[新聞] Carrying a Heavy Weight, Cashman Stands Firm

[yyhong68 (come every now and then)]

February 1, 2008
Carrying a Heavy Weight, Cashman Stands Firm
By TYLER KEPNER

When Brian Cashman tells the story of how he became the Yankees’ general
manager, he makes his voice squeaky, like a teenager’s, as he tries to
sound confident before the principal owner George Steinbrenner.

That was Feb. 3, 1998, and a decade later, Cashman’s voice is the most
powerful in the organization. He answers to two Steinbrenners — George’s
sons, Hank and Hal — but it is Cashman who guides the franchise.

“He has really strengthened the office of general manager of the Yankees,”
said Bob Watson, who held the title before Cashman.

Cashman made that clear again this week, when he refused to depart from his
long-term strategy and passed on the Minnesota Twins ace Johan Santana, who
went to the Mets instead.

The Yankees would have traded Phil Hughes, Melky Cabrera and Jeff Marquez
for Santana on Dec. 2, but the Twins asked for Ian Kennedy, too. The Yankees
said no, and the next morning, Andy Pettitte announced that he would return
to the team.

The Yankees soon pulled their offer and never made another, resisting
again Tuesday when Minnesota asked for Cabrera, Kennedy, Marquez and
Chien-Ming Wang. Cashman has made his stand, and Santana may be across town
to remind him of what might have been.

Cashman is entering the last year of a three-year contract he signed after
the 2005 season, when the baseball operations department was organized into
clearly defined roles beneath him. George Steinbrenner is all but retired
now, but the pressure from above, and the self-imposed pressure Cashman and
all club officials handle, has put his return beyond 2008 in question.

“It’s hard to imagine him going somewhere, because he understands this
unique environment, but it’s also demanding,” said Mark Newman, the
Yankees’ senior vice president for player personnel and a co-worker of
Cashman’s for 20 years.

“Just the nature of working here, day after day, it’s a huge grind,”
Newman added. “There are tremendous stresses to deal with, and it can
wear you out. Everybody needs to take a deep breath once in a while,
take a step back and make sure they’re not going to burn out. But he
knows the situation.”

Cashman started as an intern in the minor league and scouting department
at 19, and he was 30 when he became the general manager. Only three other
general managers who were on the job then are still in the same job now.

Ernie Accorsi, the former Giants general manager who retired last season
at 65, named Cashman as one of his favorite people in sports in Tom
Callahan’s book, “The GM,” which Cashman is reading this winter. Accorsi
said he admired Cashman’s toughness and passion.

“But, I always remember a quote from Jack Nicklaus from about 10 years ago,”
 Accorsi said in an e-mail message. “ ‘You can only look at so many
five-foot pressure putts with everything on the line in one lifetime.’
I know I retired because I just couldn’t look at any more five-foot putts
on Sunday afternoons. I don’t think Brian is anywhere near that in his
career.”

In 2003, Cashman traveled to Cincinnati at Steinbrenner’s behest, simply
to be there for the awkwardly timed announcement that Derek Jeter was being
named the captain. Never mind that Cashman’s wife was due to deliver their
child any day.

In recent years, Cashman has been more comfortable standing up for himself;
a winter family getaway is now an annual tradition, and he will attend the
Super Bowl on Sunday. But the subject of his future, and the examination of
his past, is such a sensitive topic that Cashman declined to be interviewed
for this article. Through a team spokesman, he said he was concerned it would
sound like his obituary.

Cashman spoke last week at an event with Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein
at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. Surprisingly, Cashman spoke
critically of Bernie Williams, Johnny Damon and Bobby Abreu, and said his
team was not mentally tough enough to withstand the bug swarm in Cleveland
in last fall’s division series.

According to people who have spoken with him, Cashman has expressed remorse
over those comments. Usually deft as the Yankees’ primary spokesman,
Cashman is struggling with Hank Steinbrenner’s quick ascension to that
role. At times, Cashman has seemed especially cautious; at other times,
unusually candid.

“The big question is going to be how he relates to the new leadership,”
said Watson, who recommended Cashman to the Yankees’ ownership. “Hank is
different than his brother, Hal, and they’re both different than Steve
Swindal and Joe Molloy. All those people we were working for, each one of
them had a different style. It remains to be seen how he adjusts to them and
 how they adjust to him.”

