Was Watching: Johnson: Cashman Recent Transaction Patterns = Success

Lombardi spotlights Matt Johnson’s (aka mehmattski) entry in the Cashman Appreciation Project.

Success for a baseball general manager should not be defined by creating a scorecard of all positive and negative deals, signings, and drafts; it should be measured on the basis of creating and executing a plan that builds a sustainable, winning franchise. Individual transactions should not be judged by their results but by their context- what was the players’ value at the time of the transaction? What other teams were interested? What were the Yankees other options at that time? Most of all, the question should be: did a particular transaction match the specific needs and overall plan of the organization? It should be argued that the worst transactions of all are the ones made simply for the sake of making transactions, and have no bearing on the overall scheme of the franchise. There are a few ways, then, to analyze the contributions of Brian Cashman to the New York Yankees. One way would be to look at transaction patterns relative to his peers; this would be a worthy, if lengthy exercise, but important because as stats like RSAA and OPS+ have told us, relative success is just as important as absolute success.