In a somewhat surprising development, there is manager’s job open at the Yankees Triple-A team. Al Pedrique is now coaching with the A’s.
Al Pedrique, the Yankees manager of the New York Yankees Triple-A farm team—the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders for the past two seasons, has left the organization to take a post as the first base coach of the Oakland A’s.
Oakland has named Al Pedrique as its first base coach. Pedrique managed the Yankees' Triple-A team last season but was not given an opportunity to interview for their managerial opening.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) December 4, 2017
Although Pedrique has yet to comment on his reasons for leaving the Yankees, Feinsand would appear to be on target when he cites the fact Pedrique was not given even a courtesy interview by Brian Cashman during his search for a new manager to replace Joe Girardi. Ultimately, the job went to Aaron Boone, who was officially announced as the new skipper yesterday.
Pedrique is what is often termed a “baseball lifer.” Pedrique reached a pinnacle in 2004 when he was named manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks which, according to the D’backs PR department made him only the second native from Venezuela, joining Ozzie Guillen (White Sox), to ever manage a big league team.
At 57, it’s possible too that Pedrique saw the proverbial writing on the wall, noticing the downward trend in the ages of major league managers today (take the quiz here), deciding he had driven as high in the Yankees organization as he would ever go.
The departure of Pedrique, though, puts a massive dent in the list of things Brian Cashman has yet to accomplish this offseason. And it’s not even likely Pedrique was on his to-do list. Adding to the complexity is the fact that Pedrique is no lightweight, having driven the Railriders to the Triple-A National Championship in 2016.
And when you consider the post vacated by Pedrique as the second highest managerial job in the Yankees system, along with the fact the team’s future mainly resides in Scranton, Cashman may find himself re-starting a long and beleaguered process similar to the one he just completed before he locates his man.
More likely, though, Cashman is battering himself, thinking “If I had just given this man thirty minutes of my time, none of this would have happened.”
