But being home sick also allows me to do something else. It allows me to sit at home and write down Brian Cashman's New Year's resolutions. Cash doesn't strike me as a resolution kind of guy, but he does strike me as someone who loves a good list (it goes with the whole pocket protector nerd persona he's got going on). So I thought I would help the man out and make up a list of things Brian should be looking to do come this 2008 season.
Resolution 1: Brian will lose 210 pounds of muscle this year, referred to as Kyle Farnsworth.
Has anyone heard Cash and Joe Girardi talk about Kyle Farnsworth this offseason? You would think the king of sulk, the sultan of choke had, at one time, been a dominant relief pitcher. You would think there is some sort of "form" the man is destined to return to. You would think Cash and Girardi were eating the same crop of mushrooms together.
Farnsworth was a horrible signing from the onset. The man has always had trouble maintaining the constitution of his ball sack in the big moments. Even in years when he was pitching in the also ran league - the NL - and his ERA was respectable, you could never count on the guy to get any big outs. His tantalizing fastball gets up there in velocity but is straighter than Russel Crowe on testosterone pills. He is moody, unreliable, fragile both physically and mentally, and no one in that clubhouse seems to even want to share the same oxygen as him. But now, we are to believe that Farny is gonna step up and be a legit setup man after three miserable years trying to fill that role?
Here is your first resolution Brian: If someone comes to you and asks if you would like to dump Farnsworth and his salary for a sack of rotten apricots and The Dukes Of Hazzard movie, you say YES!!!!!! The amazing thing is that, last year, the Braves evidently offered to trade Cashman more than just rotten fruit and bad cinema for the menace of the middle innings. They were willing to eat some of his contract and trade the Yanks back Bob Wickman. The Yanks said no. They said no. I'll say it again: THEY SAID NO!!!!!!!!! So, in order for the New Year to get off on the right foot, Cashman must promise himself that, when someone walks in and offers you silver for goat shit, you take the silver, even if you wanted gold.
Resolution 2: Brian will have to promise himself that, when someone offers you a Bentley for a Pinto, you take the Bentley, even if you built the Pinto yourself.
Don't get me wrong, I like Phil Hughes, but if he is the only things, at this point, standing in the way of a Santana to the Yankees deal then I will personally kidnap the prick, throw him in a trunk, drive the 2,000 or so miles from here to Minnesota, and dump him on the side of the road.
Hughes is gonna be a very good pitcher. He could even be great. But will Hughes ever be far and away the best pitcher in the game? Maybe not. Will he ever be left handed? Nope. Will he ever win two Cy Youngs? Possibly, but there is no way to know.
What's the point of all those questions? Well, unless you can convince me, or anyone else, that Hughes will DEFINITELY be better than Johan Santana, then you have to make the deal.
See, I get the sense that Cashman is a stubborn nerd, more like Mr. Spock than Captain Kirk. He made Hughes what he is today. He cultivated the kid. He groomed him. He promoted him as the next Rocket Clemens (hopefully without a Mitchell Report in his future). You get the sense that, even though from a baseball standpoint it makes all the sense in the world to trade Santana for a proven, otherworldly pitcher who immediately put you on even footing with your arch rival (Red Sox) and makes you a favorite to win a title, Cashman is still hesitant because this is HIS guy. He has convinced himself that Hughes will be the best pitcher in the history of baseball, and you know that he has convinced himself that Santana could be a bust. It comes down to stubborness, it comes down to ego, and it is the dumb way to approach anything in life.
So Brian really needs to ask himself this question: what does it get you to KEEP Hughes over Johan Santana?
He is younger so he'll be pitching well after Santana (who is 8 years older than Hughes) has gone the way of the Mussina. This is true. Hughes is much younger. But Santana is still under 30 years old (he'll be 29 at the beginning of spring training). This is a pitcher who has never had arm or shoulder problems, is a legs power pitcher (putting less strain on the arm) and has the best changeup in baseball, meaning that when his velocity starts to go he should have enough to get guys out with his offspeed stuff.
The way pitchers and players in general keep their bodies in such great condition, there is absolutely NO question in my mind that you can get at least 6 or 7 more top of the line, Cy Young caliber years out of this guy. In that time, the Yanks SHOULD be able to develop another big pitcher or, at the very least, be able to bid on some other team's high item ticket pitcher.
