The Boss: Bad for New York, Good for Boston

George Steinbrenner is ruining the Yankees, again. The Boss haspublicly called out his General Manager Brian Cashman, giving him
notice that his job is on the line.

"He’s on a big hook,"
Steinbrenner told The Associated Press in a rare interview from this
Tampa office. "He wanted sole authority. He got it. Now he’s got to
deliver."

The problem is that Steinbrenner has a different
definition of "delivering" than does the rest of baseball. The
Steinbrenner Doctrine, which is to win a championship every year or
consider the season a complete failure. No one who lacks super natural
abilities can "deliver" in this fashion. It’s impossible. And it is
certainly not Cashman’s fault that his entire pitching rotation has
been decimated by injuries this year. Cashman has no control over
Giambi’s 2 HRs and 8 RBIs in his last 27 games. Who would have thought
that Bobby Abreu, with a career .300 avg. and 100+ walks a season,
would be batting a paltry .235 with 23 walks. His on base percentage
has been over .400 ever year since 1998, with the exception of 2001
when it was .393. This year his OBP is .316. Robinson Cano has been a
major disappointment. None of that is Cashman’s fault.

Since
taking ultimate control (or at least as ultimate as is possible in the
Yankees organization), Cashman has been attempting to reinstate and
execute the Yankee philosophy of the early ’90s that saw the likes of
Andy Pettite, Bernie Williams, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Derek
Jeter all come up through the farm system. Cashman has focused on
stockpiling the minors with draftpicks, which means sidestepping the
high priced free agents that cost draft picks and prospects. While I
think that Jason Giambi has been much better for the Yankees than do
many Yankee faithful, I think it is safe to say that Derek Jeter has
worked out much better for them than Giambi has.

Cashman is
walking a tightrope, performing a balancing act that few could achieve.
He is trying to develop a farm system full of Jeters and Pettittes
(Phil Hughes anyone?) while still trying to work within the
Steinbrenner Doctrine. He signed Pettitte and Mussina to two year
contracts. He traded for Bobby Abreu whose contract is up at the end of
this season. He was able to sign Roger Clemens over the Red Sox, who
have a far better shot at winning the World Series at this point than
do their arch rivals. Cashman has tried to keep the Yankees competitive
now while ensuring they continue to win in the future.

The one
thing that Cashman has done wrong is that he never found a way to
attain those supernatural powers that are required to appease The Boss,
as well as an inability to find baseball players with supernatural
powers who can win a championship every year for the rest of eternity
(or at least the next ten years until Steinbrenner retires/dies).
Unfortunately for Cashman, The Boss lives in a bubble in Tampa Bay and
is the only one who cannot see the absolute lunacy of his demands and
does not appreciate the strategy that Cashman is attempting to execute.
If the Yankees fail to make the playoffs this year and a new GM is
brought in, all of Cashman’s efforts at developing the farm system will
go to waste, as the new guy will be forced to trade allthose prospects
away in order to stock the team with perennial all stars, so that team
can then lose to the next upstart Marlins type team.

The beauty
of baseball is that the "best" team doesn’t always win, so it is
fundamentally impossible to put together an unbeatable dream team. The
Marlins never should have beat the Yankees, neither should have the
Diamondbacks. The Cardinals shouldn’t have even made the playoffs last
year. Steinbrenner should stay true to his word and just stay the ****
out of the way. He is going to ruin the most storied franchise in
sports history, which would be bad for everyone in baseball (with the
exception of the Bo Sox). So George, I say this to you, "Sit down, shut
up, and know your role."