In fact, the “crowds” seemed to consist mainly of local sportswriters, openly bemoaning and bewailing the fact that “The Brain” might no longer be around to give them “access” and ghostwrite their books. Before the afternoon was over, though, they were pelting the Yankees GM with rotten fruit as he left the courthouse.
Pressed for comment, Cashman answered tersely, “There are more teams looking for pitchers than there are pitchers. That’s why it’s pricey.”
Many noted the absence of Cashman’s attorneys, a.k.a., unindicted co-conspirators, Lonn Trost and Lon Nol Randy Levine, and speculated whether this meant that they intended to turn state witnesses against the Yankees GM. But The Brain’s new counsel, Steve Phillips, denied the rumors, and insisted that what his client was being charged with was not really a criminal offense.
“Hey, if being an obnoxious, incompetent ass is a crime, how could I be walking around free?” asked Phillips—an argument that silenced his questioners.
The fourth indictment covers the last seven seasons, in which Cashman continued to up his game, muscling into entire new areas of incompetence. These included persistently choosing the wrong free agents and trade targets, signing mediocre and injured players to long-term contracts, mishandling analytical data, and refusing to remove training and coaching staffs that repeatedly ruined the best new Yankees prospects.
Some “highlights”:
2017—A rejuvenated Yankees team comes within a game of the World Series, barely losing to Yer Cheatin’ Heart Astros. But even here, Brian Cashman makes several critically awful moves.
First was the replacement of injured first baseman Greg Bird with Chris Carter, who fielded poorly, hit worse, and was never heard of again.
Top prospect Dustin Fowler was brought up and placed in right field in his first game in Chicago, in order that perennial invalid Jacoby Ellsbury could play centerfield and not have to deal with the assorted generators, hack saws, and bear traps the White Sox wisely kept on their playing field.
Fowler was injured almost immediately, go to Oakland, and never be heard of again. Neither would Ellsbury.
More disastrous by far, though, was when Cashman ignored Justin Verlander to trade for Sonny Gray down the stretch. Verlander would not only get Houston to the World Series, but would win the ALCS MVP in going 2-0 with an 0.56 ERA…against the Yankees.
2018—Cashman trades Starlin Castro to the Marlins for NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton, and is so excited that he tells Bob Klapisch all about how he hoodwinked Miami GM Derek Jeter, for the hagiography Klapisch is writing on The Brain.
Ignored is free agent basher J.D. Martinez, who will hit 37 doubles and 43 homers, drive in 130 runs, and bat .330 for the Red Sox. He will continue to torture Yankees pitchers for years to come.
Gary Sanchez’s hitting mysteriously collapses, his average dropping to .186 for the season. Cashman reportedly has a chance to trade him for the Marlins’ J.T. Realmuto, a soon-to-be free agent who is the best catcher in baseball. The Brain refuses. Realmuto goes to Philly, where he has only made 2 All-Star games, and won 2 Gold Gloves and 2 Silver Sluggers.
In the ALDS against Boston, coulda-been Yankee Chris Sale wins the first game, and used-to-be Yankee Nathan Eovaldi wins Game Three, 16-1—their worst playoff loss ever against the BoSox—after a bizarre incident in which Luis Severino supposedly does not know what time the game is starting. Sevvy never really does arrive, surrendering 7 runs in the first three innings.
In the dramatic ninth inning of Game Four, Giancarlo Stanton strikes out swinging against Sox closer Craig Kimbrel, who cannot find home plate with a compass. Shortstop-of-the-future Gleyber Torres seems about to get on with an infield squibbler, but decides to go for handicap points by running to first with concrete bags tied to each leg.
Stanton ends up with 4 singles and no ribbies in the series. Martinez homers, drives in 6 runs, bats .357 with an OPS of .992, and goes on to lead Boston to another title.
2019—In the off-season, Manny Machado reportedly comes to New York and offers to take a discount on a free-agent contract if he can play with the Yankees.
Cashman refuses, quietly telling the press that the team is saving its money to go big after free-agent Bryce Harper.
Bryce Harper reportedly comes to New York and offers to take a discount on a free-agent contract if he can play with the Yankees.
