Brian Cashman Pushes Back Against Yankees\' Critics
Brian Cashman spoke to the media on Tuesday and spent a good portion of his time pushing back against some of the backlash directed toward the New York Yankees in the wake of an 82-win season that resulted in missing the playoffs.
\"I\'m proud of our people, and I\'m proud of our process,\" Cashman said. \"Doesn\'t mean we\'re firing on all cylinders, doesn\'t mean we\'re the best in class, but I think we\'re pretty f---ing good, personally. I\'m proud of our people, and I\'m also looking forward to \'24 being a better year than \'23.\"
The Yankees made the playoffs each of the previous six years but haven\'t advanced to the World Series since winning it all in 2009.
Cashman\'s comments were his first since August, when he called the Yankees\' season a \"disaster.\"
\"We got sand being kicked in our face, understandably so,\" Cashman, the Yankees\' GM since 1998, said. \"We only won 82 games, we didn\'t make the playoffs. I called it a disaster because it was unexpected, and it was a disaster. That roster on paper was a hell of a lot better than it played out. But I gotta live with that. I gotta own that. I\'m responsible for that. And I\'m certainly hearing it loud and clear from all aspects, whether it\'s media, whether it\'s fans, all this stuff. Hey, if you\'re gonna play in this market, you gotta be tough, and you gotta fight through it, and we\'re gonna fight through it and have \'24 be a better outcome than \'23. But I did not see \'23 coming. I don\'t think anybody here saw \'23 coming with the roster we had.\"
He added: \"At this point last year, closer to the end of the winter, it was, \'This is a playoff team. This is a World Series-contending team. In fact, maybe the best roster they\'ve had to give them a chance to get to the World Series.\' And the same people now are talking about roster construction, too much analytics and all this other stuff, which I get a kick watching that back and forth where, \'Geez, those are the same kind of people that actually liked what we did six months ago, and they\'re killing us for it now.\' I get it. It\'s part of being part of this process. That\'s what makes sports so amazing. But we\'ve got good baseball people. We\'ve made good decisions over the course of time. More recently, some of these things haven\'t been as good. I\'m responsible for that. That\'s my call. And hopefully we\'ll be in a better position with some of the decisions we\'ll hopefully run into to improve the roster and improve where we\'re sitting at the end of \'24.\"