Yankees general manager Brian Cashman firmly believes he gave fans what they wanted last summer: an unorthodox–perhaps sacrilegious–trade deadline fire sale, topped off with a return of highly touted prospects.
That one wish was granted, but fans shouldn’t bother rubbing Cashman’s magic lamp again this year.
With the franchise positioned in between restoration and contendership for the first time in over 20 years, Cashman isn’t looking to rush the process, which means that major league debuts for some of the fans’ favorite prospects aren’t in the cards just yet.
That ruling has already been enforced, too, as Cashman announced on Tuesday that top-ranked prospect Gleyber Torres will start the season in Double-A Trenton, despite having an outstanding spring. Perhaps it’s an unpopular decision to have budding players work their way up from the minors, but Cashman wants it to be known that his intentions are good.
“It’s always in your best interest to have that safe bet, but again, we’re trying to win at the same time,” Cashman said in a Q&A session with MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. “That’s the balancing act. It’s development vs. the need to compete on a daily basis in New York. “It’s OK if we lose now so we can win later” — that’s not something that, unfortunately, we’re really allowed to do. We have to try to win on a daily basis.
“That’s why you’re seeing our record; we’ve had winning seasons now for I don’t know how many years, because we’re not allowed to “cry uncle” and save it for another day. If the guy is better than what we already have and he gives us a better chance to win, most of the time, that player is going to wind up on our 25-man roster ahead of schedule, because that’s just the way we go about our business.”
Same business, yes, but with a different business model. Not only is New York trying to groom positional youngsters like Torres, Aaron Judge and Clint Frazier, but also young and able pitchers. According to MLBPipeline, three hurlers–James Kaprielian, Justus Sheffield and Chance Adams–are ranked on the Yankees’ top-10 prospects list. Just outside that list is Jordan Montgomery (13th), who’s made himself popular this spring, and righty Chad Green, who started eight games in the show in 2016.
It’s more than reasonable to postulate that the Yankees’ farm system has never possessed so many acclaimed pitchers. But if that statement is a stretch, it’s certainly been a decade since they’ve come anywhere close. If there has ever been something to gripe over, the franchise’s inability to sculpt young starting pitching takes the cake.
“Yeah. It’s a fact,” Cashman said of the dearth of talented arms in years past. “I think part of the process has been certainly where we draft. Because we’ve had a lot of success, we’ve not been allowed to tank and go off the board and therefore get access to some of the high-end stuff that plays out to be impactful.
“Part of it is we can’t get out of our own way because we don’t have the patience to let guys finish off their development, because if you possess some unique ability that stands out above everybody else — whether it was Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, now [Luis] Severino and before that [Bryan] Mitchell and Shane Greene — we’re pulling them up before their development is finished.”
And so Cashman and the organization will have to adjust from their old habits in order to return to championship form. Whether that imposing roster arrives this year, the next, or in two years during what is expected to be a historic free-agent period, Cashman still remains hopeful and confident.
“What we’re trying to do as we move forward is hopefully we’ll have a much younger, more diversified group so that we’re in a position to not put all our eggs in certain baskets and live and die by it,” Cashman said.
“The American League East is the best division in baseball — I don’t even think it’s close. The Red Sox and Toronto and Baltimore just because they were there, those teams are the teams to beat. All three made the playoffs last year and I know us and Tampa Bay are trying to fight our way back into it. We look forward to competing with those guys.”
Cashman, who has served as one of the Yankees’ top executives since 1998, is entering the final year of his contract.
If you want to connect with Tom Hanslin, email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @tomhanslin.