Plus, remember that unless Hughes made a GIANT leap next year, in his first full year in the bigs, it would take him at least a year or two to really become a dominant presence. And then he would have to equal what you get out of Santana for it to have been a bad deal.
Resolution 3: I will start looking at resumes before giving people millions of dollars.
This resolution could have helped a few weeks ago, before Cashman, who seems utterly incapable of convincing himself that the best pitcher in baseball is worth the money, gave Latroy Hawkins $4 million for one year. Latroy Hawkins. I'll say that again: LATROY HAWKINS!!!!!!
Now, Latroy Hawkins was a shaky, at best, big game and big moment picther when he was decent. But the last four years have showed a steady decline. He hasn't pitched over 60 innings in that time. He has had an ERA around 4 each of those years. His hits to innings pitched are absurdly high. His strikeouts are insanely low (51 innings pitched last year, 29 strikeouts). And, again, he is STILL a bad big moment pitcher.
So, exactly what is the Hawkins signing suppose to do besides waste $4 million dollars of the Yankees?
Cashman has a tendency to ignore the resume of the person he is signing. He gave Farnsworth an insane deal base on his velocity. Think of that for a second. Kyle Farnsworth, argueably one of the worst Yankee signings in the last 10 years, is still on the team because he can throw hard. He was never durable. He was never capable in the big moment. EVERYONE knew he would implode, and he did. Yet Cashman gave the man his years, his money, and refused to dump his sorry excuse for a pitcher last year on some misguided notion that, because he throws hard, he will most certainly turn it around. Because, you know, if you throw hard, there is no chance you won't turn it around, right?
Now, I won't blame Cashman on Carl Pavano all that much because no one could know he would become more brittle than a rag doll right after signing his contract with the Yanks, but there must have been some warning signs there, right? I mean, not only was he brittle, he was a sullen, rotten s.o.b. from all reports and it was obvious he never wanted any part of the New York scene. Did no one do any research on the man? Did no one ask around? Again, if we are looking at resumes, did anyone call up for a reference?
It isn't just those guys however. Cashman traded for Kevin Brown, ignoring his career long struggle with injuries and assuming that he would keep himself healthy with the Yanks. He didn't. Cashman traded for Javier Vasquez based on possible talent, never once checking to see if his demeanor would translate to New York. It didn't.
So, in the coming year, Brian, your resolution must be to actually WATCH the players you are signing and trading for. Check up on them. Take a quick look at that resume bro. Because the majority of busts that have come under your tenure could have been predicted by a intellectually slow monkey with bad eyesight.
Resolution 4: I will stop whining about my new role with the Brother's Fredo in charge.
Seriously Brian, no one cares that Hank and Hal have usurped much of your power. In fact, if Cashman were smart, he would embrace this new Yankee heiarchy because it would allow him to go back to his old ways of blaming every bad move on the Steinbrenners ("hey, I didn't want that guy, but what am I suppose to do") and take credit for the moves that work. The truth is that, since Big George handed the reigns over the Cashman, it has been a mixed bag. Cash has done a WONDERFUL job of rebuilding the minor leagues, but has done a woeful job of building the teams bullpen, bench, and landing players that seem to mesh well. He has made numerous mistakes on pitchers, from Randy Johnson to Carl Pavano, to the uttely disasterous signing of Kei Igawa. He has saddled the team with guys like Farnsworth and now Hawkins, who will turn out to be an equally big bust, and while his attention to the farm system has been wonderful, his dogmatic adherence to keeping the pitchers and players down on that farm, even when the big teams needs their talents, has perhaps hampered the big clubs ability to win over the last few years.
If Cashman's role in the organization is scaled back a bit, that isn't a terrible thing. Cashman is a good GM, but he certainly isn't great, and he has never proven that he can build a winner all by himself. In fact, Cashman has only proven he can build somewhat odd fitting teams that don't do well in the playoffs. To me, that isn't a resume that demands he keep control of the entire organization.
Cash, you have a job with the best organization in the world, making boat loads of money. This year, stop mentioning how your role has changed. It sounds juvenile and it sounds like someone is setting up an excuse down the road when things go bad.
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