Cashman

As a bit of a follow up to an earlier post.....

I agree Cashman is a classy guy - sure he is a bit arrogant at times, but all things considered, having to deal with the Boss and the NY media, he holds up pretty well. I do think he gets far too much credit for the early success he had in winning 4 WS in his first five years - the core of those championship teams was assembled by Watson and Michael.

I previously railed on Cashman for his sketchy trade record, now I have come across some interesting data (thank you, baseball prospectus) to support more criticism. Since 1996 (when Cashman first took over), the Yankees have drafted 9 players in the first round. And exactly one of them has played in the majors. And that was Eric Milton pitching for the Twins (of course the Yankees did get Knoblauch for him and you could argue he did help them win a couple WS - so Milton was a good pick.)

That is a pretty awful record. And most of the picks they had were not even close to being prospects (save maybe Eric Duncan - number 27 in 2003 - who probably will end up being just another overrated Yankee prospect). The Red Sox, who have been no gem themselves, but at least we can blame many of them on Duquette and the Sox have some good prospects from their recent first rounds - Phil Dumatrait and David Murphy in particular.

Some will say the Yankees pick to late in the draft to get an impact player, but that is a lame excuse. Players picked in either the first or second round after the Yankees picked (i.e., not some 6th round flyer that everyone underestimated, include Carlos Beltran, Jeff Weaver, Adam Dunn, Carl Crawford, and Bobby Crosby to name a few.

Mark Prior was actually drafted by the Yankees in the first round - but they did not want to pay him. So he went to college and the rest is history. It reminds me of the Sox drafting Mark Texeria and not signing him over an additional million or so.

And for the Yankees, the worst part here is that they should be able to use the draft to even further exploit their financial domination of other teams. These days, signability is more an issue than ever, meaning good players slip to later rounds. The Yankees could grab some of these players and use their millions to sign these players. I guess this doesn't fit with Steinbrenner's win now/big name philosophy.

I guess in the long run, I should be happy. I really do believe Cashman's record is abysmal. Its always nice to see the enemy be poorly managed.