GM Brian Cashman says the Yankees anxiously await the next collective bargaining agreement, and says that previous CBAs have “crippled” them, writes George A. King III of the New York Post.
“The previous CBAs have really hindered us, so I think the next one is something we’re clearly going to be interested in on how it will impact us over the entire course of the term of the contract,” Cashman says. “In the short term, I don’t think it will affect how we do business in 2017. The last few have impacted us exactly as they were expected to and why it was done the way it was. Lot of teams benefited significantly.”
Cashman is referring to the Yankees’ uncharacteristically quiet approach to free agency last season (when they didn’t sign a single big-league free agent), as well as “a lot of the international markets I’ve been taken out of,” presumably including the Yankees’ restrictions on international bonus spending for 2015 and 2016 after their spending spree in 2014. This winter, the Yankees are expected to spend more heavily on the free agent market than they have in the recent past.
Cashman adds that he is excited about top prospect Gleyber Torres, who the Yankees acquired when they sent Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs and who recently won the MVP of the Arizona Fall League at the tender age of 19.
“When I was out there for the GM meetings, I went to see him play and the buzz among all the baseball people, the scouts and front office execs alike was ’this is the best player in the league,'” Cashman says. “And he was the youngest player in the league, so that’s pretty exciting to hear.”
In the 2016 regular season, Torres batted .254/.341/.385 for Class A+ Tampa. Despite his outstanding .403/.513/.645 showing in Arizona, Cashman says Torres will start the 2017 season with Double-A Trenton. MLB.com currently rates him the Yankees’ second-best prospect, behind Clint Frazier.
Yeah Cash… it was the CBAs fault you handed out all those terrible contracts the past 10 years
Without a doubt, many high-priced, long-term deals for veterans hurt, but that’s missing the point. Those contracts are already signed when the new CBA is put in place, further degrading their initial value. Essentially, cash may not have signed those contracts if he was aware of future limitations greatlty directed at organizations like the Yankees. You’re not wrong, but there’s a bigger picture there.
Ellsbury, McCann, Rafael Soriano, and Tanaka (not a bad contract, but overpriced) were all signed during this CBA
Soriano was not a Cashman signing. he was 100% against it
None of the large contracts the Yankees have signed can be attributed to a GM. More so, it was the Steinbrenner family who allowed these signings in the hopes of winning. It appears as if Cashman has actually had more control in recent years and deserves an enormous amount of credit for fielding teams that stay around 80 wins while rebuilding the farm and letting some of these deals expire. How else could anyone spend the amount of money the Yankees have over the past 10 years, only have one ring to show for it, and not even hear a single rumor about being fired? Cashman is a better baseball man than people give him credit for.
I’m sure this is the case for most big money free agents. Owners are often active in big money deals. Cashman was still involved in those.
It is the case, but when you spend at that level it’s not the GM making moves, it’s the owner instructing him to add the players. It’s not like Cashman went on his own spending spree and is crying about what he did.
Tanaka has been overpriced? You have no idea what you’re talking about. He’s been paid $66M so far and by conservative measures worth at the very least $76M and by the highest measures $94M so get your facts straight before throwing shit against the wall. McCann was almost worth it but not really, hard to say for sure since he barely played with Sanchez there, first two years he was actually worth exactly his contract when averaged together. The rest are complete wastes minus the fact that we needed soriano when Moe tore his ACL which is kind of invaluable. So basically Ellsbury is the only clear loss but that was seen from a mile away by everyone. And I would be so sure that was a Cashman move. He’s proven to be very baseball savvy and stupid things tend to happen when ownership get involved in anything other than saying yes or no. In fact I’m pretty sure all 4 contacts listed were ownership moves. The only one I don’t know 100% is McCann the others are 100% on stupid ownership and they still batted .666
Tanaka has been overpriced? You have no idea what you’re talking about. He’s been paid $66M so far and by conservative measures worth at the very least $76M and by the highest measures $94M so get your facts straight before throwing shit against the wall. McCann was almost worth it but not really, hard to say for sure since he barely played with Sanchez there, first two years he was actually worth exactly his contract when averaged together. The rest are complete wastes minus the fact that we needed soriano when Moe tore his ACL which is kind of invaluable he was overpaid by $2M and yet again having him there as a backup was probably spending the little extra. So basically Ellsbury is the only clear loss but that was seen from a mile away by everyone. And I would be so sure that was a Cashman move. He’s proven to be very baseball savvy and stupid things tend to happen when ownership get involved in anything other than saying yes or no. In fact I’m pretty sure all 4 contacts listed were ownership moves. The only one I don’t know 100% is McCann the others are 100% on stupid ownership and they still batted .666
Totally agree (re Cashman). The way he played/timed the miller and Chapman trades was brilliant (not to mention the courage he showed to acquire Chapman (for ‘nothing’). Let him do his job …
Thought the same thing Fred. It was irresponsible contracts for players that had already had their best years not the CBA.
