The LoHud Yankees Blog

Last night it was ESPN that broadcast the Gold Glove winners. Tonight, MLB Network is broadcasting the Silver Sluggers. The hour-long special begins at 6 p.m. ET.

Surely Curtis Granderson is a favorite to win one in the outfield, and Robinson Cano has the American League’s best offensive numbers at second base.

Mark Teixeira hit more home runs than any other AL first baseman, but he’s not going to beat Miguel Cabrera or Adrian Gonzalez for the Silver Slugger. Derek Jeter’s probably not going to win at shortstop either, but that strong second half left him with the second-highest batting average and the second-highest on-base percentage of any shortstop in the league. Alex Rodriguez didn’t play nearly enough to be in the mix at third.

When Brian Cashman was asked about A.J. Burnett yesterday, he used an interesting phrase.

“If he’s with us, he’s in the rotation,” Cashman said.

If he’s with us? Cashman certainly seemed to be opening the door to trading the Yankees embattled, supposed-to-be No. 2 starter. No sooner had the opened the door, though, Cashman seemed to shut it.

“I think it’d be hard to replace his innings,” Cashman said. “Let me just tell you this. I am open minded. If anyone wants to approach me on anyone on this roster, that doesn’t have a full no-trade clause, the worst I can tell them is ‘no.’ … Some guys are more easily movable than others. I like our club. It’s my interest in just improving it. In most cases, subtracting from what we have is going to complicate the improving it side of it, for various reasons. If I’m losing 190 innings, for instance, if losing that makes us better, I think I’d be hard pressed because I don’t know how I’m going to replace it too easily.”

Ultimately, Cashman seems willing to take his chances with Burnett. There’s no denying the struggles. There’s no denying the talent. There’s no sense ignoring the fact there are two more years on the contract, which would make Burnett hard to move anyway.

“He’s almost given us 200 innings the last two years,” Cashman said. “There’s value in that, at the very least. He’s got a great deal of ability. He stays healthy. He’s accountable. He works his tail off. He’s obviously had to deal with adversity because of the inconsistent performance. But he hasn’t shied away from it, and he continues to take that ball every five days and does everything he can to continue to secure a win and be the best he can be.

“With all the pressure that builds up, that this environment can create, he was still able to step up and do what he did in October and secure one of our two wins in that Tigers series. It shows you a lot. It shows you a man who’s determined to continue to fight.”

Associated Press photo

Yesterday morning, I asked my favorite West Wing question: What’s next? A few hours later, in a conference call that lasted nearly an hour, Brian Cashman’s answer was — essentially — anything could be next. Or, maybe nothing.

“We need to continue to explore opportunities to find ways to get better,” Cashman said. “But we have a lot of depth. We have a lot of youth coming. We have a lot of support. We have some flexibility. We will be challenged with, I’m sure, people knocking on our door with various interest levels in assets whether they’re position players, pitching or prospect-driven, major-league ready or major-league performing… (Securing CC Sabathia this early) allows us to survey the landscape in a more conservative way than we would have had to if we didn’t have him here moving forward.”

Cashman made it clear that he doesn’t expect to add a big bat, and he called his bullpen “one of the best in the game.” The rotation, he said, would be a focus, and he’d still like to find a second left-handed reliever, but mostly Cashman seemed open to anything.

“We’ll explore all our opportunities and we’ll explore what the market is on various free agents,” Cashman said. “Like all clubs, obviously our limits are at a higher level than certain other clubs, but we have limits nonetheless. On a general point, I’ll just say that we’re going to continue to pursue and look at our pitching; more than likely the rotation… On the offensive side, I don’t think that’s really a priority. I don’t think that should be a priority. It doesn’t mean that we won’t explore or listen to anything that gets presented, whether it’s an agent or a general manager, but on the outset is that anything we’re realistically looking at or anticipating or needing? No.”

Cashman didn’t really tip his hand one way or the other on Yu Darvish, and he seemed to open the door to any of the team’s veteran free agents — Freddy Garcia, Bartolo Colon, etc. — coming back under the right circumstances. He said his team is healthy, he said picking up Nick Swisher’s option was an easy call, and he seemed excited by the possibility of more young players contributing next season.

So what’s next?

With Sabathia in the mix, Joba Chamberlain recovering from surgery, and Jesus Montero in place to takeover for Jorge Posada, the Yankees have no glaring need. Their rotation could use another arm, their bullpen could use another lefty, and their bench needs some experienced role players, but the Yankees don’t have to attack anything this winter. They can pursue what they want to pursue, and they can have the patience to make the moves that make sense.

“You like to be in a position where you’re cautious in the free agent market, always, because you usually have to pay more than what the players abilities really are,” Cashman said. “It’s just everybody is looking for the same thing and obviously built the players’ talent up to a higher level than at times can be sensible. You try to enter the market that way, but you only can do that if you have a foundation in place where you don’t have to be desperate.”

Associated Press photo

The ESPN2 special was delayed by a college football game, but The Associated Press just announced the Gold Glove winners for both leagues. No Yankees made the list.

