LoHud: Abraham: Brian Cashman answers your questions

Well, not actually your questions…but some other people.

How have new statistics and methods of analysis changed the Yankees scouting and evaluation methods since you became GM of the Yankees?

Brian Cashman: “I’d like to think that … (his phone rings) Excuse me a minute.”

(At this point, he walked out of the room with his phone and I was left standing in the clubhouse. After five minutes, I went looking and found him in the batting cage on the phone. He finished up and we continued the interview back in the clubhouse. No, I have no idea who was the phone.)

Back to Evan’s question: How have new statistics and methods of analysis changed the Yankees’ scouting and evaluation methods since you became GM of the Yankees?

Brian Cashman: “I’ve been educated. Sometimes your eyes can, you have a perception of a player or of a season or seasons that take place and statistics, there’s a number of statistics I believe, I have learned and been educated that can challenge your perceptions and that’s, if you come across some statistics that … I’m trying to think of the how the best way to say it, essentially the end game is there’s a number of statistics that I’ve learned through people like (Yankees director of quantitative analysis) Mike Fishman that have opened my eyes, that have led me to understand that certain players aren’t necessarily what you perceive them to be. And it’s prevented me from making acquisitions and saving me from losing a certain prospect as well as taking on money that would have been a waste that earlier in my career I would have done. I don’t want to name a player, but for instance, there’s a left-handed reliever with some arm strength that I know earlier in my career I would I have gravitated to more because he’s left-handed and the arm strength was there and he had a reputation. But when you walk through the statistical analysis of the actual consistent performance of that player it kind of broke down those perceptions and reality set it. It made me stand down and I saved more than a few million dollars and a player that was a young prospect who’s considered an asset. Early in my years that was something I probably would have finished off rather than did the extra time to study and dissect and then back down or stand down.”