Brian Cashman – Page 7 – Keefe To The City

Jul 8, 2014

Sorry, Soriano

Alfonso Soriano became the first scapegoat for the 2014 Yankees, but he gave me a lot of memories during his time with the Yankees.

I was sitting in a hotel room in New Jersey for a junior hockey tournament when one of my teammates came barging into the room yelling, “WE GOT A-ROD!” in a tone comparable to Axl Rose asking “DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE EFF YOU ARE?!”

Alex Rodriguez: a Yankee. The idea seemed surreal and knowing that he had recently been traded and then untraded to the Red Sox, I didn’t really believe it. But once it was confirmed I started thinking about where he would play and where he would hit and if the Yankees would ever lose another game, but I wasn’t thinking of the most important question: who did the Yankees give up?

***

Don Mattingly was my favorite player when I first started attending Yankees games at the age of four in 1991 and it was his player T-shirt I wore over and over and over until the NY on the front started to break apart and fade and the dark blue of the shirt started to look more like New York Rangers blue than New York Yankees blue from the washing machine. I was only nine when Mattingly played his last game in 1995, but I wasn’t without a favorite player for long because the following April on Opening Day 1996, Derek Jeter started at shortstop … and has ever since.

Jeter has been a staple of my baseball life for nearly my entire life as well as for many other 20-something-year-olds in the tri-state area. It’s Jeter’s number 2 I wanted to wear and his swing I tried to emulate and his at-bats I had to watch and his line in the box score I checked when I missed those at-bats. No one has ever come close to Mattingly and Jeter for me, but in 2001, someone became a close second to those two.

***

Last Wednesday, I sat in Section 203 at Yankee Stadium and watched the Yankees slowly and miserably lose to David Price and the Rays and for some reason I paid extra close attention to Alfonso Soriano in right field. At the time I didn’t know it would be the last time I would ever see him play for the Yankees. It’s been nearly 11 years since I first thought I would never see him play for the Yankees again sitting in that hotel room in New Jersey.

Even getting the best player in baseball and destroying everything the Red Sox had spent their entire offseason working for, I was devastated to see Soriano get traded to the Rangers. After Jeter, he had become” the guy” even if he was coming off of a 20-strikeout performance between the ALCS and World Series. But when you’re acquiring the reigning AL MVP at 28 years old and locked up for at least four more years, you’re more apt to get over a trade of that magnitude and more willing to forget how much fun it was watching Soriano play.

I have wondered too much over the last 10-plus years what things would have been like if the Red Sox had successfully traded for Alex Rodriguez and if Alfonso Soriano had stayed with the Yankees all of this time instead of going to Texas, Washington and Chicago. Would 2004 have ended differently? Would Soriano have stayed at second base? Would Robinson Cano ever have been a Yankee? Would A-Rod still be getting paid by a Major League Baseball team? Would A-Rod have become a professional wrestler or a contestant on The Apprentice or a star of Celebrity Rehab? Would we ever have found out about A-Rod’s love for high stakes poker and for strippers and prostitutes? (I think if the Yankees had a crystal ball in February 2004, they probably wouldn’t have made the trade.)

I started to think about all of this on Sunday when I found out that Soriano had been designated for assignment. At .221/.244/.367 he was nowhere near the .256/.325/.525 player he was during the second half of last season, but in a limited and platoon role, his numbers were understandable for a guy who averaged 144 games per season over his 13-year career as an everyday player. With the Yankees struggling to score runs and coming off another embarrassing one-run effort on Saturday, a game in which Soriano went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and had his third straight two-strikeout game, he became the first scapegoat for the 2014 Yankees. Someone had to pay the price for the Yankees scoring two runs or less seemingly every day and since Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran contractually couldn’t pay the price and because the .212/.289/.376-hitting Kelly Johnson, who has one home run since May 3, is apparently a distant relative of Brian Cashman, Soriano was the one who had to go.

