The Red Sox were able to get Josh Beckett because they were able to trade Hanley Ramirez and Annibal Sanchez to get him.

They have their own homegrown closer in Papelbon.

Two ways to use the minor league system to improve your team.

Cashman is doing the same thing. How has he gone too far? The Yankees were completely barren of ANY prospects as late as two and half years ago. You can’t run an organization like that. He spent over 30 million dollars this year on Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens in free agency. He spent 46 million to get Igawa (wish he hadn’t done that! lol) If you add the 26 million he gave Mussina, that’s over 100 million on pitchers in the off-season. He gave Damon 52 million last year. He’s not going overboard with the minor league system if he spent over 100 million on the open market. He just wants to add balance to the organization.

Its the right way to go.

If you think they can just build by obtaining free agents, all you have to do is look at the 80′s. They spent liberally and didn’t get anywhere.

Right. Key word – Balance.

Randy1 –

I want the Yankees to have the farm system for two reasons: a handful of homegrowns who can be successful and keep the payroll under control, and to have players with potential who can be used as trade chips — for those stars. Especially with pitching, it’s the only way to go right now with the very few exceptions, like, possibly, Santana.

I don’t think the Yankees will ever be in danger of not spending money on free agents, but I think they need to be careful who they spend it on. They spent it on Clemens, but I think if their season was going well, they would not have. They will spend it and continue to spend it. But the wisest course is to be able to spend money on the more plentiful and more predictably successful position players. As SJ said, they’ve been burned far, far too many times by free agent pitchers.

I’m thinking we’re all saying the same thing here in different ways.

Keep the supremely talented (Jeter, Bernie, Posada, Mo, etc) and build enough depth in the system to be able to package other good prospects for better players in trades. That’s how good teams build their ballclubs, with a mix of in house and outside the organization options. Its how the Yankees built their latest dynasty.

The Yankees will always go after free agents. That’s not going to change. Its clear though, they would prefer to build the majority of their pitching staff in house (if possible).

That allows them to get the right free agents, which is the key to free agent success.

Given the large sums of money they have blown on free agent busts on the hill, that’s not surprising.

If they can clear the decks of enough salary this season and next (which they will, IMO), they will go full bore after Johan Santana.

If they can place Santana in a rotation that features Hughes, Wang and others, then you have the best of both worlds…..using free agency and your farm system to re-build the team.

How many guys do I think are “keepers” in the system?

Right now, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain are “Hughes-type” of talents in the system. I wouldn’t trade them for just about anybody in the game right now.

Humberto Sanchez? If he comes back strong from TJ Surgery, he is another guy I don’t move. That’s three outstanding arms, all under 25. You couple them with Hughes and Wang and you have something.

Guys like Jeff Marquez, Brent Smith, Chase Wright and Daniel McCutcheon are guys that you could trade in coming years for pretty solid players to add to the team. All those guys are good prospects.

Alan Horne? Depends on the deal. He’s going to be a good ML pitcher, IMO. Another guy they could package for the “right” player.

The kids in Staten Island, Dellin Betances and Zach McAllister? I don’t think about trading those arms yet. Those two kids have the potential to be better than Kennedy and Chamberlain in a few years.

That’s what I am talking about when I discuss building up the farm system. Create balance throughout the organization. The more talent you have, the more options you have to improve the parent team.

The key is to know which are the right guys to keep and which are the right guys to move. That’s when you really need to know what you are doing.

You have to have players in the minors to draw from. I don’t think anyone thinks the Yankees will ever have a team completely made up of homegrown players; that’s very unrealistic. But you need some combination. And you need to be able to have chips to trade, too. And they don’t all have to be stars, just steady, consistent above-average players. But if you have nothing in your minor league system, no talent at all, which is what the Yankees had done to themselves, you are in a very poor position.

Lowell and Tek have already cooled off (as has Youk), the former massively, and Pedroia will soon as well. The Sawx can’t count on Schilling, the more teams see Dice-average the more they figure out his schtick, Beckett’s 2nd 1/2 won’t nearly match his 1st, etc.

Now, maybe Nancy and Coco Chanel heat up and replace the offense lost from Tek and Lowell, and maybe Papi starts hitting homers like last year and Manny starts hitting like Manny and Lugo gets his avg over the Mendoza line, but I wouldn’t count on it.

This year, the Yankees have started out signing 8 players and again they signed the best player available in this group.

His name is Kelvin DeLeon and he is an outfielder. From the Dominican Republic and he was their #1 guy on the radar for this signing period.

How can you say for a future that will never happen? Are you saying the Yankees will never win again if they don’t win this year? Sorry, I am not buying that.

They have made the playoffs every year since 1995. They would have made the playoffs in ’94 had Selig not shut down the season. So, we are talking about 14 straight playoff seasons. That’s better than anybody in the game right now.

Is it not reasonable to assume, at some point, they would not make the playoffs? That streak can’t last forever.

When you add in the injuries, the complete dropoff of key players such as Cano, Abreu and Damon, is it not reasonable to assume they just may not be good to make it this year?

Its not like Cashman stripped the entire team down to the bear minimum and attempted to get through the season. They still have the highest payroll in the game and Cashman went out and signed Clemens to a record deal. Its not like he is not spending money. He is just trying not to waste it.

How do you replace Jason Giambi in this lineup when he goes down for the season? How does anybody assume guys like Damon, Abreu and Cano would fall off so drastically? That’s killed this team so far this year.

Cashman has made mistakes. However, if he doesn’t think about the future, and re-stock the farm system, he would be committing GM malpractice.

You can’t run a baseball team like an ATM machine, throwing money at anybody that comes down the pike. Its one of the big reasons why they are in the spot they are in right now. Too many old guys with unmovable contracts.

You gotta achieve flexibility and balance throughout your organization. That’s what he is attempting to do.

If the team could have stayed a tad healthier, and some guys didn’t fall off the map as productive players, they would have been right in the hunt while continuing to upgrade the farm system. Which, was Cashman’s plan all along.