But the luxury tax bills killed them.
I think the ownership is finally waking up and realizing that they can’t do business as they’ve done in the past. The past two years have been handled wisely and set the franchise up for a brighter future. Cashman has done a good job. The only way they can screw things up is by signing any of the current free agents to high paying long term contracts.
You two jokers up there have to be kidding the bad contracts aren’t what killed the Yankees it’s the teams like the Cubs and Red Sox that cry and cry about the Yankees spend too much we need some of their money it’s a kick in the d— when you get “taxed” at 100% for spending their own money. I believe the Yankees have spent more money in fines under the current cba then some teams have paid in payroll just a guess
Nobody that is part of the Cubs or Red Sox have ever cried about Yankee spending and that they wanted their money. Cashman and the Stiennbrenner family of clowns did your team in and made those stupid overpaying contracts.
Right. Teams like Kansas City and Milwaukee are the ones asking for financial rules. And they don’t want the Yankees’ money and never had. They want to be able to compete for a World Series. That’s the beginning and the end of the argument for the luxury tax.
What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
What are you talking about? We Cubs fans don’t care on way or the other how the Yankees spend their money.
We have typically viewed the Yankees as being reckless with $ (even more so than the dodgers), but hey it’s your money
We also respect what Cashman has done the last 3(?) years when actually given the freedom to execute his plan.
Don’t flatter yourself so much that the world cares about your spending … give others some credit for respecting wise and recognizing foolish decisions
For now just pay your (luxury) taxes and honor the MLB revenue sharing agreements that your owner agreed to.. and focus on what your team is doing and not so much on what ‘you’ think others are thinking (you are not nearly as smart as you think you are)
When did the Cubs or Red Sox ever cry over the Yankees budget
That’s sort of the problem with free agency though. You’re paying guys for what they’ve done; by the time most players make it to FA they’re past their prime. This is why Harper’s free agency is going to be so interesting – he’s going to be a FA in his mid-20s. That almost never happens. Mike Trout will become a free agent at age 29. Most players don’t hit free agency until after age thirty, so smart teams need to build in decline in their contract offers.
It worked for the Yankees when they could balance those large free agent signings with young homegrown talent like Jeter and Rivera, but as even those guys aged, their farm system became more and more barren, while they were still handing out those huge contracts, their downfall was pretty much inevitable.
Rather than front-loading the deals, teams like to spread the cost over about 5-10 years after the player retires.. Lots of these contracts pay about the same annually over the life of the deal, but the payroll is strategically moved from say years 3, 7, and 8 to something more like a pension.
And to clarify: The “pensions” are counted as part of the yearly salary, so it’s possible to pay a guy $50 in year one and defer $25 mil of it until 2025. Example: Strasberg’s $45 mil salary will earn him $35 mil in 2023 and $10 mil in 2030. He’ll get $5 mil each in ’21 & ’22 on a 15 mil salary and 10 mil each in ’25 & ’26. Normally that deferred money gets paid out in the player’s 40s, but Strasburg and Harper will be exceptions.
Heyward was 26
Now that Torres is on the Yankees he can finally be overhyped and exaggerated about.