Soriano was supposed to be the Yankees’ designated hitter this season. He was supposed to play in the outfield only to give others a day off. But because of the old, brittle signing of Carlos Beltran and having the softest player in all of baseball in Mark Teixeira, Soriano lost out on being the full-time DH and was relegated to infrequent at-bats as part of an outfield rotation with Ichiro. The Yankees put Soriano, a career everyday player, in a position to fail and when he did, they let him go.

He became the first Yankee to fall on a team whose $180 million first baseman has missed games for being tired from standing on the bases, whose $85 million catcher isn’t hitting and just keeps telling the media how horrible he is, whose $45 million right fielder can’t play right field, whose $153 million center fielder is proving his 2012 power was an anomaly and who is playing at a level less than the left fielder who only got and whose $700,000-per-start “ace” hasn’t pitched since May 10 and might never pitch again. Soriano wasn’t the problem with the 2014 Yankees, but with the Yankees only owing him about $2.5 million for the rest of the season, he was the easiest choice for Brian Cashman to show he finally means business after watching the nearly half-billion dollars he spent this offseason play .500 baseball for 86 games.

Even Jeter, who never seems fazed by any roster move, was surprised by Soriano being designated for assignment. And Jeter was right to be with the time and chances given to others who offer much less in an everyday role.

“Soriano is like family to me,” Jeter said. “I have played with him a long time, when he first came up and when he came back. Sori has had a tremendous career here in New York and it was difficult for him this year. Not playing every day, it’s hard to be productive. I feel for him and I am going to miss him but I will be in touch with him. He is like a brother to me. He should be proud of what he was able to do.”

I’ll remember Alfonso Soriano for his magical 2002 season when he led the league in hits, runs and stolen bases, when it felt like he would lead off every game with a home run. I’ll remember him for hitting .400 against the 116-win Mariners in the 2001 ALCS and the way he tried to single-handedly carry a mediocre Yankees team to the playoffs in 2013, hitting 17 home runs and 50 RBIs in 58 games. I’ll remember his high socks, his long swing and the way he stared at most likely all of his 412 home runs until they reached their destination. And I’ll always remember feeling like Mikey McDermott sitting on a full house with three stacks of high society on the line following Soriano’s solo home run against Curt Schilling in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead before it all came crashing down a few minutes later when the Diamondbacks showed aces full like Teddy KGB.

Soriano won’t have a plaque in Monument Park and there won’t be a day for him at Yankee Stadium. Eventually his legacy will likely become the answer to the question “Who was Alex Rodriguez traded to the Yankees for?” that the YES broadcasters ask during a Yankees-Rangers game in 2029. But for me and for the generation of Yankees fans my age, he’ll always be the scrawny kid that came up wearing number 58, switched to 53 then to 33 and settled on 12, swung the biggest bat in the league, started all the handshakes and long tossed with Jeter down the first-base line before every game.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Jun 3, 2014

The A’s Have a Team Built for the Bronx

The A’s have been rolling along all season with the combination of starting pitching and power hitting the Yankees have always had and will need to contend this season.

After the Yankees finished their nine-game road trip with four wins in their final five games, it looked like they might finally be ready to go on a run as the calendar turned to June with a seven-game homestand. But after losing two of three to the Twins and then their makeup game against the Mariners, that run never happened. And things don’t get easier with the A’s, the best all-around team in the American League coming to the Bronx for three games.

With the Yankees and A’s meeting at the Stadium this week, Alex Hall of Athletics Nation joined me to talk about how the A’s keep producing front-end starting pitchers, if A’s fans are tired of just making the playoffs and what it’s been like over the years to see star players forced to leave due to finances.

