Cashman: Sox ‘unstoppable’
Yanks GM looks to 2019
CARLSBAD, Calif. — Dave Dombrowski and his crew are in town laying the groundwork for something that hasn’t happened in 20 years — a World Series repeat.
The last team leader to do that was Brian Cashman of the Yankees, who managed to go back-toback-to-back from 1998 to 2000 and came very close to a four-peat in 2001.
Cashman was clearly impressed with the buzzsaw that was the 2018 Red Sox.
“They had something special clearly with their group and they were able to reinforce that specialness not just in the regular season but in the postseason as well,” Cashman said yesterday, the first full day of the GM meetings. “We missed the opportunity to win the division in the regular season and I was looking forward to taking our shot in the posteason to change that narrative, but they had none of it. They took us out, and moved forward and took everybody out in front of them so, they were just unstoppable.”
Stopping them or not in 2019 is impossible for Cashman to say. All he knows is that the Yankees will try.
“How that translates as we move forward, we’ll see,” he said . “A lot of great talent on that team, a lot of good people on that team, tremendous competitors. You don’t have to like them but you still have to respect them. You certainly have to respect who they are, what they did and how they went about it, and you move forward and see if you can find a way to get past it next year.”
Cashman does not believe it’s impossible for a team to repeat but he has yet to discover a current formula.
“It’s hard no doubt about it, those teams were different but there were some similarities at the same time we had back then,” he said. “You just have to be willing to adjust on the run and be willing to plug holes that pop up and thankfully back then we were able to to do that. But, this is now and now we’re continuing to focus on ways to take a 100-win team that didn’t even win the division and improve upon it.”
Dombrowski said until Craig Kimbrel turns down, as the club expects, the qualifying offer extended to him, he is not diving too deeply into the closer-relief market.
“I don’t think he is going to (accept) it but until he officially turns it down, don’t know what you’re going to do because he may be calling around to see what else is out there and we don’t want to get caught by surprise and pursue something real strong and then he accepts the offer,” Dombrowski said.
Should Kimbrel sign a multiyear deal elsewhere, Dombrowski sounded willing to enter spring training without having snagged a replacement closer from outside the organization.
“I don’t think we’ll go in with that idea of closer by committee,” he said. “I can’t tell you what’s an established closer — I mean Ryan Brasier has closed games for some established big league clubs. Is Matt Barnes? But I don’t think we’d feel uncomfortable with either one of them. Could there be other alternatives? Sure.”
Dombrowski said the Red Sox spent much of Monday evening meeting with other clubs to discover their general offseason plans . The Sox president of baseball operations is still battling a case of laryngitis, so “I said ‘hi,’ other people talked to them to get a feel for what they’re going to do.”
The Sox are making more hires in their analytics department, with the hope of integrating them with the scouting department. Dombrowski said he would elaborate as soon as his voice improves.
The Sox also are waiting for medical examinations r later this month on the surgically repaired knnes of second baseman Dustin Pedroia and pitcher Steven Wright to see about their availability for next season. Dombrowski said the club may not have definitive results on Pedroia so soon but time does not appear to be a big issue.
“There are a lot of second basemen out there,” Dombrowski said. “But our first pulse will be to see how Dustin does. I don’t have a time frame when that will be exactly, we’re still working on that.”
Dombrowski is waiting to hear from the commissioner’s office about the Red Sox’ complaints concerning the Astros having uncredentialed employees taping their dugout as well as the insinuation the Red Sox were cheating.
“The commissioner’s office said they were(investigating) — that’s out of our hands, it really makes no difference to me at this point,” Dombrowski said. “We’ve expressed our situation but I do believe that they were going to follow up.”
The general managers and team presidents will meet with a representative from the commissioner’s office this morning to discuss bigpicture items such as sign-stealing, pace of play, etc. One issue Dombrowski does not like is expanded rosters in September.
“I don’t like seeing all those players, I don’t think it’s right, the roster’s unbalanced, I don’t think it’s really right,” he said .
Arizona GM Mike Hazen, who was Dombrowski’s second in command from August 2015 until after the 2016 season, was thrilled to see the Red Sox win it all.
“They have a great team — Dave’s done a fantastic job, and obviously Ben (Cherington) before that and with some players all the way back to Theo (Epstein) so it’s great watching those guys celebrate another World Series,” Hazen said. “Having experienced a couple there, you remember what it felt like when you did, the way the city gets behind the team and the players.”