Reviewing Cashman

Ken Davidoff from Newsday has a blog in addition to his normal byline. He does his best to assign "blame" or "ownership" to all of the Yankees transactions since 1998. He has three categories and how they related to Cashman's influence in each transaction.

I've got to spend some time thinking more about some of these but here's his take:

I've been struggling how to categorize these, and I've decided to put them
in three categories: 1) "Cashman All The Way" (ideas that he conceived and
executed); 2) "His Player, Not His Price" (for times when ownership paid a
higher fee than Cashman desired on a player that Cashman liked); and 3) "He Might as Well Have Been at the Atlantis with his Family," for transactions that were essentially performed with him as an outside observer.

Cashman All The Way: Bobby Abreu, Alfredo Aceves, Armando Benitez, Wilson Betemit, Kevin Brown, Brian Bruney, Shawn Chacon, Tony Clark, Roger Clemens (both times) Johnny Damon, Kyle Farnsworth, Glenallen Hill, Kei Igawa, David Justice, Al Leiter, Cory Lidle, Hideki Matsui (re-signing in November 2005), Damaso Marte, Tino Martinez (his return), Jose Molina, Mike Mussina (re-signing in November 2006), Xavier Nady, Denny Neagle, Carl Pavano, Andy Pettitte (his return), Sidney Ponson (both times), Darrell Rasner, Mariano Rivera (re-signing in November 2007), Alex Rodriguez (the 2004 trade), Ivan Rodriguez, Javier Vazquez, Robin Ventura, Jose Vizcaino, Bernie Williams (re-signing in December 2005), Jeff Weaver

His Player, Not His Price: Jason Giambi, Sterling Hitchcock (re-signing in December 2001), Steve Karsay, Jorge Posada (re-signing in November 2007), Rondell White, Bernie Williams (re-signing in November 1998)

He Might As Well Have Been at the Atlantis With His Family: Aaron Boone, Jose Contreras, Dwight Gooden (return in 2000), Chris Hammond, Orlando Hernandez, Randy Johnson, Travis Lee, Jim Leyritz (re-signing in November 1999), Jon Lieber, Esteban Loaiza, Kenny Lofton, Raul Mondesi, Alex Rodriguez (re-signing in November 2007), Gary Sheffield, Ruben Sierra (return in June 2003), Darryl Strawberry (his re-signing in November 1998), David Wells (return in December 2001), Jaret Wright.

Davidoff is an insider so I'm going to guess that he's got a pretty good feel to each of these. He's also hosting a chat today at 2:30pm if you care to debate/discuss. Click here.