Yankee Fact
posted by Kalel9 @ 9:53 AM
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Wednesday, February 25, 2015
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21 Comments:
If you want to be thought of as a competent manager, then having Levine and Cashman as your two point people demonstrates that you are not.
I hate Levine and Hal, but I think Cashman is just as responsible for the decline.
I think the bigger problems are above him.
I agree with Phil. It's not all on Cashman. Some of the personnel decisions over the years (since 2005, when Cash received 'full control") are really not in line with other moves. Including the decision to re-sign A-Rod in 2007. The Sori signing. Others of that ilk. I believe it is someone(s??) between Hal and Cashman who has Hal's ear, and is making personnel decisions based on financial issues.
I would not be surprised if some of the folks above Cashman have bonus clauses in their contracts that they receive $xx dollars, based on the attainment of XX level of profit, or something of the sort. It comes into play with all future expenses that will show zero current payoff in revenue growth, even though there may be a payoff down the road.
This happens all the time in the Corporate world. And I have been in enough meetings with MLB personnel to understand that this exists in the hierarchy, at least to some extent.
That picture just creeps me out LOL
George Weiss used to have a clause in his contract that bonused him for suppressing player contracts. And he acted like he was getting bonused for being racist.
I have said this time and time again, Randy Levine is the biggest problem in the Yanks FO.
From my own experiences with him to the stories I've heard since I left, he is the biggest detriment to the baseball ops department. He completely undermines a lot of the analysis and overrules ops on certain decisions.
I defend Cashman because you can easily identify moves driven by baseball ops versus moves driven by ownership. Has Cashman made some mistakes? Of course, every GM has but he he's in the GM position to take blame and responsibility for decisions made above him, even if he didn't agree with them.
I recall reading in several books (on is "When rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for U.S. Steel) how he was a tough SOB when it came to players negotiating contracts.
He was a toughie, and the reason is probably as you noted.
What does Cashan excel at?
Development? Nope, he sucks at it.
Trades? Nope, he's average at best.
Free agent signings? Nope, average to below average given his advantages.
As bad as Hal and Levine are, a competent GM would have had more success.
Stick did it with George when no GM had been successful since Gabe Paul.
IPK, Joba, Hughes, Montero, Melky, AJack.
They have only Pineda to show for it and that is still iffy because success would occur after missing two seasons, and it was a trade made when an aging/declining offense was their biggest problem.
Even if you want to argue that Levine is worse, that leaves a lot of space for how terrible a GM Cashman is given his resources.
And really, he knows he has been bad. Why? Because he has become super defensive, he trolls fans, and no longer ascribes to the standards he set in 2005, before he became a jerk.
Cashman isn't in charge of development and hasn't been. He is the one who has aggressively worked to rebuild the minor league structure over the past few years in large part to fix the development problem which started when they promoted Mark Newman out of the position of head of player development.
I've no idea who specifically talked Hal out of signing Moncada, whether it was Levine, a baseball ops guy or Hal talking to himself, but I've no doubt Levine in general is a major issue with this team.
I mainly fault Cashman for things Lawyer mentioned in another thread: his seemingly over-valuing of pitching and defense compared to offense, his signing of journeymen types to fill out the 25-man when you could just do so with cheap minor leaguers and his idea that you can't construct the "perfect beast." I get what he's saying on that last bit, but given the recent mediocrity of the team, it comes off as"we're not striving for greatness."
The Yankees' farm system has been abysmal in developing players under his watch, no question, but I wonder how much of that comes from Hal's cheap amateur budgets. The team at least seems to be making a lot of changes on the player development side, so credit there for realizing the problem exists.
We can debate Cashman's abilities as a GM or complain about Levine's meddling all we want, but ultimately, the buck stops with Hal. At this point, there isn't much hope for us fans unless and until he sells the team to someone who values winning above all else and will demand excellence.
It seems the only way to defend Cashman is to blame everyone in the organization except him.
I know it's always easier to blame Cashman or a single person for everything that happens all over the vast Yankee organization, but it just doesn't seem to be that simple.
He's had problems above him that he couldn't do much about, and problems to the side of him that he's been better at dealing with. He has spear headed the minor league changes and the hirng of more and better scouts over the years.
He's not in charge of the big money and that was made clear again on Monday.
He got credit, and rightly so, when he forced Cano and Wang on Torre.
Hal thinks so highly of him that he pays him $3m+ per year impetuosity, yet he ignores all of his advice?
He has said when he hasn't' liked a move, like both Sorianos.
So it's reasonable to think that he likes most everything else.
It's dysfunctional and far from a perfect machine as we notice ALL THE TIME.
But he has waged a battle against amateur apathy twice now. First by getting George to spend on the draft -- then when Hal stopped doing that -- by getting Hal to spend on better scouts and better minor league coaches, and promoting quality coaches and execs in the system in an effort to get it back to where it was under Livesay and Sabean.
It's hard because assholes like Levine, who has always been an anti-worker pos, telling Hal they don't need to do x, y, and z to make money and not to risk it on x,y, and z in the short term.
From 2000-2005 he also had to contend with the Tampa faction -- who George had empowered to make their own trades and signings.
Cash used to joke that he was tagged out (as in a pro wrestling sense) during moves like the Mondesi trade.
I'm not so sure of that. It wouldn't surprise me if they all got together after the Soriano signing and agreed to keep the disagreements in-house and not make them public.
The fact that Hal pays him so much yet allows the meddling is evidence of how utterly dysfunctional the organization is.
It's just funny to me that people assign blame on here without any sort of knowledge as to how certain things actually went down.
Even when I try to provide some actual inside information on how certain transactions occurred, there's people who argue that it's actually not true.
I guess take what I say with a grain of salt but Levine wields way too much power. I'd bet money he was the "others" who talked Hal out of it.
I'd happily share the story of why Levine is a piece of shit in a private setting for anyone who cares to listen.
I don't know if George Weiss got bonuses for suppressing player salaries or if he just did that because he believed in running a tight ship. However, he was also responsible for finding, acquiring, and developing talented players and he did that better than anyone in the history of the game over a sustained period of time.
Weiss reported directly to Topping and Webb. He was accountable for player personnel and there was nobody else in the picture between him and Topping and Webb. Nobody outside the Yankee hierarchy seems to know the exact reporting relationship between Cashman, Levine, the Steinbrenner family, and the Tampa brain trust, so it's hard to decide which donkey to pin the tail on.
Weiss was great before the colorline was broken, then broke Tom Greenwade's and other scouts hearts by not letting them sign Willie Mays, Ernie Banks and Frank Robinson among others. The Yanks were still finding everyone, but they weren't allowed to sign them, which lead to the `60s collapse.
And yes, Weiss did make more money for keeping down player salaries.
His best work was done for Barrow in the `30s.
Billy, YGM.
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