Keefe: Right now the Yankees’ rotation is Masahiro Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda, Vidal Nuno, David Phelps and Chase Whitley. That’s the New York Yankees. With Ivan Nova lost for the season, Michael Pineda suspended and then injured and CC Sabathia on the disabled list, the Yankees are trotting out a rotation that has me longing for the days of the 2008 when Darrell Rasner and Sidney Ponson were 40 percent of the rotation after Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were injured. Or the days of 2007 when Brian Cashman opened the season relying on Carl Pavano and Kei Igawa in the rotation. On the days that Tanaka doesn’t pitch, I have treated any Yankees win like a division-clinching win in September.

Why am I venting about my team’s rotation problems to you, an A’s fan, who is enjoying first place in the AL West? Because it seems like whenever the A’s have a pitching problem they just call up someone who suddenly becomes ace-worthy as if pitching injuries don’t even matter to the organization. What’s it like knowing that if someone in the rotation goes down, there is someone else ready to seamlessly fill in? Let me know so I can live vicariously through A’s fans.

Hall: It is a very liberating feeling, I must say! Billy Beane and his staff seem to press all the right buttons when it comes to pitching, both by turning unknown or undervalued players into stars and by knowing when to quickly pull the plug on experiments that aren’t working out. They also put themselves into a position to succeed by stocking extra depth — you never know when injuries will happen, but you can prepare yourself with a backup plan for when they do.

That depth came in handy this year when Jarrod Parker and A.J. Griffin both went down in spring training. The A’s had Tommy Milone waiting in reserve, and Jesse Chavez fighting for a spot, and the two of them have been fantastic. When Dan Straily faltered, Drew Pomeranz stepped in; while his low ERA is unsustainable, he at least looks like a league-average starter and he still has upside as he re-adjusts to starting once again. The only thing that worries me with this rotation is its durability — outside of Milone, no one is a good bet to throw 200 innings without wearing down.

Keefe: Because the A’s are the A’s and play in an odd stadium in an odd location and don’t have much money and can’t retain free agents, it’s astonishing to me when they have the type of success they are having now or had last year or the year before, the way it was at the beginning of the 2000s. But I’m guessing for A’s fan the success isn’t so surprising and would like to be met with postseason success.

Here in New York, I grew up in the 90s in the height of the Yankees’ dynasty and since I was nine years old all I have known is October baseball and winning. Yes, I have been spoiled and have seen enough success over the last 18 years to last a lifetime, but now it’s expected every year and when it doesn’t happen it’s disappointing.

When it comes to the A’s, what are the year-end expectations, especially after the team’s resurgence the last few years? Is just making the postseason enough for you, or are you tired of “just” making the postseason?

Hall: In 2012, it was cool just to make the playoffs. The team hadn’t been good for awhile and wasn’t supposed to compete entering the season, so it was exciting to be alive in October. In 2013, repeating the postseason berth and proving it wasn’t a fluke was still satisfying, but it stung a little more when the team was eliminated in uncannily similar fashion to the previous year. This time around, nothing short of a trip to the World Series will feel like a successful season to me, and I think a lot of A’s fans would echo that sentiment. This team is built to win right now and has actually mortgaged a little bit of its future to do so, and a failure to bring home a title, much less a league pennant, would be severely disappointing.

Keefe: I really have no idea how the A’s have been able to put together the run they have over the last few years even with great starting pitching. When I look at the roster and I see former Red Sox like Coco Crisp, Josh Reddick, Brandon Moss and Jed Lowrie playing important roles for not only a first-place team, but maybe the best team in all of baseball, it hurts my head to think about. How do the A’s win with a questionable lineup on paper aside from really only Yoenis Cespedes and Josh Donaldson? And can you please forward your answer to Brian Cashman. One second and I will get you his email address.

Rather than sink too many resources into a couple of star players, the A’s prefer to find a good, solid player for every position so that there are no weaknesses in the lineup. In addition, manager Bob Melvin is a master at putting his players in the best possible positions to succeed, most notably with his aggressive use of platoons. In that way, the whole can come out greater than the sum of the parts — each player fits into the greater scheme of things and complements his teammates well.

