As Yankee bloggers we all bow down to River Ave Blues and they had another great couple of articles over the past two days going over Brian Cashman’s best and worst trades as the Yankees GM.
- Cashman’s best trades: 3. Nick Swisher 2. Bobby Abreu 1. Alex Rodriguez
- Cashman’s worst trades: 5. Ramon Ramirez 4. Nick Johnson, Randy Choate, Juan Rivera 3. Ted Lilly 2. Damaso Marte 1. Mike Lowell
- Chad Jennings also passed along some news about former Yankees. Dan McCutchen has won the battle for fifth starter over in Pittsburgh. Rule 5 draftee Zach Kroenke hasn’t pitched well so far in Arizona, but he’s still in the running to make their roster. Another Rule 5 draftee, Kanekoa Texeira has an even better chance at making the Mariners roster.
Looking at Cashman’s best and worst trades one thing that I notice is that Cash gets the job done when he’s just doing his thing ninja style – waiting, waiting, and then when the right opportunity presents itself he pounces. Swisher was unwanted in Chicago, the Phillies were looking to dump Abreu, and A-Rod wanted out of Texas.
What Cashman’s shortcoming seems to be is dealing for pitching. In the case of Lowell, the Yankees had Scott Brosius coming off a great season in ‘98 and was the World Series MVP. So he had to get rid of Lowell and tried to find the best package for him. He failed with Ed Yarnall though.
Except for the Marte deal the other three were also bad ones for pitchers. Ramirez was in exchange for The Strangler Shawn Chacon, the Johnson trade was for Javier Vazquez which wouldn’t have been so bad except the Yankees dealt him the next year. Finally there was the ill advised Lilly for Jeff Weaver deal which looked good at the time except that Lilly is a serviceable lefty and Jeff Weaver helped to blow the 2003 World Series.
Finally, the former Yankee moves – the thing about these is that non of these players would have any legit shot at making the Yankees out of spring training. McCutchen might be considered a decent mid-season call-up for the bullpen, but he certainly wouldn’t be fighting for the fifth starter spot in the rotation. Although he might be as good an option as Sergio Mitre.
What do you think about Cashman’s best/worst trades?
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