Results tagged ‘ Brian Cashman ’
A.J.’s barn, Joba’s pen and more
Some additional notes from today’s event in Washington Heights, where the Yankees moved 19-year-old right-hander Leonel Vinas from “Hank’s Yanks” to the Gulf Coast League Yanks, and Brian Cashman said once again that they’re preparing for ’11 without Andy Pettitte:
- A.J. Burnett knows his rebound is important. He’s remodeled a barn at his Maryland home into an indoor pitching facility and is expecting new pitching coach Larry Rothschild to drop by for about a week next month. Cashman said:
“We need A.J. to come back to his previous form, there’s no doubt about it. I believe he will, but we need that to happen, too. We signed A.J. not to pitch toward the back of the rotation, to be a front of the rotation starter. That’s what his abilities are, that’s what he’s capable of doing. That’s what we expect. I believe you’ll see that again, but that means a lot of hard work. I know he’s up for it. I’ve talked to A.J. several times now and met with him in person in Maryland. He knows the responsibility he has to us and this fan base. He’s committed.”
- Joba Chamberlain will be in the bullpen for 2011 and the future. Cashman told a reporter to “bite your tongue” when it was suggested that Chamberlain might be called in to fix the rotation problems, and later explained:
“His stuff plays so much more significantly out of the ‘pen. We’ve given him the opportunity to show what he can do out of the rotation, and the velocity dropped. It’s just not the same stuff.”
- Food for thought: Even if Pettitte says he’s done pitching before the Yankees get to Spring Training, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility that he could “unretire” – hey, Roger Clemens did it – if the Yankees rotation cries out for him. The GM wouldn’t shoot down the suggestion outright, saying, “I don’t want to speculate on stuff like that. I guess we’ll see where we’re sitting in May.”
- The Yankees were never close on a deal with Kerry Wood, who wound up taking much less than everyone expected to go back to the Chicago Cubs. Here’s Cashman one more time:
“We never got close because, in talking to his agents, it was going to cost $5.5 million a year or more on a multi-year basis. We weren’t interested in that level. But they said that it was what it was going to take. When we saw he signed with the Cubs at $1.5 million, I called right away and said, ‘Hey, what’s going on here?’ They said the Yankee price was the Yankee price; no different than the Red Sox price or the White Sox price. The bottom line is, he moved his family from Phoenix to Chicago and he’s going to be a Cub for life now. This had a lot to do with non-baseball related stuff, too. I can understand that.”
- Alex Rodriguez saw Dr. Marc Philippon after the season and was given a clean bill of health on his right hip. The Yankees expect no problems with him being ready for the spring.
Yankees make their offer to Cliff Lee
The Yankees have made an offer to free agent left-hander Cliff Lee, general manager Brian Cashman has confirmed.
Lee’s agent: Yanks’ visit was “very favorable”
Darek Braunecker, the agent for heavily-sought free agent left-hander Cliff Lee, spoke for about 10 minutes Monday in the lobby of the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin Resort.
“It gave Cliff an opportunity to personalize the organization. The only experience he had with the Yankees prior to that was going to Yankee Stadium and playing in Yankee Stadium and his experiences in New York. It’s a good opportunity. Certain levels of free agents have the opportunity to go face to face with general managers, managers and pitching coaches and ownership. It’s something we anticipated and expected, and something that Cliff enjoyed. He’d never had a chance to visit with Brian Cashman before. You can’t help but like him. It was very favorable.”
“Cliff has clearly demonstrated he can pitch in any market. When you think about it, he’s gone from Cleveland to Philly to Seattle to Texas. He hasn’t had a hiccup in any of them.”
Yankees discussed trading for Russell Martin
The Yankees and Dodgers talked about a trade that would have sent Russell Martin to New York in exchange for Francisco Cervelli, going so far as to exchange medical information on Martin, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The Yankees have been interested in Martin for some time but have had concerns about his health. Martin, 27, was an All-Star in 2007 and 2008 but did not play after Aug. 3 last season because of a right hip fracture.Meanwhile, the Dodgers were concerned that if they went to arbitration with Martin, and kept him, he would receive an increase over the $5 million he was paid in 2010. Cervelli, who made a little over $400,000 in 2010, would cost Los Angeles much less.The Dodgers and the Yankees went so far as to exchange medical files on Martin, but the Yankees had too many concerns about Martin’s health and told the Dodgers they would not go ahead with the trade.The Dodgers, who had also tried to trade Martin to other teams, instead decided Thursday night not to tender him a contract, and he became a free agent.
“We are not handing the jobs to anybody. They have to be earned. These players have put themselves in the position to get a good, strong look. If there’s another opportunity out there that maybe allows us to not put all our eggs in one basket that makes sense, then we might pursue that as well. We do believe we have catchers that are ready to battle, but they’re going to have to do the work.”
Cashman safe and sound on the ground
He made it.
Cashman’s coming down the building
Yankees GM Brian Cashman will go through a practice run for his 22-story rappel of Stamford, Conn.’s Landmark Building early Friday morning.
As the deadline approaches…
The Yankees already have one deal in the books, another expected to be completed and perhaps something else on the way as Saturday’s 4 p.m. ET non-waivers Trade Deadline approaches.