Hall: Of course, it helps to have Josh Donaldson in your lineup. Donaldson has been the hands-down MVP of the American League so far — he leads the league in both versions of WAR, he’s a top-five hitter, and he might be the best defender in the AL at any position. The rest of the lineup has a ton of power, gets on base more than any team in baseball (read: makes outs at a lower rate), and gets into bullpens quickly by running up opponents’ pitch counts with patient at-bats. There aren’t a lot of big-name hitters, but the Big Green Machine leads MLB in scoring.

Keefe: This offseason when Robinson Cano left via free agency for Seattle and $240 million it was the first time I watched the Yankees get outbid by another team and lose a star player to the system they helped create and then dominate. I didn’t like the idea of lowballing Cano and then using the additional money he could have been offered on Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran since the Yankees didn’t need Ellsbury and Beltran seemed like a luxury and throw-in by the front office to give the fans a “new toy” for the season before the Masahiro Tanaka signing happened.

You have had to deal with superstars on the A’s leaving through free agency for more money over the years and have had to watch impending free agents get traded off before they hit the market for prospects and lesser names to stay under budget. Has it been frustrating to watch the team continually build for the future and be forced to lose star players, or was it all worth it now that the A’s are back to competing for a championship each year?

Hall: On the contrary, it’s kind of exciting. Every year is different, and you never know what to expect other than the fact that Billy Beane will be trying his hardest to win. He never punts a season, evidenced by the fact that he’s never had a team lose 90 games, which means that any year could be the year that everything clicks and the club rises back to contention. In this case, that year was 2012, and we’re still riding the wave. Of course, the flip side of that is that everything can come crashing down in an instant. A couple of key injuries, a bit of regression, and suddenly the team is on the outside looking in. I do sometimes envy big-market teams who can afford to keep fan favorites around for 10 or 15 years and truly have them as their own, but being an A’s fan feels like being on the cutting edge of baseball history. Where Oakland goes, the sport tends to follow.

Keefe: Before the season, I’m sure you expected the A’s to compete for the West again and return to the postseason after the last two seasons, and why wouldn’t you? But what were your preseason expectations? And after watching the team now for two months, have your preseason expectations changed now that you have seen what the team is capable of?

Hall: Certainly, I expected the A’s to win the West again. However, I was expecting another tough battle with Texas and the Angels, and that expectation hasn’t changed. The A’s have gone nuts so far and built themselves a nice cushion, but fortunes can change quickly and you can never take anything for granted in this sport. The Rangers have watched half their team get injured, and the Angels have watched some key stars begin their declines earlier than expected. But Texas isn’t out of it and the Angels have fully bounced back from last year’s disaster. The A’s are the hot team right now, but this race isn’t over.

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 2, 2014

Opening Day Disaster

CC Sabathia let me down on Opening Day once again, but really I let myself down for thinking this Opening Day would be any different from the other Opening Days he has started for the Yankees.

The wait for Opening Day is forever. This year the wait was 183 days.

Given how depressing the 2013 season was and how the entire baseball season ended with the Red Sox winning their third championship in 10 seasons and that the 2014 Yankees would have so many new players to watch and that this will be Derek Jeter’s final season (and let’s not forget how miserable the weather in New York City has been), the hype and anticipation this offseason for Tuesday night in Houston was like to the months leading up to Y2K. But like New Year’s Day 14 years ago, when the day finally came, nothing happened and nothing changed. Opening Day 2014 might as well have been Game 163 of 2013.

The first 30 minutes of Yankee baseball in 2014 couldn’t have gone worse. Between Dexter Fowler’s leadoff double and CC Sabathia giving up four first-inning runs and another two in the second and Joe Girardi pulling the infield in in the first inning of an American League game on Opening Day with Scott Feldman as the opposing pitcher and Brian McCann’s errant throw and Mark Teixeira’s awful throw, you couldn’t have imagined a more confidence-crushing start to the season. The only comparison for the drop in my confidence level and feelings about the 2014 Yankees from 7:10 p.m. to about 7:40 p.m. is Mike McDermott’s blank stare and shock as his three stacks of high society are lost to Teddy KGB in the opening scene of Rounders.

