The Yankees introduced Monday that they signed normal supervisor Brian Cashman to a four-year contract extension. He’s now signed through 2026.
Now 55 years previous, Cashman has been in place because the Yankees’ normal supervisor since 1998. With Billy Beane’s current transition to an advisory function with the A’s, Cashman grew to become the longest-tenured baseball operations chief in Major League Baseball. The Yankees have remarkably had a successful report in all 25 of Cashman’s seasons on the helm and made the playoffs in 21 of these 25 campaigns. However, it’s now been 13 seasons since they’ve reached the World Series, with their 2009 victory over the Phillies standing as the latest time the Yankees superior previous the ALCS.
Cashman has turn out to be a lightning rod for criticism from Yankee followers as they proceed to voice frustration over the group’s World Series “drought,” and that criticism will solely develop louder if AL MVP Aaron Judge departs in free company, whether or not to signal with the Giants (his childhood group), the Dodgers or a “mystery team” whose presence within the Judge bidding just isn’t but identified.
Yankees proprietor Hal Steinbrenner, nonetheless, has taken a distinct tack than that of his late, oft-impulsive father George, praising Cashman’s stability and the yearly aggressive rosters he’s put collectively. Granted, possessing one of many sport’s largest payrolls annually might help paper over loads of missteps, however we’ve seen loads of deep-pocketed golf equipment with large payrolls submit sub-.500 information and miss the postseason over time. Payroll however, that degree of consistency is certainly spectacular, although the regularity with which the Yankees attain the playoff subject has additionally inherently elevated expectations; division titles and ALCS berths will not be thought of enough by a considerable portion of the group’s fan base.
The challenges for Cashman that lay forward start however actually don’t finish with Judge. The 2022 American League MVP carried an in any other case lifeless Yankees offense through the second half of the season and captivated a nationwide viewers alongside the way in which, chasing down and narrowly surpassing Roger Maris’ longstanding American League residence run report. Re-signing Judge would ship the Yankees barreling into the second tier of luxurious tax penalization at a time when there are different clear wants on the roster.
Even if Judge is retained, the Yankees can have a closely right-handed lineup in want of some stability, to say nothing of a number of undesirable contracts (e.g. Josh Donaldson, Aaron Hicks) driving up the precise bottom-line payroll and the group’s luxury-tax quantity. There’s work to do within the bullpen, too, and the Yankees might see two starters attain free company following the 2023 season in Luis Severino and Frankie Montas. Their potential exits certainly play a task within the group’s reported curiosity in Carlos Rodon, who’d probably turn out to be a good higher focus ought to Judge depart. At that time, Cashman and his workers would wish to find out whether or not to pivot and dive again right into a shortstop market they eschewed one offseason in the past. That determination, specifically, might be positioned beneath a microscope over the subsequent couple years as prospects Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza take heart stage within the Bronx.
As with any normal supervisor or president of baseball operations, Cashman’s tenure is checkered with massively profitable transactions and regrettable offers. Last winter’s acquisitions of Donaldson and Isiah Kiner-Falefa probably didn’t present the worth the group hoped for (significantly because it value them a stable marketing campaign from Gio Urshela), and August’s Montas acquisition instantly harkened again to Sonny Gray’s disappointing tenure with the Yankees. Then once more, current trades for Jose Trevino, Clay Holmes and Anthony Rizzo have been wonderful, and Harrison Bader shined with a superb postseason effort.
All any normal supervisor or president of baseball ops can do is hope the successes outweigh the missteps and hope to have the ability to persuade possession he is the right individual for the job. Yankee followers can have spirited debates about whether or not the primary half of that sentence applies to Cashman, nevertheless it’s abundantly clear that Steinbrenner values the continuity, professionalism and chronic successful that Cashman has overseen in what’s now an unimaginable quarter century on the job.
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