Brian Cashman missed his calling.

Our beloved GM really should have been a politician.

Need proof?  Submitted for your approval:  Kristie Ackert's piece in the Daily News, regarding the ongoing Severino fiasco. 

This could serve as a textbook on how to lie to the public.  There is not a member of the New York State Legislature who shouldn't take notes.

https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-luis-severino-injury-update-20190630-6b34pwnnj5f3jamx6twul2lprm-story.html

“In hindsight, he never should have started his throwing program,” Cashman said before Sunday’s Game Two of the London Series. “He passed all his physical testing. He was strong. They made a determination not to do an MRI and normally they don’t do an MRI to follow up after the down period of time. They test them out... but in hindsight, clearly an MRI probably would have been warranted and it wasn’t."

Note the conspicuous absence of the word "I" here.  "They" made the decision, whoever "they" are. But now, watch how subtly and beautifully the lie expands:

“He doesn’t like going into the MRI tube, so it’s something, I know, he would have pushed back on, but clearly if we could turn the clock back we would have done an MRI three weeks ago now,” Cashman continued. “But it wasn’t done. Can’t change that. Just did one before we left for here, after he had the complaint. We’ll do another now and we’ll keep doing them until we know he’s clear.”

Suddenly, it's no longer "they."  Now it's that crazy Sevvy himself, refusing to jump right into "the MRI tube."  But, "they" didn't make him, and what do you want Cashman to to, turn back time?  (Hmm, I think I smell a hit song...).

“We always evaluate our processes, gaps or problems and mistakes, made by us, then they are dealt with and obviously we have two levels to this thing. There are player protocols we have in place, player protocols and then there are compliance on the patient side too,” Cashman said.” We’ve had a number of injuries this year. Most of them are unavoidable. Some of them we could have done something differently maybe along the way, or the patient could have done something differently along the way. That’s not atypical.”

Wo-ho!  Now it's the players' fault—maybe many players' faults, for all the many injuries this year—as well as "we," or maybe it's nobody's fault at all:  "unavoidable." But you know, whatever the case, Coops is on the job.  He's going to look into it!

This is all a pretty laughably convoluted conversation about what is supposed to be one of Coops' basic responsibilities:  overseeing the team's trainers and coaches.  Instead, he hangs them out to dry here, along with Severino himself.

But what makes it a truly great lie—a politically worthy lie—is this:  It distracts from the fact that Coops and co. whiffed on Severino's injury LAST SEASON, when it might have been prevented.

In his first 18 starts, the righty pitched 118.1 innings to a 1.98 ERA. He had a .195 batting average against, allowed just six home runs and averaged almost 10 strikeouts a game...In an 11-start stretch at the end of the season, Severino pitched just 55.1 innings, going 4-5 with a 6.83 ERA with a surprising .323 batting average against. He allowed 13 homers in that span.

And throughout those 11 starts, and for months afterwards, Coops assured us that Severino was just "tipping his pitches."

No, he wasn't.  He had an inflamed rotator cuff, which nobody on the Yankees cared to notice, although any bright 11-year-old could have figured out he was seriously injured—never mind the guy who has spent a quarter-century posing as our GM.

But now, thanks to Coops' diversionary lie about who knew about the lats and when did they know it, we're not going to delve into that.

There's just one thing more I'd love to know:  was Coops giving Sevvy that big, 3-year, $30-mill-plus deal after last season—when he must have known he was hurt—his way of covering up his mistake with HAL?  Or was it just wishful thinking?

After all, liars are notoriously optimistic.