At the beginning of this offseason, Brian Cashman said his priority was “pitching, pitching and pitching.” Two months later, after not getting Cliff Lee — or any other arm — for the Yankee rotation (and no, I’m not counting Mark Prior!), and after the potential loss of Andy Pettitte, Cash now appears to be in no hurry to fix the rotation, telling ESPN’s Wally Matthews:
Cashman acknowledged his team could use a major league ready starter as well as another arm in the bullpen but seemed pessimistic about the chances of getting one before Opening Day.
“Could I go out and get a starter? Yes, I could. But there’s just not much out there,” Cashman said. “I have March, April, May, June and July, really, to come up with someone.”…”
In the past, we might have gone out and traded away prospects just to get someone in here,” Cashman said. “But realistically, I have until July to get this solved.”
Oh, no you don’t, Brian. If the reloaded Red Sox go off on a tear, you could lose the division very early on. And there’s no telling when some other team in the league might be the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays. To assume you have four months to fix the team is one of the more arrogant thiings I’ve heard anybody say in a while.
First off, I don’t understand why it’s apparently so hard for Cashman to pick up the phone and woo Andy Pettitte. The GM told Matthews, “If we get Pettitte back, so much the better. But I’m not waiting for him. He told me not to.” Would it kill Cashman to show Pettitte some love — and some money? And why is it that the Yankees have always seemed to take Pettitte for granted?
As for using two rookies to fill up the Yankee rotation, I tend to share some of the skepticism my friend Steve Lombardi of Was Watching has about the plan. Going with the young guns in the starting rotation didn’t exactly pay off in spades in 2008. And please, I don’t want to see Darrell Rasner or Sidney Ponson back again, either!
Besides, while the Red Sox can afford to do a “bridge year,” the Yankees really can’t. I am pretty sure Derek Jeter will have a great year this season to shut up the naysayers. But it will probably be his last one. Mariano Rivera won’t be pitching into his 50s, and A-Rod isn’t getting any younger, either. I’m all for playing the kids in some spots, which is why it seemed to make more sense to me to bring up Jesus Montero and have Jorge Posada work with him, as opposed to signing Russell Martin. But the idea of not one but two untested rookies in the rotation scares me more than a little.
I hope this “I have until July to fix the rotation” talk is this year’s ‘Bubba Crosby is our centerfielder,” as opposed to, say, thinking that reacquiring Javy Vazquez and Nick Johnson would be good moves!
What do you think? Tell us about it!
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