Yanks have a long way to go to building a team like they had in the 90s, but Cashman has done a good job in trying. Great teams have a least 5 players with a 4plus WAR. Trading Gardner and Headley would speed up the rebuilding process. I think Cashman will kept this team in the mix for the playoffs as they continue to get younger while searching for top players. Frazier should be the next one to hit the majors with Torres not far behind. The Yanks need Judge and Bird to join Sanchez this year. I am interested to see what Cashman does to boost the starting pitching, even though I think they could surprise with the arms they have at the present time. Pineda, Green, Mitchell, and Severino all have good upside if 2 of them perform next year they will make the playoffs.
I wonder if the Yanks should have considered dealing Sir Didi to Seattle for Walker and A prospect rather then Katel Marte since Torres is close and Walker has that high upside front line starter ability we need. Would Didi been enough to make that deal?
On talent and future control alone, Didi and the right prospect would probably have been enough to get Walker and Marte. However, it may be that DiPoto was only considering trading for someone with more service time than either Marte or Gregorius and therefore still acquired Segura or Cozart instead.
It’s easy to deride the Yankees, but there’s a real point Cashman is trying to make. The CBA subsidizes the small-market teams, and it incentivizes teams of any revenue level to play poorly if they can’t be contenders. Tanking is now a legitimate strategy for long-term roster construction. And refusing to spend revenue-sharing dollars and instead directing it towards profitability, is also permissible under the CBA. If, through inverse-order drafting, compensatory picks, penalties, “protected picks” and “competitive balance picks” you make it harder for the big market teams to draft young, and cheap talent, they end up getting pushed into the free agent market. Then, with a lot of chips already on the table, they end up spending even more to just keep pace. Some go bust with that approach–the Yankees reached the end a couple of years ago and smartly started a re-build, the Angels are in terrible shape, and the Tigers are approaching it. The Cubs smartly tanked, as did Houston (who essentially fielded a minor-league and AAAA roster one year), the Red Sox. did boom and bust. The Phillies were moribund. Miami and Oakland pocket revenue sharing.
You play the game (and CBA) you have. But MLB ought to be thinking about rules to raise competitiveness and reward success at the same time.
You can also re-tool while winning like the Dodgers, Cubs, and now Yankees are doing
Cubs weren’t winning when they re=tooled! The Dodgers and Yanks have the money to rebuild a lot quicker than most teams. The key thing is to make the good moves.
The Cubs have been a winning team the last 2 years. They’re also still re-tooling their farm.
The Cubs were under .500 for five straight years before the last two. Even Theo admits they tanked.
I’m saying they’re starting to re-tool now, while they figure to have a good major league team for awhile.
No Theo said they were bad. “Tanking” is now the new “hip” comment I guess. Its called rebuilding. You trade off veterans for prospects and play young players. Sure you do not worry about your record and you will get high picks. Its called rebuilding. Been around for decades and its nothing new.
Cubs are re-tooling? They crashed and burned and were the dregs of baseball. Me thinks you missed the point of the whole article and the crux of what Mike156 said!
How are you rewarded for playing poorly other than with draft picks? How is that different from any other sport? It’s actually harder to win on high draft picks alone in baseball because it takes players years to develop in the minors, which don’t exist in other sports, and because you can draft high schoolers. And because there’s an open, non-drafted market of international players (unlike every other sport). Even if you pay the penalty for a Lucious Fox, you can still sign 10 players for small bonuses and pick up a lot of talent over the next two years. And you got Lucious Fox for cash and didn’t have to give up any roster value.
So I think you’re wrong on every point.
No, you just disagree because you have a particular agenda–it’s fairly obvious from your comments on other articles, But, to point out other rewards for tanking is easy enough. Slotting system dollars for picks. Protected picks in the following year if you finish in the bottom ten. And no mechanism to require you to be competitive–look at the Marlins, who have finished below ,500 for nine consecutive years–during which time they had a stadium built for them at mostly taxpayer expense, and pocketed enormous amounts of revenue-sharing dollars, little of which has gone into the team. Loria’s original $152M is now worth more than 4 times that. A non-competitive team is a drain in other ways–since 31% of local gate receipts are paid into the pool, a poor drawer at home will pay less on a per capita basis, and the same non-competitive team will depress receipts at the teams that do compete. Those are facts
But, by all means, please follow your agenda..
