Brian Cashman Grades the Yankees on the Job Fair Curve

Brian Cashman has finally found the number that settles the fundamentals argument, and it has nothing to do with catching a baseball.

Speaking to reporters at the general managers meetings in Las Vegas on Tuesday, the Yankees general manager got asked about the knock that his club runs into outs and kicks the ball around every October, and he bristled.

"It bothers me. I don't agree with it," Cashman said. "Our coaching staff has been trying to get raided this winter."

Then he laid out his evidence. Tanner Swanson, the quality control coach, left to become the bench coach in Seattle. Brad Ausmus, the bench coach, interviewed in Houston for general manager and then for manager. "I've had a number of guys try to pilfer our pitching guys," Cashman added. One day later the Astros made it official and hired Ausmus to run their dugout.

So that is the bar now. One of the richest operations in the sport measures itself by whether other clubs will take its coaches. Nobody got blacklisted for standing too close to the wreckage, so the wreckage must be fine. By that standard a restaurant that keeps flunking health inspections should throw a party every time a rival hires away the fry cook.

Cashman did tack on a disclaimer. "I just don't think it's representative of the truth, but that's my opinion," he said. He is entitled to that opinion, though the tape from recent Octobers tells a harsher story.

Go back to the 2024 World Series, the last time the Yankees got anywhere close to a parade. Game 5 in the Bronx, a five-run lead, Gerrit Cole working on a no-hitter into the fifth. Then the roof caved in. Tommy Edman hit a catchable liner to center, and Aaron Judge dropped it. Anthony Volpe skipped a throw toward third, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. could not squeeze it. With two outs Mookie Betts tapped a slow roller toward first, and Cole never got over to cover the bag. Five runs crossed, none of them earned. Los Angeles won 7-6 and took the title that night.

The Dodgers were hardly shy about it afterward. Joe Kelly, a Dodgers reliever, explained the plan on his podcast: "Just let them throw the ball to the infield, they can't make a play." He called the matchup "a mismatch from the get-go" and said his own stars "aren't lazy and play hard," which was about as subtle as a fastball to the ribs. A few days later Miguel Rojas went on a different show and gave away the homework. "Their weakness was the way they make outs on the bases," he said. Read side by side, those two quotes describe a plan any opposing manager could follow, which was to stay close and let New York give the game away.

Two years and a lot of new faces later, the same movie played again. In Game 2 of this fall's Division Series against Tampa Bay, New York was charged with three errors before the first inning ended and finished the night with four. The Rays won 5-2 and finished off a three-game sweep in the Bronx. Ryan McMahon misplayed the leadoff grounder at third, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a throw to first that never needed to happen. Austin Wells then had his mitt clipped by a swing on what would have been strike three, and the batter went to first on catcher's interference.

Then came the part that should have stung worse than any of it. On Oct. 28, minutes after Milwaukee beat the Rays 4-1 in Game 5 to give the franchise its first title, first baseman Jake Bauers handed the ball from the final out to his manager, Pat Murphy. Bauers spent 2023 in pinstripes on an 82-80 club that sat home in October. Murphy, with a camera rolling, offered some career advice: "Just remember when you were on that horses--- Yankees team and you guys were all playing for yourself?"

A brand new champion reached for the Yankees as the punch line. Murphy picked up the phone and apologized to Cashman, and later explained he meant big money clubs in general. Cashman said the gesture "meant a lot to me" and, in a moment of accidental candor, referred to his own outfit as "the lowly New York Yankees." On that point the general manager and the fan base finally agree.

None of this surprises anyone who pays for seats in the Bronx. The South Shore Press has covered this all extensively. Fan blogs and message boards have spent years howling about baserunning blunders and shaky gloves, and about a front office that answers every early exit by running back the same staff with the same plan. Jorge Posada, the former All-Star catcher, said on a podcast in late October, "I don't feel welcome when I go there." Cashman's response from Las Vegas was a tidy "He is welcome," followed by a line that sounded a lot like a confession. "Jorge wants us to be great. We want us to be great," he said, before allowing that the club has been good and "we haven't been great."

That gap between good and great showed up in the fifth inning of a World Series game, again in a three-error first inning against the Rays and in countless mindless, lazy blunders over the years that have driven the fans insane. A list of coaches who found work somewhere else will never close it. Houston hired Brad Ausmus because Houston likes Brad Ausmus, and a Yankees infielder in October will still have to figure out where to throw the ball.

Every time it seems the Yankees have finally run out of fresh ways to embarrass themselves, somebody in the front office finds one more, and this winter it was the general manager in Las Vegas holding up the departures of his own coaching staff as proof of excellence. Yikes.