In 2009, we had the letdown in Baltimore. In 2010, we had the blown lead in Boston. In 2012, we had the grand slam at the Trop. Last year, we had the Opening Day Debacle. This year, we have the Opening Day Disaster. The one constant between them all? CC Sabathia. After 16 consecutive scoreless innings to finish spring training, Sabathia put together his usual Opening Day performance to remind everyone once again not to put any stock into spring training. Sabathia threw 99 pitches and generated just nine swings-and-misses from a lineup that looked like it came out of Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball for Super Nintendo. Here is the Houston Astros lineup from the 1994 video game:

W. Eisner
S. Ditko
J. Kirby
M. Caniff
W. Gaines
H. Kurtzman
J. Davis
D. Martin

And here is the Astros lineup from Opening Day 2014:

D. Fowler
R. Grossman
J. Altuve
J. Castro
J. Guzman
C. Carter
M. Dominguez
L.J. Hoes
J. Villar

That lineup scored six runs, hit two home runs and had four extra-base hits against an Opening Day starter, who made around $700,000 for his six innings of work. Here’s what that starter has now done in six Opening Day starts with the Yankees.

April 6, 2009 @ BAL: 4.1 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 5 BB, 0 K

April 4, 2010 @ BOS: 5.1 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 4 K

March 31, 2011 vs. DET: 6 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 7 K

April 6, 2012 @ TB: 6 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 7 K

April 1, 2013 vs. BOS: 5 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 4 R, 4 BB, 5 K

April 1, 2014 @ HOU: 6 IP, 8 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 1 BB, 6 K

Sabathia has pitched well in one of the six starts (2011) and has been awful in the other five. But Tuesday should have come as no surprise as he has just one win and a 6.12 ERA in 11 Opening Day starts (five with Cleveland). So I shouldn’t be mad at Sabathia for his Game 1 egg, but rather at myself for believing that this Opening Day would be different from the other five he has started for the Yankees, especially now that he’s no longer a power pitcher.

But for as bad as Tuesday night was and it was really bad, there was some positive news from Opening Day. No, I’m not talking about Derek Jeter’s Jeterian single off Chad Qualls or Mark Teixeira showing signs of life at the plate or the work of Dellin Betances and Vidal Nuno. I’m talking about Eduardo Nunez being designated for assignment.

Nunez will always hold a special place in my baseball life (and it’s not a good kind of special place) because he (along with Brian Cashman) cost me Cliff Lee. Yes, the trade that never happened is more on Cashman for believing that Nunez projected as an everyday major league player, but I still blame Nunez for being the player he was, even if it wasn’t his fault the Yankees kept trying to make him work out and trying to make him work out around the infield and even the outfield. But if Cashman hadn’t been so high on Nunez and had been willing to let him go four years ago this June, the Yankees would have had Cliff Lee in 2010 and would have gone to the 2010 World Series. That’s a fact. The series was tied 1-1 before his Game 3 dominance, which led to A.J. Burnett’s Game 4 disaster before Sabathia won Game 5. If Lee wins Game 3 for the Yankees, the series is 2-1 in their favor and they need to win just two of the next four to advance to the World Series with Lee, Sabathia and Pettitte available to start three of those four games. The Yankees win the ALCS and go back to the World Series for the second straight year if Cashman gives up Nunez to the Mariners.