Cashman addresses hot-button issues
I’m playing catch-up on this, but Yankees general manager Brian Cashman spoke on Thursday at the University of New Haven in Connecticut and addressed several hot-button topics that fans have been curious about.
Via the Register Citizen’s Joe Morelli, with a hat tip to the iYankees blog for linking it first:
On not negotiating new contracts with Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera right now, and some more context about Johnny Damon —
“The industry the last two free agent markets seems to be going
downward and the player’s ages are going upward,” Cashman said. “It
makes more sense to be patient. My attitude is if this is the place you
want to be, you will make it happen. Johnny Damon professed his love
for the Yankees, wanted to be here and was given every chance to be
here. He’s not here anymore and I don’t feel that is the Yankees’
fault. They have to reconcile why they are not here, not me.
“If
people want to be here and be a part of something, then find a way to
work it out. Of course we want (Jeter, Rivera and Girardi) back, but we
choose to delay that until the end of the year.”
On the Yankees’ two-year, $14 million offer to Damon –
“I told (Damon and Boras), ‘I don’t know if Hal (Steinbrenner, the
team’s part owner) would approve it, but I’m not going to fight for it
unless we know you will do it,’” Cashman said. “Scott Boras said,
‘Bobby Abreu’s (new) contract is $9 million a year right now on the
table so why would we do that? So I expect to see a Bobby Abreu
contract.’ … I hope he does not sign for something less than our
offer. That means he should have been a Yankee and that’s not our
fault.”
On how the Yankees’ budget looks for 2010 —
“If you ask everyone in the room if they would rather not have Curtis
Granderson because he costs X amount of dollars and Andy Pettitte
because he costs X amount, that gives you more money to sign the left
fielder who is dear to your heart in Johnny Damon,” Cashman said. “If
you ask most people right now, what would you rather have moving
forward, I think they would say they need Andy Pettitte for the
rotation and Curtis Granderson because he’s an all-star center fielder
who hit 30 homers at Comerica Park last year, who steals bases and is
(7) years younger. You can’t have everything.”
Hairston: Yankees keeping light on for Damon?
Now a member of the San Diego Padres, Jerry Hairston, Jr. appeared last night on SiriusXM’s MLB Home Plate channel and mentioned that the Yankees never made him an offer to stay in New York. He also shared the opinion that the Yankees are still interested in signing Johnny Damon.
“The Yankees didn’t officially make an offer,” Hairston told hosts Jim Bowden and Joe Castellano. “We’d been talking with them for about a month or two months and, they were kind of, I guess, waiting for a certain left fielder’s price to come down. That’s what I was gathering. I know Brian [Cashman]‘s going to really love me for saying that.
“But that’s the sense I had, and more power to them. You know, obviously Brian has a job to do and Johnny Damon’s an incredible ballplayer. But obviously at that time I said, ‘You know what? I need to do what’s best for me.’ And the best fit for me was in San Diego.
“That’s a young team, but they’re looking for players with some speed, athleticism that can play in that ballpark and I was looking to sign there anyway and then, icing on the cake, having [brother] Scott get traded over there it definitely makes it that much sweeter.”
Newsday’s Ken Davidoff got to Cashman first on the subject and posted on Twitter that it was “right” the Yankees never made an offer to Hairston, but “not right” that they are waiting for Damon’s asking price to drop.
On an unrelated topic, this nugget was passed along from MLB: On this date in 1960, Stan Musial insisted he take a $20,000 pay cut. ‘Stan the Man’ believed he was overpaid in 1957 and 1958 and his salary should be based on his play last season. Can you imagine someone trying to convince Scott Boras of that today?
Yankees passed on Pedro – twice
Remember the other day when Pedro Martinez said that he embraced the ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ chants at Yankee Stadium, because the Yankees fans really wanted him on their side?
Quick refresher: “I know they really want to root for me. It’s just that I don’t play for the Yankees, that’s all. I’ve always been a good competitor, and they love that. They love the fact that I compete. I’m a New Yorker, as well. If I was on the Yankees, I’d probably be like a king over here.”
Well, the Bombers had the chance — twice — to make Pedro into ‘royalty,’ and passed both times. Here’s good stuff from Christian Red in the New York Daily News:
“At that time we had internal information about his health that turned out to be accurate,” Cashman said yesterday after the Yankees’ workout at Citizens Bank Park. “We thought he was going to break down and he did.”
… A source familiar with the meeting said that Steinbrenner even teased Martinez about his unruly hair at the time, and said that if the righthander did sign, he would have to get a haircut. Instead, Martinez went across town to Flushing, where he helped the Mets win the NL East in 2006, but was a disappointing 8-7 over the final two years of his deal.
This past summer, Cashman said Martinez was asking for $5 million for half a season, which was too rich for even the Yankees. Martinez eventually signed with the defending champion Phillies for $1 million, plus incentives.
“We took a look at him, but he didn’t throw well in front of us. They said he was throwing 95. He was throwing 87, 88,” said Cashman. “What he showed us wasn’t what we were told. He was looking for $5 million. When he recalculated his demand, he didn’t tell us about it. We might have had interest.”
Bryan Hoch
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