I haven’t squawked much lately because I don’t really want to be a Swanny one-note, writing nothing but gloom and doom about the state of the Yankees. Especially when it comes to the madness of Brian Cashman. He is a terrible general manager, but our lousy front office seems to be fine with no matter what he does. And the media gives Cashman a pass, too — more than they even did with Joe Torre.
It’s gotten to the point where no matter what Cashman does, no matter how insane, he gets the predictable pass from everyone. Calls himself a wounded warrior after jumping out of a plane and breaking his leg? That’s A-OK with the media. Decides to try to get Chipper Jones to come out of retirement? Par for the course. Brings back Chien-Ming Wang. No problem. (Actually, that was better than some of his other moves, which is saying something.)
It’s gonna be a long season — I was recently interviewed for my thoughts on what the Yankees would do this season. I predicted they wouldn’t win more than 86 games or finish higher than third. And that was before the news of Derek Jeter’s setback.
Anyhow, two things happened today that are insanely dumb, even for Brian (Fredo) Cashman, which made me feel like I had to squawk about them. The first is the pending trade for Vernon Wells. Because he’s old, and broken down, and makes a lot of money, he attracted the eye of Cashman, of course.
Yet, as my Facebook friend Mike pointed out, the Yanks only have a hole due to Granderson being out for a month or two. Why trade for Wells when he has two years left on his contract? Tell me Melky Mesa couldn’t have done better than Wells.
And so what if Anaheim is picking up a lot of Wells’ salary? The Yanks reportedly are still going to have to pay $12 to $14 million over the next two years for him. Wells is one of the worst players in MLB right now. What a dumb move it is to get him.
Speaking of dumb moves, then there is what Cashman told the Star-Ledger in today’s paper:
During the winter, the Dodgers usurped the Yankees as the game’s premier spenders. Cashman appears more than willing to cede that title. The Yankees will never feel like underdogs, he said. But they can adopt their rhetoric.
“Look at Vietnam,” he said. “The biggest payroll didn’t win there, either.”
What an incredibly dopey analogy. It never makes much sense to compare baseball to war — it trivializes war, for one thing — and this particular analogy turns a complicated issue into a dumb comparison.
At any rate, what is it going to take for Brian Cashman to lose his job? It’s just ridiculous how much he gets away with. Again, it’s going to be a long season.
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