“There’s a lot more work to be done,” he said. “I’m a competitive person. I don’t like what I see sometimes in the newspapers. I don’t like that some people forget that I’ve been here since 1986, that I’ve been part of this franchise since it was no good — or not very good — that I was part of the rebuilding process.”
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He added: “For a long time we’ve been old and everybody knows it. And for a long time people have pointed it out. Now when you start to fix it, ‘Oh my God, we’ve missed the playoffs! Off with his head!’ That’s fine, I accept it.”
I've been supportive of Cashman's non-trade for Johan Santana. It's one thing to simply deal youth for high priced talent, but it's wholly another to deal youth and have to pay top dollar. Not to mention, and most people seem to conveniently forget this, there's a 40% tax tacked onto any contract. Johan's deal (call it $140M for rounding's sake) would have actually cost close to $200 million. PLUS the loss of some of their more valued (and young/cheap) assets.
“We made a long-term bet on keeping that inventory and the first six months of that process isn’t going to change that,” Cashman said with some defiance.
In closing, Cashman left me feeling pretty good.
“I believe in sticking to a vision and believing what our plan was and I care about my name,” Cashman said. “And I care about how I’m perceived and I care about this franchise.”
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1 comment:
The bottom line on Santana, IMO, is that yes, if we had him this season, we're probably still watching Yankee baseball in October. But I still think it'd be one and done. So why waste the $$$ and the young talent? The Sox didn't bite at the Twins high demands which left them fairly desperate to make a deal and, to their credit, the Mets stepped in at exactly the right time. Point being, I agree - I like what Cashman is trying to do. Whether or not it works out remains to be seen. I will hedge a bit though and say that it'll be a little more difficult to judge his performance going into 2009 because of a huge variable - the new stadium. Signing a big name (or three) is probably going to be a priority for Hank and Co. going into the new house. We'll see. Should be one of the more interesting off-seasons that we've had in a while.
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