Ghosts exist, flying saucers are real, money is piss, and Brian Cashman is the Yankee anti-Christ.
Every winter, every summer - every stinking year - the unstoppable force of Cashman's hubris erodes what - once upon a time, long, long ago - could have been a successful career as Yankee GM.
He rode high in the '90s, survived the 2004 disaster, won a ring in 2009, and now faces his 18th year of bad deals, every one of them worsened by the YES channel's cheerleading, which instantly proclaims every Cashman move as a work of genius.
From Alex Verdugo to Michael King, from Scott Effross to Joey Gallo, from Harrison Bader to Jordan Montgomer, from - gulp - Caleb Durbin to Devin Williams... the Mulligans just keep coming. (Heliot Ramos and Henry Lalane have entered the chat.) And Durbin - a gritty, balls-to-the-wall fireplug - might turn out to be one of the worst.
Ten sighs...
1. Three years ago, Durbin - a 5'6" Yank farmhand - tore up the Arizona Instructional League with the most stolen bases in its history.
2. Enamored with Josh Donaldson at 3B, Cashman dealt Durbin to Milwaukee for closer Devin Williams.
3. In Milwaukee, Durbin became a finalist for NL Rookie of the Year.
4. In NYC, Williams and Donaldson crapped their beds.
5. Last winter, the Brewers sent Durbin to Boston in a six-player deal.
6. Sunday, Durbin won the AL Gold Glove at 3B.
7. For Boston, Durbin - age 25 - batted .248. That's 35 points higher than Yankee 3B Ryan McMahon. He topped McMahon in every key metric.
8. Durbin's numbers are deceptive, because he endured a terrible start - (.228 in the first half, .274 in the second.)
9. Durbin cost the Redsocks $796,000. McMahon, in the final season of a six-year contract, will cost the Yankees $16 million.
10. This winter, Cashman will desperately seek to trade McMahon, while finding a 3B.
And the bonus kicker...
In mid-September, Cashman waived Oswaldo Cabrera. He was quickly snapped up by the Reds.
Randy "The Biggest Turd in the Toilet Bowl" Levine just went on record as saying, "Yeah, we fucked up with Caleb, but we're still making tons of money, so piss off."
ReplyDeleteOkay, I'm lying. So what? Lying has become the norm in America 2026.
But remember the concept of "truthiness?" Again, so what? Thanks for the breakdown on Caleb, El Duque. I stopped keeping track of the trades and Brian's fuckups, in general. I don't have enough bandwidth these days.
It's always safe to assume, though, that he made the wrong move. He's like Wile E. Coyote, but without the charm, Willy Loman without the pathos, Willie Mays without the talent. Brian is just another PIECE OF SHIT NEPO BABY SHLEP, FAILING UPWARDS IN LIFE while everybody else is pinching pennies, skipping meals, losing healthcare, and getting fucked by the oligarchs.
Brian gets accolades from his personal media, like Kim Jong Un, and the rest of us get data centers shoved up our ass. Brian says the dumbest things and still gets the girl while the rest of us have PornHub. Brian was born on 3rd base and thinks he hit a triple while the rest of us are begging for the garbage bags that hold half-eaten Yankee Stadium fecal franks.
Fuck these assholes. I'm so tired of his shitty attitude. What about some contrition and remorse for his horrible moves and his shitty teams? Oh yeah, I forgot, we had a successful season. Watch me jump up and down and clap with one slow hand.
So done with these assholes, with MLB, with shit in general. As the immortal Joe Strummer once sang, "I'M SO BORED WITH THE U.S.A."
Good commentary, 13B. And thanks for the idea regarding my next get-rich enterprise now that my crypto investments have disappeared: Yankees/sports Porn!
DeleteWhat Bitty said……x💯💥
DeleteThey dumped Durbin because he wasn't a home run hitter. They went with others hoping that the esteemed coaching staff can fix that launch angle to hit more homers...we all can see how that went...
ReplyDeleteyou must admit, Cashman is a fucking Genius.
ReplyDeleteit takes a superior intelligence to fuck up so many times in so many ways. None of us could do it.
DeleteMight I add that sending Jasson Dominguez down was a stupid, stupid move. JD has to play, if you want to develop him.
ReplyDeleteHis stats were deceptive: he hit only .225 overall, with .635 OPS. BUT, from the right side, against left handed pitching, he hit .275, with .735 OPS! That was in 80 at-bats.
From the left side, against right handed pitching is where he struggled this year: .194, with .574 OPS. But that was in 129 at-bats.
Hey, Trent Grisham can go 0 for 129 and still be the starting center fielder. Ryan McMahon can go 0 for 500 and still be on the roster. This is the problem. Guys who suck play every day. Young players who have potential are benched or demoted. The failure to develop young talent is a killer for any ball club. You'll be in the muddy middle at best, sooner or later.
Would JD have woke up and turned the corner from the left side? We'll never know because they sent him down at that point. Which, coincidentally, was right around the same time that Caleb Durbin woke up for the Red Sox and turned his season around!
So JD got barely 200 at-bats this year. 209, to be exact. Only about a 100 at-bats from each side of the plate, because he's a switch hitter. Wow! Barely qualifies as a cup of coffee in player evaluations.
ReplyDeleteYet, there are plenty sports writers and commentators all over the internet who think that JD got plenty of chances and didn't come through. They think he's played about four years and accomplished nothing. Shows what they know!
Quick summary of JD's career: he came up in 2023 and looked great for a week, then tore his elbow ligament and missed a year. In 2024, he got a cup of coffee after recuperating from elbow ligament surgery (67 at-bats). In 2025, he got the only real look thus far (381 at-bats) but got the rug yanked out from him with two months to play. That year, overall, he hit .257, with .719 OPS. Then, this year, with the stats as I wrote above.
Thus far, he's barely had a looksie. The numbers are highly encouraging. If he can't play defense, he's got to be a DH. No way that this player should be wasting his career in the minors.
By way of comparison, Amed Rosario this year hit .238, with .684 OPS in 227 at-bats.
ReplyDeleteAnd Jose Caballero this year hit .231, with .655 OPS in 411 at-bats.
Trent Grisham this year: .211, with .703 OPS in 418 at-bats.
Ryan McMahon this year: .213, with .635 OPS in 308 at-bats.
Yankee management is very much afraid to develop young talent, unless they are absolutely forced to do it. Or unless it's part of their inscrutably stupid plans. This explains how they brought up George Lombard, Jr. - they had no choice. And why they tried to force Anthony Volpe into shortstop, a round peg into a square hole. And why Austin Wells, who has proven that he can't hit, is the starting catcher.
ReplyDeleteTerrible player development. And even when they do bring up players from the minors, they don't assess them properly, don't coach them properly. And they only play if they suck, as in Volpe and Wells.
We'll see how badly they fuck up Lombard. And Volpe looks like he might get a chance at 2B, so we'll see how badly they fuck up Volpe, Part II.
Wells can't catch either. He had the third most errors (7) and 4th most in passed balls. The only elite stat from Wells was that he led the AL in a 62.6 success rate challenging the ABS system challenges.
DeleteFollow the money and all will be explained
ReplyDeleteYankees money will not be following Jizz Chasm© as he was not given a QO, Good riddance!
DeleteTrue dat, BTR…
ReplyDelete