You started your post with an ad hominem so I didn’t read anything you wrote and I don’t care about anything you post.
I’m good with that.
Enon you lie. You read ever word of Mikes post and it bothers you since he nailed you
So…..any kind of financial penalty (luxury tax) which makes it harder – but by no means impossible – for the Yankees to buy their way into perpetual contention, is “crippling…”. What a joke. And the joke is on the fans of all the small and medium market teams, and really most of MLB’s national fan base. Just a sickening thing for CASH-MAN to say, and even more sickening by what it implies, going forward.
Fangraphs had a good article on TV revenues of all the teams. Only a few owners will go the extra yard to win. The Yanks Tigers, Nats, and Dodgers do. My question is always what is with the owners that really don’t try to win. Some of them are very wealthy, but don’t put there money where their mouth is.
Yep. And then they force the public to pay for their stadiums so they can boost their profit from 100 million to 100 million and $1.
But those teams you mentioned are no more prone to spending than other teams. They simply have budgets that are so much bigger that they can spend twice as much as the smaller teams with a smaller % of their budget.
For argument’s sake, If the Brooklyn Scorpions are making $1 billion and the Spokane Pines are making $500 million, the Scorpions could spend twice as much and they’d both be equally as cheap.
I agree with goob, of the Yankees, Boston, dodgers and so forth don’t wanna pay the tax then get your pay roll under it. cause to be honest most of cash’s problems stem from very over priced contracts that were back end loaded and the player was garbage by then or retired. cause I like most baseball fans don’t wanna see just the high market teams make the playoffs every year. to prove a point the TV ratings for this ws was the highest it’s been in over a decade
Cubs are a large market team. Ratings were high because of a large market team(Cubs) trying to break the last great “curse” in MLB. If this WS was Indians vs. another small market team the ratings wouldn’t have been anywhere near as high.
Cubs may have an even larger market than the Dodgers b/c of fan diaspora. Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/Cubs are the top four markets, not necessarily in that order. Really, almost every team is already in a large market. Mets, Angels, Tigers, Nationals, Toronto, San Fran, San Diego, Seattle, White Sox, Phillies, Miami (ahem). There’s just a handful of teams that aren’t and MLB would like them to be able to make the playoffs occasionally. Teams like the Royals, Twins, Pirates, and Rays. I honestly don’t think my Brewers will win a championship in my lifetime and I’m not even 30 yet..
The Dodgers, Red Sox, Mets, Mariners and O’s get the most money from their TV contracts by percentage of revenue.
Good points. The reason revenue sharing and budget caps (taxes), came into play though, was because the Yankees were free spenders and were taking advantage of their economic powers. Now we see both sides, still needs a bit of fixing. And I think revenue-sharing dollars should only be allowed to be spend on player salaries.
Yes, and the Yanks owners sold a large part of their YES Network, and the games are not on the Comcast Network any longer. Their are teams that get no TV money. With all that being said, their is still a lot of parity in baseball without a cap, you never know who is going to win. In sports like football and basketball their is only about 4 teams a year that have a chance to win. Basketball their only usually 2 teams- Cleveland and the Warriors.
Its so delicious watching a team who doled out $100M contracts like they were Halloween candy on Oct 31, claiming they are “crippled”.
I can’t even list the number of $100M deals the Yankees have given. I do know how many Oakland has given: ZERO. But sure, the pwoor Yankees are “crippled”.
Also, the Yankees have been a good team over the last couple years, if injuries didn’t hit then they’d have been in the playoffs. “Crippled”? Pardon me while I laugh for the next week. That really is the single greatest quote of MLB in 2016. The crippled Yankees, with their $215 million dollar payroll, lol, so good.
“a lot of the international markets I’ve been taken out of”
Cashman is complaining that the CBA did what it was supposed to do. Rich white men whine more than anyone else.
What a jerk tbrace20 is. If you don’t like what a person comments or if you don’t agree just move on no need to try to insult. I think what you said makes no sense and what’s god have mercy on your soul mean. What a jerk you are
watch Billy Madison. Great quote.