Hot Stove Coal: Is This Brian Cashman's Swan Song in the Bronx?

A quick post for this morning, but as I sat there watching football yesterday, I wondered if this could be Brian Cashman's final season as the General Manager of the New York Yankees. We've had this discussion a few times previously only to have Cashman return to the only team he calls home. We've seen his name in the newspapers linked to dozens of teams, especially when the stress of George Steinbrenner's reign seemed to rob him of every one of his remaining hairs. There's a whole section in Buster Olney's "Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty" that is dedicated to Cashman's stress level. But with The Boss having passed, Cashman in control, and a seemingly gentler regime in charge, it seemed like the days of Cashman leaving were well into the future. After the last few weeks of the Yankees' off-season, I'm beginning to think they're closer than we think.

Is this Cashman's final year answering that question in NY?

Brian Cashman has an odd sort of off-season as General Manager. He and the rest of the Yankees management had a very public negotiation (spat?) with the Yankees' captain, Derek Jeter. They put all their eggs into signing Cliff Lee and then watched him make them his third choice in the process. They signed Russell Martin and all seemed to be quiet except for rumors of a possible Rafael Soriano signing. But many of us thought that Cashman wouldn't make a move like that and when he came out and blatantly said he wouldn't give up a first round draft pick for Soriano, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

And then news of the Soriano signing broke. We all wondered what had happened and figured that we would never know if this was a move done by Cashman or by ownership. We figured that Cashman would toe the company line and talk about building that beautiful mythological "Bridge to Mariano" and we would just continue to push out the motto of "In Cashman We Trust".

That didn't happen either. Cashman didn't totally go all Peter Gibbons from Office Space and try to get himself fired, but he did make sure to let everyone know that he wasn't the one pulling the strings of the Soriano signing--even doing so at the press conference with Soriano sitting there. He went so far as to admit to a confused Yankee fan base that he had actually tried to bring back Carl Pavano--the American Idle himself--for another run in Pinstripes. At a time when the fruits of Cashman's drafting and developing labor are starting to ripen, we have to wonder whether he will be around to see the results.

Those were my thoughts before I saw the Bill Madden piece in the New York Daily News which said that Cashman may want out. Cashman has been in an impossible situation with the Yankees: if they win, it's because of the money and if they don't win, it's a disappointment and his fault for having the wrong nucleus of players. It's a team situation where no one truly appreciates when Cashman makes good moves; only when, like last year, the team has players who underperform like Javier Vazquez, Nick Johnson or Randy Winn. Nevermind his patience in keeping Phil Hughes or developing Robinson Cano or giving a guy like Brett Gardner a chance to succeed.

So maybe this is the last year of Cashman in New York. Maybe after this he heads to Washington or some mid-market team where he can really show his skills. Maybe he really jumps ship and heads to Oakland to take over for Billy Beane and shows baseball a new brand of "Moneyball". Or maybe he stays like he always has and realizes that things aren't so bad, that the Yankee wealth allows him to mask his occasional mistakes, and that after his success in Pinstripes, it'll be hard to top that anyplace else.

My feeling is that he'll be back next year when some of his young guns like Jesus Montero and "The Killer B's" have finally matured enough to make it to the Major Leagues. I think he's going to realize that while the grass always looks greener elsewhere that it's never greener than at that beautiful, new cashcow of a field in the South Bronx. And I think that a lot of Yankee fans who have bashed him throughout the years will miss him when the next GM is installed. When I take shots with Brian Cashman on Wednesday, I'll be sure to ask him if he's really leaving the Yankees. My gut, again, says no.