Cashman: I ain’t losing any sleep GM has no regrets over pitching
Brian Cashman is sleeping just fine. While Yankees fans toss and turn watching Gerrit Cole, Justin Verlander and Patrick Corbin, (or ‘The Ones That Got Away’ as they seem to be called in the Bronx these days) pitching for a World Series title this week, the Yankees GM said he is not losing sleep over how he built the 2019 team that ended up short of a World Series — again.
“I have no regrets. If we have a strong process and we put our best foot forward based on a lot of pressure points … then you live with it,” Cashman said Thursday at the Stadium in a press conference to wrap up the season. “So am I living with that? I’m living with it. Am I comfortable with every decision and every thing that we went through in our process? I think we have a strong healthy process that leads us to make whatever offers we’re making at the time and for good reason and it’s something we can be comfortable with. You don’t get everything you want at all times. But I think what we’ve done was do a lot of great things along the way.
“I can sleep at night with the process we have in place,” Cashman continued. “It’s served us well and put us in a position to take a legitimate shot (at) the championship so far in the more recent years.”
After a 103-win season, Cashman admitted they failed in their ultimate goal. It’s the first decade since the 1910’s the Yankees have not even appeared in a
World Series and only the second they didn’t win one. Cashman defended the 2019 team as a “championship-caliber” team and pointed out it wasn’t those pitchers who went elsewhere that ultimately ended their season shy of a title.
“Pitching is not what cost us that series with the Astros. At least that’s my opinion. I felt that our hitting with runners in scoring positions is what sent us home,” Cashman said. “Ultimately when you peel the onion that’s the true fact of the matter of what decided the ultimate outcome of the Houston Astros, New York Yankees series.”
So, get ready to toss and turn some more this winter, Yankees fans. Cashman certainly did not sound like a man on the verge of throwing $245 million at Cole this winter to land the biggest free agent pitcher. Over the next week, the team’s brass will meet and dissect 2019 and prepare for 2020.
Expect a similar hot stove. “It’s our job to be objective and truly evaluate the strengths and weaknesses and add it up and it was like this, was this roster championship caliber and had a legitimate opportunity to represent the final team standing? The answer to that question is yes,” Cashman said. “I’m not gonna lose sight of that in my discussions with ownership and my recommendations of where we need to continue to go. So the winter program will be no different than others.”
As Cashman pointed out this spring, the days of George Steinbrenner angrily storming the free agent market after a tough postseason loss are over. And Cashman and Steinbrenner’s son Hal take a different approach in a different business landscape.
“I don’t want to speak for Hal Steinbrenner, I think the proof is in the pudding …,” Cashman said. “He and his family put big coin on the table and invest in this club.
“His willingness and his desires are always to do what’s best for the Yankees in the near term, in the long term. But he wants a good sound process. He wants to make good, sound, educated decisions with predictable outcomes. So I don’t see this winter being any different.”
And Cashman heatedly defended his approach to trying to reinforce his pitching over the last few years and particularly this year with Corbin, who took a longer-term contract with the Nationals, and Dallas Keuchel, who got a million more from the Braves this June.
“I have no knowledge in free agency of what an opposing team is offering until ultimately it comes out after the signings elsewhere. So, whether it’s Dallas Keuchel this summer, or Patrick Corbin this past winter. It’s obviously illegal to be calling the other clubs to find out what they’re offering. So you don’t know until then,” Cashman said. “In the Keuchel situation, for instance, I used that line of ‘We lost out by the hair of our chinny-chin-chin,” or something like that. It was a very close number from where our offer was but how would I know that?”