Yankees should fire Cashman, scouting staff

At an end of the season press conference New York Yankees' general manager Brian Cashman took responsibility for the team missing out on the playoffs for only the second time in twenty years.

Well if that's the case, ownership ought to fire him, as well as the administrators and scouts that handle drafting of high school and college players.

Certainly a major league team that finishes with an 85-77 record can hardly be considered a dismal failure. However what can be considered a failure is the team's drafts for the past ten years, or longer. The Yankees have not produced enough legitimate players from their farm system to be a contender.

While George Steinbrenner's win-now philosophy contributed to the team's chasing after free agents and trading prospects for established players (some of whom were already washed up and over the hill) this has been entirely Cashman's operation for over eight years now. He demanded full control of the farm system operation and got it. So far, he hasn't held up his end of the deal. Cashman also spoke out against one move ownership made without his approval - signing closer Rafael Soriano - and he turned out to be wrong about that one too, as Soriano filled in capably last year when Mariano Rivera was out with a knee injury.

Obviously, no one is going to replace Rivera, but with all the injuries that occurred in 2013 you would think the Yankees could have brought up at least one decent player from the minor leagues to fill a hole in the lineup. Nope. So all Cashman did was claim whatever flim-flam was available on the waiver wire, then throw it up against the wall and hope that it would stick. Anyone can do that. What takes some skill and expertise is knowing which baseball player to draft out of high school and college each year, and also how to develop them in the minor leagues.

In the press conference Cashman admitted that the Yankees have a lot of holes to fill before the 2014 season begins. It's too bad they can't count on any of their own prospects to plug those gaps.