Nunez is no longer a member of the Yankees, but Sabathia is and will be through at least 2016 (and possibly 2017 depending on his vesting option). He needs to figure out how to pitch like his so-called best friend in Cliff Lee and his former teammate Andy Pettitte, like I said when I ranked him No. 1 on The 2014 Yankees’ Order of Importance. Maybe the Yankees’ rotation will end up being as deep and as reliable as I think and hope it can be and Sabathia won’t have to be the most important Yankee and then it won’t matter that there’s a chance the Yankees’ rotation was set backwards. The Yankees might not need CC Sabathia to be pre-2013 CC Sabathia if the other four starters can carry the load (that’s not a fat joke since Sabathia is now skinny), but they can’t afford to have him pitch like he did on Tuesday in Houston and become a Phil Hughes-like automatic loss every five days with average stuff and location.

It’s hard not to get upset about an Opening Day loss after waiting so long for baseball to return. It’s even harder to not get upset when your $23 million starting pitcher takes you out of the game in the first inning against a team that finished 51-111 last season. Thankfully, there are 161 more of these. None of them can be this bad.

Podcasts • Yankees

Feb 21, 2014

Podcast: John Jastremski

John Jastremski of WFAN joins me to talk about what life will be like without Derek Jeter on the Yankees and all of the question marks and unknowns with the 2014 Yankees.

Derek Jeter made it official that he is leaving after this season and he is never coming back. I waited and waited for Jeter to return to the podium and say, “Just kidding!” in what would have been an elaborate, yet mean and hurtful joke. But it’s not a joke. This is the last season for Derek Jeter.

WFAN host John Jastremski joined me to talk about Jeter’s press conference, what life will be like without Jeter on the Yankees and all of the question marks and unknowns for the 2014 Yankees. We even talked about his Syracuse basketball losing for the first time in what is expected to to be a national championship season.

Blogs • Yankees

Feb 20, 2014

Brian Cashman Crushed My Confidence

Brian Cashman gave his Spring Training State of the Yankees to Mike Francesa and it wasn’t as optimistic as I had planned for.

The last time I listened to what Brian Cashman had to say was almost five months ago. It was Oct. 2 when I analyzed Cashman’s end-of-the-year press conference and it had been three days since the end of the season. There was still 180 days until Opening Day and the 2014 season and a chance for the Yankees to make right on everything that went wrong in 2013. Now there are just 40 days until Yankees-Astros on April 1 in Houston and once again it means something when Brian Cashman talks.

On Wednesday, Cashman talked with Mike Francesa on WFAN about spring training and the outlook for the season. After personally spending the last four-plus months talking myself into a turnaround year for the Yankees, thanks to free agency and hopefully avoiding the injury bug, Cashman did his best to destroy my dreams with his answers.

On Derek Jeter’s announcement.

“Besides catching us all off guard, it wasn’t something any of us expected.”

Join the club, Cashman. I’m the founder, CEO and president of it.

On if it bothered him he didn’t know in advance.

“My first reaction was I didn’t think it was accurate. I thought it was maybe somebody hacked his Facebook account because it’s just not something you ever expect Derek in advance to announce going forward that this is it.”

I first learned of Jeter’s retirement on Twitter and I also thought it was a joke and couldn’t believe it was real, mainly because it isn’t. Derek Jeter isn’t retiring. He isn’t! (I’m sure you can guess which of the five Stages of Grief I’m currently in.)

On the unknowns in the infield.

“I think third base and second base and our infield overall is just going to be a developing story.”

I wouldn’t have thought so much about Cashman’s answer here if he didn’t use “developing story” again later on to describe another aspect of the team. And I fully understand Cashman is going to want to downplay expectations in spring training for a team coming off just it’s second postseasonless season since 1993. But like I have said, I compare the 2014 Yankees to the 2013 Red Sox. I’m not guaranteeing a World Series win, but the 2013 Red Sox were coming off arguably the worst season in the history of their franchise, needed their entire rotation to bounce back and pitch to their career averages (you’re welcome for me not saying “pitch to the back of their baseball cards” there like Michael Kay would have) and have their free agents all produce. The Red Sox ended up hitting a 12-team parlay to have the … no wait a minute … The Red Sox ended up basically filling out a perfect NCAA Tournament bracket to have everything fall in place for them last year to win the World Series a year after they lost 93 games.

