via Brian Hoch MLB.com | DALLAS — The Yankees never feigned even a glimmer of interest in fitting Albert Pujols for pinstripes, but the slugger’s agent did reach out to general manager Brian Cashman just to make sure.
Cashman learned of Pujols’ monster contract with the Angels via text message during Thursday’s Rule 5 Draft, and he said that Pujols’ agent, Dan Lozano, touched base early in the process on his client’s behalf.
“I said no; I gave it a nice, respectful no,” Cashman said. “We’ve made our commitments, we have guys we’re committed to, and so … even though you can say he can fit on anybody’s club, realistically our money is spent in those directions. How do you add that with our commitments? You just can’t. It’s not feasible.”
Cashman said that with Alex Rodriguez’s massive contract, as well as Mark Teixeira on an eight-year, $180 million deal that includes a full no-trade clause, there was never going to be any room at the inn for Pujols.
“They just checked in. It was more, I’m sure, on [Lozano’s] list of things — ‘I have to ask, because I’ve got to do my job,'” Cashman said. “But even Dan Lozano recognized [that with] Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez, [Jesus] Montero — there’s no vacancy here. I think if you were in my chair, you’d be in the same decision-making mode.”
Asked for his reaction to Pujols’ arrival in Anaheim, Cashman made a light-hearted attempt to steer the conversation back to the Yankees’ brightest prospect.
“Obviously he’s one of the greatest that’s played,” Cashman said of Pujols. “He makes everybody significantly better. If he played for anybody, he’d make them all significantly better. He’s a special player. I don’t know him personally, but I see what he does with that bat. It’s Montero-like.”
