SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- It is hot this week, even for the Southwest, with near-record temperatures in the 80s and 90s. Reporters and American League general managers had been sweating all day Tuesday by the time they met on an outdoor stone plaza at the front of the Omni resort hosting this year’s GM meetings.
As Brian Cashman approached the gathering scrum with his right-hand man on communications, Jason Zillo, he warned that he might let it fly. He didn’t know exactly what he was going to say, but he knew he was tired of bottling up his objections to the way his Yankees are perceived.
It would take hours to evaluate those objections. As we all are, Cashman is a blend of intelligence, self-awareness, defensiveness and blind spots. Putting the content of his message aside for a moment, it seems worth a few hundred words to unpack the feelings and experiences that led to 60 minutes that instantly became a lasting part of his story as the longest-tenured GM in the history of the most iconic franchise in sports.
Grilled about the state of his organization for the first time since the end of an 82-80 season, Cashman called “bullsh-t,” literally, on numerous assertions about his front office, including that they are overly reliant on analytics. At one point, with notebooks open and cameras rolling, he said that, while the Yankees might not be best-in-class at the moment, they were “pretty f---- good [and] I’m proud of our people."
He sparred with reporters, loudly. The reporters held their ground, and so did he. Everyone did his or her job with confidence and intensity. At one point, a person standing near the back of the scrum asked, in a hushed voice, if Cashman and one questioner were moving toward a physical fight. They were not, but for a few seconds it did seem plausible.
This was a moment several years in the making. Cashman has seethed about the analytics perception, wondering why a team with a robust pro scouting department and executives steeped in traditional evaluation, from Tim Naehring to Jim Hendry to Omar Minaya to Brian Sabean is pigeonholed in that way.
In reality, some scouts see an imbalance in the Yankees’ process, and some see alignment and cohesion. It is a fact, however, that their pro scouting department is strong and widely-deployed.
"No one is doing their deep dives, they're just throwing bulls--- and accusing us of being run analytically,” Cashman said, with force. “To be said we're guided by analytics as a driver is a lie."
Last October, after the Yankees lost the American League Championship Series in four games to Houston, fan and media outrage seemed to reach a new, higher pitch. Cashman’s friends in the game say that he was wounded and confused -- of course he was starving for another championship, but he didn’t understand why his team was being covered as an abject failure.
Shortly after that series loss, Cashman held his standard postseason news conference at Yankee Stadium. Though resentful, he struck an even tone, and, with some effort, presented a flat demeanor.
This year was different. After more than a month of public silence, Cashman faced two messaging choices at the mandatory GM meetings availability: He could craft a presentation aimed at pleasing his critics, or he could mount a strong defense of what he believed.
Knowing that words would not ultimately matter as much as future on-field success, he chose the latter course. Not all of his opinions landed; for example, when Cashman argued that Sonny Gray and Joey Gallo were desirable to other contending teams after their Yankee tenures, it begged the question of why the Yankees were unable to help those players succeed.
Many of Cashman’s employees appreciated the tirade. “It’s good that he got that off his chest,” said one high-ranking Yankees executive who, like many others, sees how the heavy public pressure weighs on his boss.
Indeed, friends observe that Cashman does not always seem to be having fun -- or more specifically, that he enjoys running a baseball operations department and being a Yankee, but is worn down by the public vitriol. They say that, over the past year or so, he has stopped reading clips, scanning Twitter, or engaging with reporters as freely as he once did.
In reality, the immediate future could present still more challenges. The Yankees, in their most self-aware moments, understand that they currently rank third or fourth in their own division, and that the most likely path back to the postseason is through the wild card. The team is proud of its overall process, but knows that the approximately three months left before spring training might not be enough time to transform the big league roster.
It’s a lot to get frustrated about. When Zillo announced that Cashman had been speaking for an hour, and would take one more question, the GM felt surprised. Had it really been an hour? He had been virtually out-of-body the entire time, and 60 minutes had flown by.
Usually so deliberate and calculating, Cashman this time showed the public an extended glimpse of how he vents when among friends and confidants. Like all our private selves, it was messier, angrier and more contradictory than the face we compose for the world.
When he walked away, he didn’t know how his stormy message would be received or covered, but he knew one thing -- the only way to appease the public is to design a team that wins next year.