Eric's Giants Blog

The overratedness of Brian Cashman

A friend emailed me this question, and since the response kind of took on a life of its own, I figured I'd put it up here:

I found myself in a minority at an office party last week with my argument that Cashman's an overrated GM. And these were Mets fans, not Yankees fans. My basic argument is that Cashman has, respective to anyone else, an unlimited budget and a team for which free agents (generally) want to play, yet he ends up with Tony Clark (Tiger reject) splitting with Olerud at first, and with Miguel Cairo at second. I know he had Giambi slated for first, but if Cashman had taken the gazillion dollars he's paying A-Rod and spent it on a quality utility infielder/first baseman/second baseman and another decent reliever, they'd have been even more dominant this year and may have avoided The Collapse. Also, who exactly has Cashman brought up through the farm system? He wasn't around when Jeter/Williams/Posada/Rivera were drafted and brought up. - Josh

I absolutely couldn't agree more. He had $183M to spend on his team, and he still only wound up with about 16 good players on his 25-man roster. Put it this way - this is the Yankees' final 25:

C: Posada / Flaherty
1B: Olerud / Clark
2B: Cairo
SS: Jeter
3B: Pay-Rod
IF: E. Wilson
LF: Matsui
CF: Bernie
RF: Sheffield
OF: Lofton
OF: Bubba Crosby
DH: Ruben Sierra

SP: Mussina
SP: Brown
SP: Vazquez
SP: El Duque
SP: Lieber
RHP: Rivera
RHP: Gordon
RHP: Quantrill
RHP: Sturtze
RHP: Loaiza
LHP: Heredia

Of that 25-man roster you essentially have nine stars that make most of the money (Posada, Jeter, Pay-Rod, Matsui, Sheffield, Mussina, Brown, Vazquez and Rivera), one player who produces more than he earns (Gordon), a bunch of expensive, washed-up veterans (Bernie, Sierra, Olerud, Lofton, Quantrill) and a bunch of scrubs (Flaherty, Cairo, Clark, Wilson, Crosby, Lieber, Sturtze, Loiaza, Heredia).

On a team that spends $183M there should only be stars and solid midlevel players. Cashman is fine as long as he can just overbid for the best players (although even that is generous, as he picked up Brown and Vazquez for a ton of money and neither performed for him - but I don' t think that's his fault. I expected both to do well. Still, if you look at failed experiments like Steve Karsay, Chris Hammond, etc... ), but is actually very much like Brian Sabean when it comes to picking up quality replacement-level players. He equates experience with talent. Compare the efforts of Theo Epstein at specific positions to those of Cashman:

First Base

Cashman signs GIambi to a gazillion-dollar contract, then when Giambi gets hurt Cashman picks up Tony Clark off the scrap heap (after he wasn't good enough for either the Red Sox or the Tigers) and Olerud, who was cut by the Mariners. He couldn't have traded for someone better than that? Hell, I imagine Ricciardi would have traded Delgado...

Epstein, by contrast, claims Kevin Millar off waivers when the Marlins try to sell him to Japan without passing him through waivers first. Millar costs a paltry fraction of what Giambi or even Olerud cost the Yankees. Millar posts an OPS of about .840 over his two seasons (about $6M) for the Red Sox.

Designated Hitter:

This one just seems too easy. All you have to do is sign a big fat guy who can hit homers, right? Yet the Yankees never seem to do it right. Ruben Sierra? You've got to be kidding me. Sierra was a pretty good player, once upon a time. Of course, we were in high school then. His last good full season was 1991, when he had an .859 OPS for Texas. Since then he's been above replacement-level just once, in 2001 for 344 ABs, also for the Rangers. As Joe Sheehan is so fond of saying, $183M should buy more than this. For the Yankees to have a 40-year-old DH with a .752 OPS is utterly pathetic. This is what happens when Cashman tries to sign players that don't cost eight figures. By contrast, even Tino Martinez was better than this, posting an .823 OPS for Tampa Bay. Of course, Tino was also better than the first basemen on the Yanks roster.

Who did Theo sign? David Ortiz. He basically got him for free from the Twins. He made $4.5M this year because of an arbitration award after his monster year last year, and will make a lot of money soon, but he was around $7M these last two years and was an MVP candidate both years. I don't think anyone saw how good Ortiz was going to be (he was good with Minnesota, putting up an .839 OPS with huge platoon splits, but he wasn't signed to play full-time initially) but he was clearly a productive player who was in his prime (age 27) when Theo signed him.

Infielders:

Both teams had to find second basemen. The Yankees had traded Soriano to get A-Rod and Todd Walker had been allowed to leave to be overpaid by the Cubs. Everyone expected Cashman to trade for someone great (Kent? Durham? Vidro?) but didn't get a deal done, partially because he has nothing to trade away. So he elevated backup Miguel Cairo to a full-time job. The results were predictable: .292 / .346 / .417 from the Yankees second baseman. That's actually a little better than I'd have expected from Cairo, but as I wrote above - $183M should buy more than this.

Of course Theo signed one of my favorite guys, Mark Bellhorn. I had him on my fantasy team when he broke out with the Cubs, then laid off him last year. All he does is walk and hit for some power. Sure, he strikes out a lot, but he gave the Red Sox the season they thought they'd gotten from Walker the year before. Got on base a ton for the big hitters and scored a bunch of runs.

In addition, the previous year Theo had inherited Shea Hillenbrand, who you could tell was someone he was itching to give away (which he did). Who did he start in his place? Former Giant Bill Mueller, another guy with great strike-zone judgment. Mueller won the batting title and contended for the 2003 MVP.

Outfielders:

Hard to really fault Cashman for his outfield. Matsui and Sheffield were both his signings and both were terrific this year. Bernie is clearly over the hill, but his contract is immovable and he was a great player when that deal was signed.

Similarly, not a lot to say about the Red Sox outfield. Damon is a star who is good but underperforms relative to his salary, but he was signed by Duquette. Similarly, Nixon is a budding star who's been in the organizaition forever and Manny is a star with the second-largest contract in the game. His backup outfielders are better than the useless nobodies that Cashman picked up, but Kapler and Dave Roberts aren't stars either. Still, they're good situational players.

Pitching

Getting long here, but just briefly - compare Mike Timlin to Tanyon Sturtze and Alan Embree to Felix Heredia. Mariano and Gordon are stars, but Cashman's bullpen basically sucked besides them.

So yeah - he's totally and massively overrated. I could build a better team for $130M than he built for $183M. And so can Theo. :-)

P.S. The best prospect to be developed under Cashman is Soriano. He's drafted a couple of good players, but for the most part trades them away before they make it up to the big club.

posted by Eric @ 4:21 PM