Cashman refuses, quietly telling the press that the team is saving its money to go big for the horde of free-agent shortstops due to appear on the market over the next few seasons.
Instead, Cashman signs already injured Luis Severino and constantly injured Aaron Hicks to lucrative, multi-year contracts.
Soon after the season begins, doubles-machine Miguel Andujar dives back to third base early in the season, injures his chest, and is never heard from again.
Brian Cashman promises to look into the Yankees’ training and coaching methods.
Hicks plays 59 games. Severino goes 1-1 on the season. Stanton plays 18 games, and opts out of the ALCS after hitting a home run.
Astros take the pennant again, led by failed Yankee acquisitions, Verlander and Cole.
2020—Covid! Even so, no Yankee manages to play all 60 games. Giancarlo Stanton appears in 23 contests. Sanchez hits .147. Shortstop-of-the-future Gleyber Torres is installed at shortstop—where he hits 3 home runs, and makes 9 errors.
In the ALDS, ace closer Aroldis Chapman gives up the season-ending home run for the second year in a row.
2021—Yankees play lackadaisical ball most of the season, somehow not inspired by the addition of Viking chieftain Rougned Odor.
Cashman looks to spark the team in the second half by bringing in Anthony Rizzo…and Joey Gallo.
Gallo hits .160, but Yanks make the one-game wild card play-in game, anyway, and embarrass themselves in Fenway Park. Gerrit Cole breaks Chapman’s season-ending home run streak, getting pummeled in the first three innings in Boston.
Stanton distinguishes himself by watching as his long flyball…bounces off the Green Monster, for a single. Gallo bats fourth—and goes 0-4.
2022—Cashman starts the offseason by re-signing oft-injured first base fill-in Anthony Rizzo and passing on future Hall of Famer, Ironman Freddie Freeman.
Freeman leads the NL in runs, hits, doubles, and OBP, and slashes .325/.407/.511/.918. Rizzo hits 32 homers, slashes .224/.338/.480/.817…and leads the league in absolutely nothing.
The Brain decides to pass altogether on the herd of free-agent shortstops, loudly telling everyone that the Yankees’ can’t miss infield prospects, Oswald, Oswaldo, and Volpe, will soon be in the majors.
Lefty World Series star Corey Seagar signs with Texas, where this season he is leading the AL in batting. The Brain even aids and abets Houston star Carlos Correa in signing with…Minnesota, when he deals perpetual problem child Gary Sanchez and plucky third base fill-in Gio Urshela, for third baseman Josh “Flipper” Donaldson, third baseman Isiah Kiner-Falafel, and body builder Ben Biceptvedt.
“We appreciate what Gio has done, but he’s not Josh Donaldson,” says Cashman of Urshela, who will outplay Donaldson in the field and at the plate for the next two years, even when injured.
Cashman, disappointed that he could not get a third third baseman out of Minnesota, puts IKF at short, where he goes from Gold Glove to Iron Glove.
Joey Gallo cannot reach 2021’s lofty heights of a .160 batting average with the Yankees, batting .159, and is traded for a pitcher with a joke name. Through 2023, he has kept alive his streak of 4 straight seasons batting under .200.
Then, in The Night of the Long Knives, The Brain trades Jordan Montgomery and a bevy of pitching prospects for The Invalid Corps, four players who are injured and will remain injured throughout their tenures with the Yankees: Harrison Bader, Frankie Montas, Lou Trivino, and Scott Effross.
The team collapses, nearly loses the division title, and is swept in the ALCS by…Houston, of course—the first time that a Yankees team has been swept in a best-of-seven playoff series since Cashman’s 2012 team. Versus the other leading teams in the American League—Houston, Boston, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Texas, and the Angels—the Yankees are 2-14 in playoff series over the past 20 years.
Capping the season, Aroldis “Sweats” Chapman refuses to pitch in the postseason, and is released.
2023—People of all shapes, sizes, creeds, colors, and denominations note that the Yankees don't have a left fielder for the season.
