Yankees fans are frustrated with Brian Cashman, and rightly so. Has his leash grown shorter in New York after the MLB trade deadline?
Yankees fans are frustrated with Brian Cashman. Rival general managers are frustrated with Brian Cashman. Yet somehow, Hal Steinbrenner is not.
Another trade deadline season has come and gone without New York making the right moves to put themselves in World Series contention. This season, the opposite is true — the Yanks would have been better served selling what little assets they have with an eye towards 2024. Think St. Louis Cardinals-lite.
Yet, these are the damn Yankees, and because that's the case, Cashman added a rental reliever and another pitcher they can stash. Add in Wednesday's breaking news (Domingo German entering rehab), and it's easy to see why the pressure will be turned up a notch on this team moving forward.
Yankees should fire Brian Cashman because of the trade deadline
I mean, what were the Yankees really thinking here? New York acquired Kenyan Middleton from the Chicago White Sox, a rental by all accounts, for prospect capital. It likely won't hurt them in the long run, but it also won't help this team make the kind of playoff run their fans expect on a yearly basis. If anything, acquiring Middleton shows a staggering lack of direction, which can and should be blamed on Cashman.
Yankees beat writers openly questioned Cashman's legitimacy and direction, as well, including Chris Kirschner, who graded their trade deadline an 'F'.
"It's almost a nightly occurrence now where the Yankees offense gets shut down by an opposing team's starting pitcher, and it doesn't even matter how good that pitcher's stuff is. So of course the Yankees added a couple of bats to inject some life into this group, right? Nope. The Yankees added two middle relief pitchers, one of which was optioned to Triple A," Kirschner wrote.
New York added to an MLB-best bullpen, which may help pad the stats but doesn't do anything for the bottom line. This team is not built to make a playoff run, let along a World Series appearance. New York did the wrong thing at the deadline, and that's what counts.
Yankees: Brian Cashman should be fired for his left field plan
Brian Cashman went into the season with Aaron Hicks as his starting left fielder. That plan quickly went up in flames, as Yankees fans aimed their frustration at Hicks, who performed poorly. Hicks was eventually released and signed with the Orioles, where he's had a remarkable turnaround of sorts for a team that has actual postseason hopes.
Cashman heard all offseason long that left field was a weakness for this team. Yet, he chose to do nothing, instead trusting the infrastructure the Yanks had in place. That was just one error in a long list of bad decisions Cashman has made over the last few years.
As Brendan Kuty noted regarding the left field hole, the trade deadline would have been a good time to address said issue:
"But the Yankees didn't address needs in left field or at third base — problems that should have been addressed in the offseason. They added Middleton, who few Yankees fans knew existed prior to Tuesday. And they kept up with the party line that this team — which sits in last place in the American League East — can and will play better than it has, despite having little evidence to prove that. This was bad," Kuty wrote.
Instead, the Yankees did nothing. If that's not another scathing indictment of Cashman's leadership, nothing is.
Yankees: Brian Cashman messed up with Domingo German
We wish Domingo German's family nothing but the best as this story is still developing. However, it's clear now that the Yankees made a mistake welcoming him back into the fold. German has a history of domestic violence, but was given a pass by New York at the time. As of now, there's no evidence that German's entrance into a substance abuse program has anything to do with his domestic violence past, but the pattern of behavior from German is clear.
German has entered rehab and will be out for the rest of the season. That's all we know at this point.
At the time of his domestic violence situation, German spoke with Cashman and Aaron Boone on several occasions. In the end, they gave the green light for his eventual return, per the New York Times:
"Hal Steinbrenner, the team's managing general partner, said in a radio interview for German to return he needed to feel comfortable with German being both sorry for his actions and that he had turned his life around. German said he hadn't spoken with Steinbrenner, but Cashman and Boone have twice had long conversations with him.
"He has done enough to earn the opportunity to be here and to compete and to be a part of this team," Boone said. "Now the proof is in the daily life that he leads."
German's struggles are on him, in the end, but the Yankees and Cashman chose to employ him after an obvious, violent red flag. That deserves some sort of retribution.
