|
May 19, 2013
Who is Shyster?
Monthly Archives
May, 2012
November, 2009 October, 2009 September, 2009 August, 2009 July, 2009 June, 2009 May, 2009 April, 2009 March, 2009 February, 2009 January, 2009 December, 2008 November, 2008
Or you can search by:
Most Recent Comments
Sam Zell’s Nightmare Continues (10)
William S. Stevens: 1948-2008 (22) Teixeira’s Options (18) Cole Hamels Meets Talk Radio (23) Appropos of nothing (4) Shyster's Daily Circuit
Rob Neyer
AaronGleeman.com Joe Posnanski Blog Baseball Analysts Baseball Musings Cot's Baseball Contracts It IS About the Money Keith Law Cardboard Gods Baseball Think Factory MLB Trade Rumors Retrosheet Vegas Watch Way Back and Gone Bats -- NYT Baseball Blog The Biz of Baseball The Daily Fungo U.S.S. Mariner Braves Journal Scott Simkus The Common Man Jorge Says No! Baseball Over Here Fack Youk Wezen-Ball Chop-n-Change |
Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.Friday, April 17, 2009Matt Taibbi really hates Brian CashmanGiven the heat seeking missile that Matt Taibbi sends up Brian Cashman's rear with this article in the May issue of Men's Journal, I can only assume that Cashman ran over Taibbi's dog and slept with his wife. Or vice-versa. Or maybe he had a threesome with them and then ran them both over:. . . objectively speaking, the job of New York Yankees general manager should be the single most failure-proof position not only in sports but in all of human society. Giving a normal, red-blooded, pattern-baldness-suffering American male access to the Steinbrenner fortune and asking him to buy 25 baseball players a year in an unregulated market is no different, in any meaningful way, from handing Sarah Jessica Parker a blank check and asking her to fill a three-bedroom apartment with shoes and dresses. And we’re not even asking her to get good deals. All we ask is that the outfits match. It just goes on and on like that. And I suppose it's entertaining on some level to see someone work so hard to construct such complicated put-downs, but ultimately the piece is a showy, ignorant mess. Taibbi fails to grasp the same thing every other casual Yankee critic fails to grasp, and that's that contrary to his premise, the Yankees' GM is not responsible for "buying 25 baseball players a year in an unregulated market." Indeed, it's a highly regulated market, with many of the best players being completely off-limits to Cashman until they're not quite as good anymore. Add in the fact that he answers to many masters and a rabid press corps. and fan base, and the notion that Cashman should be gone simply because he hasn't picked better players from the allegedly endless player menu is rendered even more absurd. Almost as absurd as Taibbi failing to mention what, if anything, Cashman should have done differently over the past decade. Indeed, the whole piece reeks of smug hindsight. Taibbi's larger point -- that Cashman has always played the Yankee political game well and has been safe because of it -- is largely correct. I fail to grasp, however, how this makes him such a loathsome figure. To me it makes him kind of smart. Taibbi has one other valid point, and it's that Cashman made a mistake in not trading the young arms and Cano for Johan Santana. Like everything else in the article, however, it's a judgment aided by a hell of a lot of hindsight. I can't remember what I wrote about it at the time, but as I sit here today, I kind of remember thinking that the Yankees should have pulled the trigger. But it wasn't anything as clear-cut a case then as it was at the end of Kennedy and Hughes' awful 2008. Certainly not clear enough to justify the derision Taibbi rains on Cashman here. At least there is one small bit of value to this article: I now know that if I want to get published in Men's Journal, all I need to do is drop bombs for 15-20 paragraphs and froth at the mouth a little. Wait, a lot. (thanks to Neate for the heads up) Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:56pm Comments
Petey said...
I think Taibbi is out of line. Cashman has done a great job. The Yankees farm system is the envy of the league. That $275 mil deal for A Rod is a great move, assuming A Rod will return to form without steroids. The Sabathia deal was a great deal, even though the Yankees outbid the Brewers by $60 mil. Brilliant! How does he manage to get these deals done? Posted 04/21 at 03:12 PM
Tom said...
Remember that Cashman’s incompetence is all that is keeping baseball’s competitive balance. Thankfully for the rest of baseball’s fans, he usually makes the wrong decision. Sheffield over Vlad, passing on Beltran and then signing Johnny Damon the following year, not trading for Santana because he didn’t want to give up prospects. Now maybe he was instrumental (or maybe not I have no idea) in drafting and signing one of the greatest cores in baseball history (Jeter, Rivera, Williams, Posada) but that doesn’t overcome his rather poor performance as a GM lately. Posted 04/21 at 06:13 PM
Page 2 of 2 < 1 2
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Next Post: Glavine will likely retire>> <<Previous Post: Catching up with Dave Dravecky | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
No GM in the game is luckier than Cashman. Can any of you give me the name of any GM with at least 10 years with the same club sho has never had to look for a; Starting Shortstop, a starting Catcher or a Closer?.......He is faced with having to look for less key personnel than anyone in the game, has a bigger budget, and still fails.