Madden Takes On Mike Pagliarulo

Bill Madden of the New York Daily News illustrates an interesting discrepancy regarding some harsh criticism of Brian Cashman.  Mike Pagliarulo, former player and co-founder of a scouting company, has a pretty cool website called The BaseLine Report where he dishes scouting knowledge.  His company often gathers intelligence on Japanese players and consults for many teams.

Pagliarulo put up this MySpace post a few weeks ago, giving Brian Cashman a D- grade and calling him one of the worst GMs in the game.  He compares the Kei Igawa signing to the Mike Hampton contract.  Huh?  Madden quotes Pagliarulo as writing, "The Yankees chose not to use (Cashman's) Japan consultants, who told him to walk away from Igawa."  That's Pagliarulo's way of saying Cashman ignored his sound advice against signing Igawa.

However, that sentence has apparently been removed from the blog post since Madden revealed that Pagliarulo's actual report to Cashman was fairly positive.

Madden called out Pagliarulo, whose response has apparently been to edit the MySpace post in his company's favor. 

Comments

[achilles17]

I read that "review", and it was totally unfair. Cashman has made some moves that haven't worked out, but hindsight is 20/20, and for many of them they seemed reasonable at the time. Other trade, such as the Johnson trade, are now looking like a stroke of genius. The fact that the author actually gave Cashman a positive report on Igawa (who is clearly the biggest bust of the offseason), gives him no leg to stand on whatsoever.

[Tim Dierkes]

Well it wasn't a glowing report on Igawa, but it was basically what everyone was saying this winter: 4th or 5th starter at best, and not a great bet in the AL East. Hell there was a poll from Japan showing that 70% of Japanese baseball fans expected him to fail.

[achilles17]

Of course. I read what Madden posted, and you're right, it isn't anything along the lines of the reports that were coming out of Japan regarding Matsuzaka. However, to personally give the Yankees a report that at least gave some justification to signing him, and then turn around and say that " Igawa could potentially be one of the worst free agent signings ever" is entirely hypocritical.

[ArodSucksAtLife]

He used to scout for the Yankees didnt he? Got fired and has been posting bitter nonsense for a while.