Molloy and Swindal are former sons-in-law of George Steinbrenner who no
longer work for the team. Hank and Hal are in charge now, and their roles
will affect Cashman as he seeks to hold onto the power he assumed in 2005.

Hank Steinbrenner, 50, is not as detail-oriented as his father; he is not
apt to demand new carpeting in the training room. He is a passionate fan,
in tune with the sport’s history, driven to win and often willing to speak
his mind. Hal, 38, is considered more fiscally conservative, and he rarely
speaks in public.

Cashman got what he wanted this winter. The Yankees re-signed their veterans
while protecting their top prospects and also gaining a 2008 draft pick for
letting reliever Luis Vizcaino sign with Colorado.

But there is a belief in the industry that it has been a trying winter for
Cashman as he adjusts to the team’s new leadership, and the possibility
that decisions could be made without his consent.

“Brian is classy, straightforward and honest,” said an official of a team
that has dealt extensively with the Yankees. “But it’s got to be
uncomfortable to finally get in the position where he had more authority,
and now it seems like it’s kind of gone back to the way it was before.”

Pat Gillick, the Philadelphia Phillies’ general manager, once resigned
as the Baltimore Orioles’ G.M. because of differences with the owner,
Peter Angelos. Speaking generally, Gillick said, an owner who interferes
with baseball decisions risks losing his best people.

“What it does is erode some of the confidence of the people working for
you,” Gillick said. “There’s a chain of command and a code of conduct
that has to be followed by every member of an organization. When that’s
broken, it’s not good.”

Gillick said Cashman and Epstein probably had the most difficult job of
any general manager, because their resources were so deep that they had
more decisions to make. No situation can be immediately dismissed for
financial reasons, so every available player must be evaluated.

Cashman’s Yankees have not won the World Series since doing so in his
first three seasons. But they have reached the playoffs every October,
a feat that is remarkable to Accorsi.

“I don’t think anyone in sports has the record of excellence in their
jobs as Brian,” Accorsi said. “Everyone, even Bill Belichick, has had
a few down seasons. But Brian gets to a championship threshold every year
under the highest scrutiny possible and in the biggest city in America.”

The scrutiny became harsher last week, when Hank Steinbrenner told The
Associated Press that if the Yankees missed the playoffs in 2008, he would
not blame the players but would hold the architects of the team responsible.
That put the emphasis on Cashman.

The easy move for Cashman, under those conditions, would have been to
 recommend a trade for Santana, which might have made the Yankees better
this season and strengthened Cashman’s job security. But Cashman has tried
to focus on the future, on bolstering the farm system while digging out
from years of wild spending, some of which he endorsed.

According to Baseball America, the Yankees spent $13.7 million on draft
picks the last two seasons, compared with $8.5 million the two years
before that. Some recent choices, like Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain,
could make a big impact in the majors this season for very little cost.

Whether or not he is here beyond 2008, his friends say, Cashman wants
the team to prosper for the next decade and beyond.

Accorsi recalled a conversation with Cashman at Giants Stadium a few years
ago. Talking about their jobs, Cashman told Accorsi, “I feel the
responsibility of millions of Yankee fans on my shoulders, fans who take
this very seriously and for which every game is very important. I think
of that every day.”

As a peer, Accorsi said, he could relate to Cashman. As a Yankees fan
since the 1950s, Accorsi was moved. “I love the fact that Brian is
running my boyhood team,” he said.

http://tinyurl.com/243zpn

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推 jason0925:原來雙城提過王+牛奶+阿甘+Mar...的包裹被現金人拒絕
推 YHank:Cashman如果答應了應該會被捻死吧  囧
推 showchn:有個有遠見的GM真是種幸福啊
推 lockerty:拿王出去換的話對補強SP就沒幫助了，正常的GM都不會做吧.
推 dracla:換成水手的GM...我覺得會做耶~~囧
推 RollingWave:會提到王的package 恐怕都是bullshit
推 gelee:很多本版專家都想拿王出去換啊～
推 redsnipertd:拿王出去對雙方都沒好處, 樓上是不是看錯了?
推 siliver:他的專家定義跟常人不同吧(攤手).