While the Cubs sign Cody Bellinger at a bargain rate, and the Red Sox sign Masataka Yoshida from Japan, the Yankees stick with...Aaron Hicks. Instead, Cashman prepares for the season by…signing free agent Carlos “Wubbly Tum” Rodon for $162 million over 6 years. Rodon adjusts to his new situation by adding obnoxiousness to his ineffectuality and invalidism.
Anthony Rizzo is concussed, something it takes Yankees doctors over a month to discover. He sits—but provides much hilarity on the bench as the team crumbles. (Freddie Freeman reaches 51 doubles—by the end of August—and is hitting .338.)
After severe injuries not only to Rizzo and Rodon, but also Jose Trevino, D.J. LeMahieu, Josh Donaldson, Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Harrison Bader, Cashman…remains silent about the Yankees’ training methods. By mid-August, the New York Yankees have run out of starting pitchers—but they do set a team record for most games using a position player to pitch.
Bader is simply released for nothing. So are Hicks and Donaldson. Yankees make no move of any significance at the trade deadline, as the team lurches toward its first losing record in 31 years.
At a hastily called press conference, Cashman claims that no one could have seen this coming, including players on other rosters in the league—a move that prosecutors characterize as "blatantly, annoyingly false."
Dates for a trial have not yet been established, though many have pointed out that all of October will be free.
Yankees’ First-Round Draft Picks, 2017-2023:
2017—Clarke Schmidt, RHP
2018—Anthony Seigler, C (Second-round pick Josh Breaux…is also a catcher)
2019—Anthony Volpe, SS
T.J. Sikkema, LHP
2020—Austin Wells, C
2021—Trey Sweeney, SS
2022—Spencer Jones, OF
2023—George Lombard, SS
Oh my G-d it is SO much worse when you read it all in one place. Print it out and send it to Hal as a letter. Please!
ReplyDeleteReally well done. Also one of the worst things I have ever read. Well sports related anyway.
Gaaaaaaaah!
Possibly the worst 6 years a GM had in any of the major sports leagues
ReplyDeleteA study in extreme nincompoopery.
ReplyDelete"The Night of the Long Knives"
ReplyDeleteHoss, that reference absolutely made my day!!!!
I had forgotten many of the Yankee Monty Python moments and streaks that you put together in this one: the Severino memory lapse in Boston, the 2-14 playoff series record against good teams not named Minnesota Twinkies.
That 2-14 playoff series record over twenty years against those competitors is ASTONISHING. Hell, a GM would almost have to be trying to lose to reach that nadir. That record puts the lie to the bullshit "the playoffs are a crapshoot". Much like the Yankees always seem to beat up on the Twinkies, that's how these top teams beat up on the Yankees. And it is all Brian Cashman's doing.
I want this clown tried, convicted, and burned at the stake for treason. He has destroyed the Yankee brand of winning, championship baseball. I think the damage is irreparable.
Good job, killing The Genius Horace. The man is a fool and there is loads of evidence to the point.
ReplyDeleteHAL: “We’re going to take a very deep dive into everything we’re doing,” Steinbrenner said. “We’re looking to bring in possibly an outside company to really take a look at the analytics side of what we do. Baseball operations in general. We’re going to have some very frank conversions with each other. This year was obviously unacceptable.”
ReplyDelete...hopefully that means the *general* manager.
ReplyDeleteThat does sort of sum it up...and nothing will happen...
ReplyDeleteI think they made a good draft pick with Spencer Davis...I mean Jones...
Kay just shared that the Yanks are considering moving Torres to the outfield next year...yeah...I want you to think long and hard about that too....................another AnDUjar fiasco....
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteThank you for that brilliance Horace but man reading it all out like that is depressing. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.
That 4 part indictment was the best bit of sports journalism all year. Well done! Required reading for all Yankee fans and, especially, Hal Steinbrenner.
ReplyDeleteRemedial education for all Cashman's fatuous sycophants in the press. Clearly, Brian's been bending a few ears before press time. I can hear the phone ringing off the hook from the cheap seats.
Thanks, guys! It was a labor of love! Or, love/hate, take your pick.
ReplyDeleteForgot the bit of not getting a left fielder for this year...just like Cashman forgot to get a left fielder for this year.
I corrected the mistake. Unlike Cashman.