Yanks: A House Divided?
We've talked about his continually, but, under Hal, we have continually seen two plans at work. There's the good one that has worked to add the best scouts in baseball, reorganize their minor league system, rely on analytics, and finally got the owner to agree to a July 2 splurge. All of that stuff is really good.
Then we've seen the other plan -- which seems to want to just overpay for over 30's, and make excuses for not being more agressive with amateurs and Cubans when they've been able to.
The other day Hal whined about the payroll that was made necessary by this pennywise and pound foolish stewardship of the Yanks. We have a huge payroll because Hank wouldn't spend big on amateurs. That's it. We have few to no entry level deals. So no young salary savers. And that's the only reason why its as high it is. Meanwhile, in the period that the Yanks have achieved salaray stasis above 200M, MLB revenues have nearly doubled. So cry us a river about your payroll, Hal. It's bullshit.
The problem with the Yanks is the involvement of the non-baseball people. Folks like Levine, Trost and Hal. Until Hal stops listening to those guys and commits to his baseball people, the Yanks will continue to be at odds with themselves and take self-destructive actions, like, not signing Moncada and passing on all of those other Cubans over the past few years.
posted by Kalel9 @ 11:33 AM
29 Comments:
Hire a GM and let him do his job, then stay the hell away. If you don't like the job he's doing, let him go after his contract is up. Rinse and repeat until you find the right fit.
It really is so simple, yet it escapes this ownership group.
I don't share this view.
I do not believe that he pays $3m to a GM who he keeps laughably saying is doing a "great job," and yet ignores all of his good ideas while only listening to his bad ones.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
So I think the story is far more complicated and more of an indictment of the baseball people
And if for the sake of argument it is true, all these issues have been known to the GM for years, yet he keeps taking their money.
That may be worse than being incompetent.
The GM has a better track record than the owner.
At what?
Again, I am not absolving Hal. But I think there is abundant blame for all involved. They spend more than enough to be much better than they are offensively even with the impediments.
The problem is the big bad contracts and those have come from ownership.
They are both beneficiaries of Stick's legacy. Neither has built anything on their own.
And the failure to spend on the drafts and IFA's before the rules changes are also on ownership.
And that's why we're not as good as 200M should be right now.
Cash was Stick's and Livesay's protege. That's why he ascended to GM at such a young age. But he was also part of the success you want to attribute to Stick, as were Livesay, Sabean and Newman.
Great post, I couldn't have said it better myself. The problem lies with the structure of the front office, starting with Levine being the "President".
To run a successful franchise, this position needs to have a qualified baseball minded person, which he is not. If you look back to when his tenure began, the Yanks free spending ways went into hyper-drive and their spending on amateurs was cut drastically. Is there a correlation there? 100%.
What did Levine do prior to being the President of the NYY? Oh you know, he was just the LABOR NEGOTIATOR for MLB during the 1994 strike. He's one of the main reasons why amateurs get paid next to nothing. He is next in line to Hal, he is frugal and he doesn't care for paying amateurs or his own employees.
As mentioned previously, our FO needs to be restructured and he needs to be the first one to go. We should look to the Cubs structure for guidance:
Theo is the President and reports directly to Ricketts. His GM is Hoyer, who reports directly to him.
What does Theo & Hoyer have in common? A baseball background.
Billy, I was just about to mention the Cubs as an ideal structure. You're right, but Levine probably makes the company too much money for Hal to consider parting ways with him, especially since he's a holdover from the George days.
Our only hope is Hal selling.
Interstingly, the Cubs, A's, Sox, Astros and Dodgers all now have employees dedicated to hyping their prospects to BA, Mayo, Gammons and the like.
I think you make a telling case.
Levine came from City Hall, where he was Deputy Mayor under Giuliani. He had alot of involvement in the building and financing of the new Stadium.
Unfortunately, baseball is something everyone thinks he understands better than the next guy. That was true of George himself, who could never accept that both of his championship era teams ('76-'78 and '96-'00) were for the most part built by baseball people when George was under suspension.
Cashman admits he is not a talent evaluator. Stick was. he may have been a protege but it doesn't mean that he is good at what he does.
Sabean's departure killed them.
Cashman has said he's not a talent evaluator, but he was a very good college baseball player who walked, came to the Yanks in the scouting departmnt, worked in player development and was the protege of Stick, whom you overrate as a scout, and Livesay, a scouting legend.
So I think he has a pretty good handle on who can play and who can't. Now they added the anlytics department which helps him and scouts tremendously.
If we are hiring based on a college career, we can do much better. He went to Catholic University, not some baseball factory.
He was hired because his father had a horse breeding connection to George.
Again, he is paid $3m, the owner says that is he doing a "great job," and yet he ignores all of his good ideas while only listening to his bad ones?
That's absurd, and if it's true, his character sucks for selling out, contract after contract.
It was Hal's fault that Joba, IPK, and Hughes failed here?
