It is Cashman's fault ( The Steinbrenner dolts can't be blamed because they have no ideas, and are slimy, little greedy inheritors of wealth who, if born to different parents, would be shoveling coal ).
Cashman is in charge of player talent and we have, for 10 years, drafted, traded for, and signed the worst players imaginable.
Hughes, by a clear margin, is our best drafted player in a decade, and he sucks. The few others who emerged as talented were traded for bear scat.
When Cashman was finally deprived of unlimited money to buy talent, he was forced to accumulate retreads. And we have a bowlful. Many of the guys at AAA, for example, are 29 years old and with their 6th team.
Look at the duds that have cycled through our line-up this year, and note that most of them were not even from the Yankee farm system. We couldn't provide .128 hitters with "home grown" Yankees.
Look at the Pineda deal, the Banuelos hype ( " he reminds me of Guidry..."), The Bettances fiasco, Andy Brown and Andy Brackman, the kid who said he was going to UCLA upon whom we wasted a top pick, Cito Gaston...the sad story of failure stretches on and on.
What has Cashman done in response to this record?
Resign with honor? Fire people? Hire proven
executives and talent evaluators from other clubs? Commit Seppaku?
No. He has made not made a single change. Zero.
He has rewarded failure. He has stayed loyal to those blowhards around him. He has failed to recognize the firepower gathering around him, and the diminishment of resources at his disposal. He still defends the talent pool in the Yankee's fading, minor league system. His baseball bigotry
( "Yankees are better than anyone"; "people change when they put on the pinstripes," ) has blinded him to the reality he has created.
Dien Bien Phu anyone?
Important point to remember: There is nothing to which we can look forward right now.
El Duque is blinded by optimism, hope and pale ale when he says we have to wait until 2016 to have a shot at anything other than a one game, double wild card play-in game. That means he thinks some guys in A ball will emerge by then. Has he looked? Are you shitting me? Cito Gaston and Mason Williams? Give me an aspirin. Tyler Austin?
There is no one there. The house is empty. There are dust balls on the floor.
Here is the memo: this organization needs a re-make from top to bottom.
Everyone must go.
I think I did a dis-service to Cito Gaston. Our boob is Cito Culver, right? Cito dumbfuck, in any case.
ReplyDeleteCalling it like it is, Alphonso. A series against the Tigers is salt in the wound and Exhibit A that Cashman is not good at what he does. I used to like him simply because he wasn't a Steinbrenner and he seemed to be promoting smart baseball management, but now it's obvious, the guy should be run out of town on a rail.
ReplyDeleteVernon Wells + Lyle Overbay + Travis Haffner + Kevin Youkilis = Incredible Disappointment to the 3rd power
ReplyDeleteCashman's half-lidded dullness, his affectless drone of empty corporate-speak, his chronic Steinbrenner-bred aversion to nurturing young talent all bespeak a mind devoid of even a glint of baseball savvy, cleverness, or imagination. A dullard. A cipher. A byproduct of the Steinbrenner nepotism inbreeding management clubhouse--his father was a friend of the boss's. Always better, in George's view, to hire someone you can control rather than the best available talent. Hence banish Syd Thrift and Brian Sabean and bring in Brian Cashman.
ReplyDeleteCashman loves Gene Michael--but let's get real about Michael's heritage: it was the visionary stubbornness of Buck Showalter that built that dynasty of the nineties; without him Michael would simply have yielded to George, even in absentia, on every key decision, and Mariano, Bernie, and Jorge would all have been traded, as Steinbrenner wanted to do in each case at some point.
George grew up as an ardent Cleveland Indians fan. After successive attempts to destroy the Yankees--including the razing of America's Roman Colosseum--he seems, from the grave, through his sons, to have finally realized his childhood dream.