Maybe there is a discount card that Brian Cashman has and simply getting 50 percent off on opposing players at the Trade Deadline Store while supplies last.
For years I had been of the belief that team were trying to enact a “Yankee Tax” on the team and charge them more in terms of talent in a trade than they would other teams.
Looks like I am wrong.
Who knows if the Yankees have incriminating evidence against some of these teams and are using it against them.
For the second time in four days, Cashman and the Yankees went shopping and came away with a useful player at a critical position for nothing more than a (for this season) overachieving setup reliever.
Are these markdowns being taken off the register? No one really knows. The discount is certainly not being shown on the store rack.
Maybe most team executives do lack intelligence. Perhaps we are just seeing cases of smart executives just pick-pocketing the really dumb ones. It is the only explanation I can provide.
In dealing Kyle Farnsworth to the Detroit Tigers straight up for catcher Ivan "Pudge Rodriguez, the GM dealt from a source of his strength and was able to turn that into a catcher, who despite being 37, can still hit and provides a strong arm behind the plate.
Tell me this is a joke.
My first thought upon hearing this trade was absolute shock. Farnsworth had rebounded from two previous poor seasons and was flourishing, albeit while walking a tightrope. Before Jed Lowrie singled off him in the eighth inning in Friday’s game with the Red Sox, opposing hitters were 0 for their last 29. The fact that Joe Girardi pulled him with men on first and second and one out for Mariano Rivera, should have set off a warning signs that despite his success, the team, and more importantly, the manager still did not completely trust him.
Evolution of the trade
Perhaps Cashman heard some rumblings that Rodriguez was available. Though Jose Molina was doing an admiral job behind the plate in the time that Jorge Posada had been away, I will mention once again that he was nothing more than a backup catcher. Too many more games started by him would ultimately hurt the team and not help it.Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski and Cashman had done business before. Last season, they out a trade that moved Gary Sheffield from New York to Detroit. One more time, they would be trade partners. The Tigers have had numerous injuries to their bullpen and the Yankees still had a need for a catcher who would not amount to a near automatic out whenever he came to the plate.
Both had what the other needed.
Each player is a free agent and was near even on financial cost. Farnsworth, who once pitched for Detroit would be headed back there. Rodriguez, still producing at his extended age, would come to the Bronx.
Last year, you could not trade Farnsworth unless you were willing to pay all of his salary, and even then, a team probably would not take him. One season later, having a good season with a deep bullpen, he is expendable enough that another team would covet him and give a good useful player back. It was the ultimate in “selling high” before what was possibly going to be an inevitable market correction.
Wow.
Pudgie Boy
Adding Rodriguez to the eighth spot in the lineup lengthens the team immensely. Though he is way past his prime when he was one of the generations best all-around catchers, he doing respectable. Right now, he is hitting .295 with OPS (on base plus slugging) over .750. It is an over .150 increase from what Molina was providing. In the last two months, he has hitting .381 (42 for 110 with four homeruns) with OPS over .920. You don’t think the Red Sox would take him in their lineup over Jason Varitek (.653 OPS) right this second?
Translation: he has hit like an All Star.
He will split time with Molina, who has become a favorite of starters Mike Mussina and Joba Chamberlain. Both veterans can still get playing time while not wearing down through the final two months of the season.
Trading Farnsworth opens up a bullpen spot that has numerous candidates. Brian Bruney is due back from injury in the next few weeks. In the minors, two pitchers, Alfredo Aceves and J. Brent Cox are making waves with their impressive pitching and may warrant a call up.
While he was pitching the high leverage eighth inning most of the time, the emergence of Jose Veras and new acquisition of Damaso Marte squeezes out his importance in that situation.
Ever so slightly, the Yankees are gathering their troops and building up their forces for battle. With a little help from a few teams who decided to give Cashman "clearance sale prices" on players.
One more bullet
The final piece to this entire puzzle is acquiring a starting pitcher. Jarrod Washburn of the Seattle Mariners has been the target the organization has zeroed in on. For the last week, both teams have discussing a move, but have reached a stalemate.
Seattle wants the Yankees to take on the remaining 14 million owed to Washburn AND surrender an above average prospect in order to complete the transaction. This is craziness and Cashman has balked. Apparently miffed by how it is playing out in the media, the Mariners have been trying to drum up interest by shopping him to other teams. So far, no other team executive is picking up the phone to answer the call.
The Yankees position is simple and I agree with it completely. If I am going to take this enormous contract off your hands, why I should give you anything of value for essentially a fourth or fifth starter? He is of no real use to you because you are the worst team in the American League WITH HIM on your roster. It is not like Seattle cannot do any worse.
Plugging him into the rotation is a clear upgrade over either Darrell Rasner or Sidney Ponson. Though the Yanks may be back in the race, I still contend that true “contention” will only take place one both Rasner and Ponson are not in the same rotation pitching two-fifths of the teams’ games.
Adding Washburn, who has pitched tremendous since the middle of May, would give the team the stability it needs in the backend of the rotation. No one know if Mike Mussina his going to flame out at any point after his spectacular season to date. The fort just has to be held down just enough to allow Chien-Ming Wang to return sometime in September.
For the moment, we all wait for the Mariners to come to their senses and cave in. By Thursday at three o’clock, they will have more than likely capitulated and the Yankees will get their man.
In the mean time, Cashman has decided to build up his other forces to have them uniquely equipped for the less than 60 game battle that they are about to embark on.
With the steals of Nady, Marte and now Pudge Rodriguez, he has been able to add ammunition at the cost of almost nothing.
Hopefully he has one purchase left he can get a discount.
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