman is typical for a New York Yankees general manager; he’s off the chart in free agent buys and the rest is basically irrelevant. The re-signings of Judge and Rizzo, along with the signings of Tommy Kahnle, Ian Hamilton and Billy McKinney drove his free agency score to the upper reaches.

Here’s the first half report card on the Cashman front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.

Mode                    WAA                  Grade

Acquired              -0.5                       C

Traded                  -0.6                       C

Signed                  +4.0                      A

FA Lost                 -1.4                      B

Rookies               +1.0                       B

Overall                +6.5                       A

Cashman has made 29 personnel moves involving MLB talent since the end of the 2022 season. He’s been a big winner on those moves; 16 of them favored the Yankees, only eight hurt and five were neutral.

Given all that, the surprise may not be that the New York Yankees are having a good season, but that they’re stuck in third place. That’s usually due to subpar performance on the part of the returnees. In the case of New York, returnees Oswaldo Cabrera, DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Donaldson and Nestor Cortes are all having off seasons.

As for Cashman, he’s had an excellent first half.