This is a public service announcement to all Yankees fans: apologize to Brian Cashman.
Yes, this is the way we’re kicking off this article. I, one of the general manager’s most vocal critics, am calling for a collective apology. Not to mention, two months to the day after I said he didn’t deserve a new contract even if the Yankees won it all. Hell, we even went so far as to consider a potential successor!
Then, Cashman showed up. No, not the numbers-obsessed, analytics-educated, Billy Beane-wannabe Cashman. This was the real Cashman, the veteran GM who knows what his team needs, gets his man, and only with a little nudge-nudge from the ghost of George/Hal Steinbrenner.
Look at it this way. On his last five-year deal, Cashman played his own version of Moneyball with the Yankees. The $324 million investment in Gerrit Cole aside, upside was the name of the game. As in, why the Yankees traded for Isiah Kiner-Falefa instead of pursuing a Carlos Correa- or Manny Machado-type.
Cut to another early playoff exit at the hands of the Houston Astros, and something had to change. Over $500 million in free agency spending later, we can safely say that the Yankees are once again the Yankees.
Aaron Judge will be a Yankee for life. Carlos Rodon gives the team a second ace at the top of the rotation. Tommy Kahnle is back to boost a bullpen that was clearly exhausted by season’s end and well into the playoffs. Anthony Rizzo’s back too.
In its own weird way, Cashman has made this offseason almost a sequel to the winter of 2008. That offseason, a similar amount was spent on CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, and Mark Teixeira. New York then won 103 games and the 2009 World Series after winning 89 and missing the playoffs in ’08.
Read that back. The last time the Yankees spent this much in an offseason, it was after missing the playoffs. It’s after a first-place finish this time, and the hole in left field means Cashman isn’t done yet.
Anyway, we’ve rambled for a bit so let’s get back to the point of this, an apology to the Yankees front office.
Brian, we were wrong. So, so wrong, and we are so, so sorry. Not only did you bring back Aaron Judge, but you built around him. The Yankees aren’t simply running it back in 2023. They’re running it back and stiff-arming everyone out of the way, and all because of Cashman.
We are so sorry. We will never doubt the vaunted Yankees GM again (until we do, probably around mid-May?).
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