Sorry, Yankees fans: Brian Cashman signs new deal

Yankees X/Twitter, Facebook, and every other platform are about to be down bad because, surprise surprise, Brian Cashman has signed a new deal to stay on as general manager of the New York Yankees.

This isn’t exactly big news. Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner said during their remote end-of-year press conference that a new contract was in the works. Again, no surprises here. Brian Cashman has been in his position since 1998 and, World Series drought aside, the Yankees have never finished under .500 on his watch.

That’s nearly four decades of building winning baseball teams.

But don’t tell that to the online community. To the rabid fans with too much access to a keyboard, that Cashman has yet to replicate the Jeter Dynasty with three-time MVP Aaron Judge is disqualifying. How dare one of baseball’s most successful general manager’s not deliver his star a World Series ring on a silver platter, right?

That’s a pile of crap worthy of the former Fresh Kills Landfill. Life has three certainties: Death, taxes, and Brian Cashman running the Yankees front office until he steps down voluntarily. The man turns 60 in July. Other executives his age would be veering towards “out of touch” territory, yet the Yankees’ pitching development is among the best in baseball. New York’s arms ranked best in baseball this year with a 3.23 staff ERA.

Think about it. Aside from George Steinbrenner’s post-2004 spending spree that netted the infamous Carl Pavano contract, Brian Cashman has never really made a decision that is objectively bad. And, in some cases, even the “right” decision proves to be a mistake.

Aaron Hicks was a switch-hitting center fielder who seemed on the cusp of a breakout season when Cashman gave him a seven-year, $70 million extension at the start of spring training in 2019. DJ LeMahieu was the reigning AL batting champ and two years removed from a breakout season when he signed a six-year deal after the shortened 2020 season.

Both turned out to benefit from the juiced ball era of 2015-2020, and the Yankees cut both before their contracts expired.

Similary, Josh Donaldson was still a 30-home run threat when Cashman traded for him in 2022, but hit a wall in New York.

To say nothing of how much baseball has changed in Cashman’s nearly four decades on the job. The man has had to build teams around a permanent shift, ever-increasing pitching velocity, sticky stuff, and even the Steroid Era.

Therein lies the problem when it comes to Yankees fans’ perception of Brian Cashman. Their memories are of the late ’90s Joe Torre era, back when velocity and strikeouts weren’t hard requirements for pitching prospects. That isn’t today’s game, though it’s bound to change with elbow surgeries continually on the rise.

Brian Cashman is not to blame for his players suffering injuries at inopportune times. Nor for his team mentally collapsing for weeks at a time. Nor for general underperformance. The Yankees’ roster is not a machine that operates via buttons and switches at Cashman’s control.

His job is to simply build the machine. And the man has built some damn fine ones over the years, even if they haven’t necessarily won any awards. That’s fine, not even Tom Hanks wins Oscars for every movie. Does that take away from his skill or craft?

No, it doesn’t.

Brian Cashman is here to stay, and probably for several more years.