Cashing In

[DOUGHBOYS]

I know an ardent Yankee fan. He is soooooo giddy about his Yankees.
Whooda thunk that after losing Robinson Cano, that a Yankees fan could be so happy?
But, with Brian McCann, Kelly Johnson, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Carlos Beltran all signed, color him happy.
When he started in on the brilliance of Brian Cashman, it was too much for me. It's not that I think Cashman is a bad GM.
What is closer to the truth is I don't know if he's a good one. He has seemingly unlimited resources. That makes up for a lot of mistakes. If we buy lemons of a car, we try to get the most out of it. So do other GM's. Cashman has the luxury of buying other cars while other lemons are sputtering.
Long term deals are ok with Cashman and the Yankees. They don't care if they get the full effect of a long term deal. They just want that player to perform as long as possible. The extra two or three years at the end of the contract is the price paid for having that player. Other teams don't think that way.
Cashman's farm system looks like My Uncle LeRoy's farm. A lot of cows, a few mares, and no studs. Its looked that way for a long time. Most have forgotten that the Yankees even have a farm system.
If there is an opposite GM in baseball, it would be Dayton Moore. Moore built the Royals through the farm system and has limited resources. His decisions at the Major League level are always questioned, while Cashman has a jigsaw puzzle approach of filling his team. Cashman is a wonderful pseudo judge of Major League talent. Every player signed has already established himself elsewhere.

Some say Cashman is a great salesman for signing these players. That's not too tough when you're the only GM with cash falling out of his pockets. He's also selling the greatest franchise in sports history. Really, no sales are needed.
It seems to me that Cashman's main selling job isn't in making players wallets fatter. It's in making Steinbrenners wallet thinner. Selling Cashman that players get long contracts in order to use their services over a shorter period of time is indeed great salesmanship.

Is Cashman a good GM?
He is for the Yankees. And that's what counts. But really, he can't be compared to another GM. His job is so different from others that it is an apples to kumquats comparison.
He has done one thing that few GM's are capable of doing. He lost his best player and has their fans giddy about their team next year.
And that is indeed, an accomplishment.