In the five-team playoff format, it’s hard to not be in the mix for the postseason unless you have a miserable season. The 2013 Yankees had to use Ichiro in the middle of their lineup and when he wasn’t there, Lyle Overbay and Vernon Wells were and that team wasn’t eliminated until the fourth-to-last game of the season. This Yankees roster will certainly contend for a playoff spot if last years’ team was able to. Now that I have instilled that confidence in you for 2014, let’s move along as Cashman does his best to erase that confidence with his answers.

On how the infield is going to work out.

“The infield is going to be a little bit more like the 2013 situation where we’re going to be continuing to monitor the scenario all year long and if there’s better players outside the organization, waiver claims or guys get released or can cheaply be acquired then we’ll look at that situation too if it’s better than what we got.”

No one wants to hear anything is going to be like 2013 with the exception of Alfonso Soriano’s production. Think about it: What good came out of the 2013 season?

Derek Jeter and Mark Teixeira were hurt for the entire season. A-Rod created his biggest circus yet. Robinson Cano was streakier than ever and faded when the Yankees needed him most. CC Sabathia had the worst season of his career. Ivan Nova was an atrocity until he was sent down and then recalled in June. Hiroki Kuroda was amazing, but ran out of gas, pitched to a 6.56 ERA over his last eight starts and didn’t win a game after Aug. 12. Number 42 was better than any 43-year-old closer should be, but he even blew seven saves. For as good as he was after coming to the Yankees in 2012, Ichiro was that bad in 2013. Brett Gardner posted career highs in home runs and RBIs, but got hurt and missed the final weeks of the season. Phil Hughes pitched himself out of the organization. The catching situation was an actual nightmare. And Andy Pettitte was so inconsistent he decided he would retire again. If the Yankees hadn’t traded for Soriano, not only would they have been eliminated well before Game 158, but they wouldn’t have had a single positive storyline from an entire season unless you were that much of a fan of Number 42’s farewell tour.

So please, Cashman, don’t advertise anything about the 2014 season as being similar to the 2013 season.

On where a backup first baseman will come from.

“Well, Kelly Johnson is a possibility. We’ve got some other things that we had some meetings about today in camp that we’re discussing, but we need to talk to players first that we might play around with there too. So that is also something that’s an emerging situation.”

The one thing I like about Brian Cashman is that he tells it like it is. He doesn’t sugarcoat things or fabricate things for the fans. He isn’t always right (far from it), but he sticks with his judgment and opinion on players and decisions and admits when he is or was wrong. But for as honest as Cashman is, he really had no answer for this question. He tried to BS his way through it like a high school freshman trying to meet a word or page requirement on a paper. Not only did he try to downplay the fact that if Mark Teixeira gets hurt the Yankees are screwed at first base, but he sounded unsure of himself and uncomfortable answering the question.

On if Ichiro could be an option at first base.

“His name was not someone that we discussed.”

Ah, a question like this makes me nostalgic for the 2006 season when the Yankees had too many star players and not enough positions. Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano, Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada, Johnny Damon and Bobby Abreu all needed to play, so the Yankees had to let someone who wasn’t really a first baseman play first base. That someone became Gary Sheffield, who played first base as well as Eduardo Nunez played the outfield.

I actually like Francesa’s idea of giving Ichiro a chance to play first base even if he has only ever played the outfield. He did win 10 consecutive Gold Gloves and has an extraordinary baseball IQ and would be someone you could trust at the position. I would certainly be willing to find a way to get Ichiro into the lineup if Teixeira were to go down, but it doesn’t seem like Cashman and the Yankees are ready to think that outside of the box yet.

On how they handled having a backup first baseman in the past.

“When we had Swisher here it was great because if Tex needed a blow or had an injury, you had Swisher who you could move right in there. We’re not in that scenario right now. Not even close.”

