Will Re-Signed Brian Cashman Oversee End Of Yankees’ Stagnant Stretch?
The Yankees didn’t exactly drop a Winter Meetings bombshell when they announced a new contract for Brian Cashman on Monday.
New York’s senior vice president and general manager has been fulfilling his job duties without a deal in recent weeks, and he might as well be part of the Steinbrenner family at this point. So it’s been assumed that an agreement would be reached eventually, even after the Astros swept New York in the American League Championship Series.
Cashman’s new contract is for four years and will take him through the 2026 season.
A change was never expected atop New York’s front office, but there is a case to be made for doing some things differently over the duration of Cashman’s new pact. The Yankees have reached the postseason in 21 of his 25 seasons as general manager, but the team has not been to or won a World Series since 2009.
That drought is a point of contention for Yankees fans who are critical of Cashman and the team’s performance in recent years. Fair or not, New York annually conditions its fanbase to have “World Series or bust” expectations, so it's no surprise that some have grown impatient with Cashman, manager Aaron Boone, and owner Hal Steinbrenner.
But with Cashman and Boone staying put this winter, it’s fair to wonder what, if anything, about the Yankees will change.
Complaints directed at the team during the Boone years, which began in 2018, have varied. Some have noted that the Yankees have declined to use their greatest superpower, their financial might, to the best of their ability at times, as Steinbrenner has treated the Competitive Balance Tax as a self-imposed salary cap in some years. Doing so has led to Cashman constructing flawed rosters.
Others have questioned just how reliant the team is on analytics and whether the front office is overinvolved with the on-field decision-making. Or if the Yankees simply have the wrong people in their analytics department, considering teams like the Rays and Astros often get more out of their rosters.
While the reasons are debated, there’s no denying the Yankees are in a stretch of stagnation – even if Steinbrenner insists that’s impermissible.
“Stagnation is not acceptable,” the owner said in mid-November, per NJ.com’s Brendan Kuty. “That’s not what we’re about and that’s not going to work with me.”
But Steinbrenner went on to say Cashman has “always been great about seeing what other clubs are doing” when it comes to technology, methodology, analytics, performance science and biomechanics. “I think we have one of the best labs in America,” Steinbrenner continued, referring to New York’s performance science and biomechanics investments. “That’s becoming a bigger, bigger part of the game.”
But at the end of the day, Yankees fans don’t care about those investments if they don’t produce championships. The Bronx faithful is tired of hearing about the process. It wants results.
Cashman, with his new deal inked, can start delivering on the team’s mission statement by re-signing Aaron Judge this offseason. The sooner the better, as New York has other needs to address, including its rotation, left field, and trying to trade a few albatross contracts that the general manager probably shouldn’t have taken on in the first place.
Whatever moves Cashman ends up making this offseason, he will be judged until the Yankees bring home another title. That may be harsh, but it’s also the job he’s signed up for time and time again.