Or that AJack was traded for an older player?
Or he traded Melky for Vazquez?
Or that he hired Girardi?
Or that he brought in Wells, Youk, and Hafner?
That he overpaid Ellsbury, Beltran, and McCann?
I don't understand how he gets a pass.
Joba failed because he had a career-altering injury. Neither Kennedy nor Hughes appeared to have the makeup for NYC, though that's something that probably should've been spotted sooner so they could sell high.
AJack isn't top-tier and he was traded for a guy who wasn't terribly old who was an MVP candidate one of his seasons in NY and was an overall plus offensively.
Bringing back Vazquez was dumb, no question. So was trading for Wells. I don't quite remember the particulars surrounding Youk and Hafner. Weren't they basically projects they took a chance on? Were better options available? (I'm genuinely curious. I don't even recall which offseason it was they were signed.)
Of the last three I wonder which were baseball ops moves versus Levine moves. I agree all three contracts suck.
Girardi, like most managers, has his flaws. I'm not as down on him as others here, personally.
They got rid of Melky because they thought he was leading Cano astray.
Both times they traded for Vazquez it was a mistake.
AJax was traded when they thought they could get Granderosn cheap after having lost Matsui and Damon. He's not a star player.
Joba was a drinker who got dehydrated in Texas and messed up his arm -- though I do blame the Yankees for making him a reliever and rushing him to the bigs. and I blame Torre for leaving him out there during the infestationi in Cleveland.
Hughes became and arm thrower who stopped dropping and driving after he tore his hammy and hurt his ankle. He lost mph and went from being an extreme groundball pitcher to being a flyball pitcher and NYS disaster in the process.
IPK is nothing special. Trading Clippard for nothing was worse.
Btw, I'd say Cash's biggest flaw has been trying to trade for young aces... Those three he thought he got for Mike Lowell, Weaver, Vazquez. We'll have to see about Pineda and Eovaldi.
BTW, Wally Pipp played baseball for Catholic so it's not like they have no tradition or Yankee connection without the Cashman's knowing the Steinbrenners.
Totally forgot about Clippard. Yeah, that was an awful move as well.
I'd like to see if he can trade for a competitive balance pick or two before this year's draft.
Btw, historically, the Yanks don't have many great trades. They bought or signed the vast majority of their greatest players.
I guess the Cone, Clemens and ARod trades you make every time, and Joe Gordon for Alley Reynolds worked out, but really, not a lot of big time Yankees have been acquired that way. Oh and Roberto Kelly for Paulie.
When they've been dynastic, they haven't gotten great returns for their extra assets, like Mike Lowell, Jacky Jensen and Gus Triandos, etc.
This is from Kiley McDaniel, who I know personally and was a past employee of Yanks:
11:06
Kiley McDaniel: NYY really flubbed the Moncada process. Almost all of what’s been reported is accurate, including many of the “characterizations” along with a couple other things I may reveal next week that I’ve uncovered, some of which is embarrassing for NYY.
11:08
Kiley McDaniel: It sounds like NYY genuinely didn’t think Moncada was worth what BOS paid, but they approached it the wrong way and there’s one bigger question they can’t/likely won’t answer.
How are a bunch of 16 year olds are worth $34 million but the best 19 year old in the world is worth exactly $50 million but not $60 million? It’s a ridiculous line in the sand to draw and there are some multi-year, overarching trends in what NYY has been doing that should’ve made this easier to see coming.
George Steinbrenner would’ve never let this happen and there’s more than just undertones of the PIT/Miguel Sano fiasco with NYY/Moncada. Teams that are run well and efficiently with clear delineations of who is in charge aren’t scared they might overpay relative to the 2nd highest bid if they think the price/player line up with their internal values.
And another blurb:
Comment From The Bronx Empire
Weigh in for us…did New York just make a miscalculation on Moncada’s market? Surely they didn’t buck at upping their offer when they heard they were short by a few million. Or were they even given a chance to up their offer?
11:35
Kiley McDaniel: They had a shot and didn’t take it. I think some of it was the agent, who they hadn’t dealt with before and it seems like they thought he was fabricating offers and trying to make a name for himself. How dumb would it be to not give them a chance to top any offer? No one is that stupid.
Sounds like a combination of top scouts and ownership said $25M was enough, either because they thought it would be the best offer or Moncada would take it anyway because Cano is his favorite player. It’s more complicated than just misgauging the market value of the player, though.
And can assure you that the top scouts were crazy about Moncada and thought they were getting him and sending him to Charleston. They didn't think they would let anyone beat them.
Btw, Alvarez is trying to get a waiver so he can sign before 6/15. That would make him available to us and everyone else.
That would be nice but it's up to the commissioner and he still has to obtain residence in another country. I'm still upset that we lost on Moncada. Levine needs to go
So am I, but we have till 6/15 to keep loading up, and he's good.
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