When Nick Swisher was here it was great! Everything was better when Nick Swisher was a Yankee! Except for his own decisions to bunt or bunt with one out and a runner on second, or his shaky defense and lollipop throws, or his postseason failures or when he turned on the fans because he didn’t like that they were upset that he couldn’t get a hit in the ALCS. I miss Nick Swisher.

On if Jeter’s decision takes the pressure off him to deal with his status in the future.

“I don’t think that where we are today that would have been an issue. Obviously if it was a contract negotiation in the winter time, that might have presented itself if that occurred, but we weren’t in that scenario.”

Come on, Cashman. You know you are relieved that Jeter is going out on his own terms in the last year of a contract. If 2014 Jeter performed like 2012 Jeter or if he struggled to stay on the field like 2013 Jeter and wanted to return for 2015 it would have created a bad situation for Jeter, Cashman, the front office and the fans and it would have played out publicly just like it did after the 2010 season.

On how Michael Pineda has looked in spring training.

“You want everyone to be free and easy right now. That’s all you can ask for and he’s free and easy, but I don’t think anybody here can predict yet.”

Of all the question marks and unknowns about the 2014 Yankees, Michael Pineda has to be the most underrated of them all. He hasn’t pitched in the majors since Sept. 21, 2011, but was traded to the Yankees and viewed as a front-of-the-rotation guy for the foreseeable future at just 23 years of age. Now he is two years removed from pitching in a game after having shoulder surgery, but he is still just 25.

It’s easy to say if Sabathia returns to his old self and Kuroda doesn’t burn out and Nova is consistent and Tanaka is the real deal then everything will be fine. But I feel like a lot of people are forgetting just how good Pineda was in 2011 and if (and I know coming back from shoulder surgery is a big if) he can be that guy again, then the Yankees will have a No. 1 or No. 2 guy pitching in their No. 5 spot.

On expectations for CC Sabathia.

“I don’t see the velocity jumping back … If he can limit the home run damage that occurred last year because his strikeouts-per-nine and walks-per-nine were right in line with all his previous years, even his Cy Young Award contending years, that will be awesome.”

If CC Sabathia doesn’t allow 28 home runs in 32 starts this year, that will be awesome. CC looks weird as Skinny CC, but if his new look means he won’t pitch to a 4.78 ERA and lead the league in earned runs then I’m all for it. Sabathia has $23 million coming to him this year, or roughly $700,000 per start if you remember from last year, so if his velocity isn’t going to return then he better have Cliff Lee-esque location. I can’t take watching another season of late-game blown leads from Sabathia because of the long ball and because Joe Girardi still treats him like it’s 2011 and like an actual ace.

On how he would classify the bullpen situation.

“It’s also like our infield. Those are two areas that we all need to call an emerging story, a developing story.”

If the bullpen is “also like our infield” that means the 2014 bullpen is going to be like the 2013 bullpen since you said the 2014 infield situation is going to be like the 2013 infield situation. I’m not exactly sure you want to transition from the Mariano Rivera Yankees Bullpen to the Non-Mariano Rivera Yankees Bullpen by classifying the new-look bullpen as an emerging or developing story as if it’s the opening segment on the 11:00 news, but hey, who needs a reliable bullpen?

On if he feels old having watched Derek Jeter’s entire career.

“Unfortunately, like when I was going to the press conference today, I said to myself, ‘I’ve been here before,’ which was just last year with Mo. We’re so fortunate to have these guys for as long as we have had them and they’ve made all of our carers and made Yankee baseball so special to watch for such a long time. But yeah, you do some reflection as you’re walking into that. Time moves fast. It really moves fast. There’s a lot of things that have happened, and mostly positive, since Derek Jeter got drafted back in ’92. Again, I was caught off guard when he announced this and it just makes this season that much more important and interesting to follow because he’s one of the rare special ones you’ll ever see.”

Let’s end this before I cry.

40 days to go.

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