New York Yankees: Brian Cashman’s Mix & Match Moves Make Him Look Like a Genius
March 15, 2011 · chris brunau · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
So the Yankees missed on Cliff Lee twice—first when the Mariners decided to trade him to the Rangers and again when he decided to sign with the Phillies.
However, neither time can be attributed to lack of effort or offers from the Yankees. In both situations, the Yankees offered enough, if not more, to get Lee—first offering a No. 1 prospect in Jesus Montero and then offering too much money for too many years.
The part where many were calling blood murder this offseason was when Brian Cashman did not go after Zack Greinke or another premier front-end starter.
For a while, that seemed like it was Cashman’s mistake. However, I said it then, and I’m saying it again now: Signing Pedro Feliciano and Rafael Soriano were great moves that locked the bullpen up and took pressure off the rotation.
As time progresses in spring training and veteran pitchers Freddy Garcia and Bartolo Colon look better and better, while rookie pitchers Manny Banuelos, Andrew Brackman, Dellin Betances and Ivan Nova look like season starters, Cashman is looking like a complete genius. Now, to make things even better, Greinke gets hurt.
Now I am not saying the Yankees are happy he got hurt, nor should anyone be, but that deal is coming back to bite the Brewers in the rear end.
If Greinke got hurt in spring training, like Adam Wainwright, you could attribute it to bad luck. Instead, he got hurt playing basketball. I guess he never heard of Aaron Boone.
Now Greinke’s career is not over—far from it—but for a player who is already coming off a pretty rough year, with no real signs of being the Cy Young pitcher he was a few years ago, a non-baseball injury really does not help your case.
The season is still about two weeks away, so we really won’t know for sure until things are under way, but early on it looks like Cashman made the right choice.
He knows that this crop of prospects the Yankees have right now is worth holding on to and the Yankees can hang in the playoff race with the five guys they have now, so it is not necessary to jump through hoops to trade for a guy like Francisco Liriano.
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