American League

P — Mark Buehrle, Chicago White Sox

C — Matt Wieters, Baltimore

1B — Adrian Gonzalez, Boston

2B — Dustin Pedroia, Boston

SS — Erick Aybar, L.A. Angels

3B — Adrian Beltre, Texas

LF — Alex Gordon, Kansas City

CF — Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston

RF — Nick Markakis, Baltimore

National League

P — Clayton Kershaw, L.A. Dodgers

C — Yadier Molina, St. Louis

1B — Joey Votto, Cincinnati

2B — Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati

SS — Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado

3B — Placido Polanco, Philadelphia

LF — Gerardo Parra, Arizona

CF — Matt Kemp, L.A. Dodgers

RF — Andre Ethier, L.A. Dodgers

The World Series is over, but there will be baseball on television tonight.

Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson are headlining a group of MLB all-stars on a five-game exhibition tour of Taiwan. The group arrived Sunday, and Jack Curry writes that Cano was the pop star of the group. MLB even tweeted a picture of Cano surrounded by admiring flight attendants. Curry also wrote about Granderson settling into a kind of ambassador role, and MLB.com wrote about Cano being on the trip with his father. 

You can watch the first game of the exhibition series tonight at 9 p.m. ET on MLB Network. The other games will be played on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Looking for another Yankees connection? It turns out the major of New Taipei City used to live in New York and calls himself a Yankees fan. And if you’d like to follow along, be sure to keep up with Cano’s twitter feed. He’s been tweeting like a mad man over there.

Just a heads up: The games are not being broadcast live. If you’d like to know what happened in the opener, click here. 

Photo from MLB’s twitter feed

“It’s not as simple as seeing the obvious talent from the stands.
It goes a lot deeper than that.”

Those are Brian Cashman’s words, talking about the Yankees approach to scouting in Japan.

Even with CC Sabathia locked up, Cashman made it clear this afternoon that pitching — especially rotation depth — will remain the Yankees focus this winter. With a limited free agent market, Yu Darvish might become the best starter available.

Of course, there’s also the chance that he could be another Kei Igawa.

“Like anything else, you try to take steps backward to find out where you missed and why you missed,” Cashman said. “I think when you’re scouting Japan, it’s more than just what you see from the scout’s perspective in the stands. You’ve got to understand the game a lot more: the equipment that they use, and their conditioning programs, and their schedule, and their travel and obviously their culture and stuff like that. And trying to factor that into what you might see transpiring over there. Does it perfectly translate over here? There can obviously be some variances because of that.”

The Yankees have seen it go wrong. Doesn’t necessarily mean they think it would go wrong again, just means they’ve lived through the cautionary tale.

“I think we’re more prepared today than we have been in the past in terms of how we evaluate players over there and what risks we’re willing to take,” Cashman said. “… We’ve gotten a lot more educated by our past experiences as you would expect. That doesn’t mean we’re going to shy away. That doesn’t mean we’re going to be more aggressive. That just means I think we’ve gotten more educated, that’s all, and that’s a good thing.”

Associated Press photo

Obviously I’ll have more later, but here are a few quick notes from this afternoon’s conference call with general manager Brian Cashman.

• On Alex Rodriguez: “I don’t have any health concerns with Alex. His is a timing issue.”

• On A.J. Burnett: “I would not look at him as a reliever. If he’s with us, without a doubt he’s in the rotation.”

• On the Yankees veteran free agents (Garcia, Colon, Chavez, etc): “I’m not opposed to any of those guys coming back, I just can’t tell you what’s going to happen.”

• On Russell Martin: “We thought he was Thurman Munson-like… We could go a number of different routes there.” Essentially, Cashman spoke glowingly about Martin, and said he wouldn’t rule out bring him back on either a one-year deal or a multi-year deal.

• On Jesus Montero: “I think he can be catching for us or he can obviously be DHing for us or a lethal bat off the bench for us. All of the above.”

• On Yu Darvish: “I think like with anything else, you learn over time… I think we’re more prepared today (to evaluate Japanese talent) than we have been in the past.”

• On Francisco Cervelli: “He is full bore, ready to go as a catcher. There are no issues there.”

• Rafael Soriano will not be opting out this winter, though there was never any sort of official announcement from Soriano or his representation.

• Cashman said there’s no one currently on the Major League roster who needs offseason surgery.

Brian Cashman just announced that the Yankees did not pick up their option year on Andrew Brackman.

Brackman is now a free agent.

Brian Cashman just started a conference call. Here’s his early take on how CC Sabathia affects his offseason approach.

“Securing CC in that way allows us to be very open minded and conservative in our approach,” Cashman said. “I think we’re in a position now to take our time and explore and digest, as well as pursue, but at our own pace, not in an emotional or reactive state.”

Cashman said pitching is still a focus.

“I don’t anticipate a bat being a need at all,” he said.

Here’s the press release from the team.

The New York Yankees today announced that the club has re-signed Brian Cashman to a three-year contract to serve as the organization’s Senior Vice President and General Manager.

Cashman, 44, joined the Yankees organization in 1986 as a 19-year-old intern in the Minor League and Scouting Department and has served in his current role since February 3, 1998. In all, his clubs have earned a postseason berth in 13 of his 14 seasons as GM (1998-2007, ’09-11), claimed 11 Division titles, six American League championships and four World Series titles. His feat of reaching the playoffs in each of his first 10 seasons (1998-2007) remains unmatched in Baseball history.

Over the course of his time with the Yankees, he has earned five World Series rings, including four as General Manager, becoming the first GM to win four World Series titles since the Dodgers’ Buzzie Bavasi in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Cashman has the third-longest tenure among current general managers in Baseball and is the longest-serving Yankees GM since Hall of Famer Ed Barrow led the team from October 28, 1920, to February 20, 1945.

He became the second-youngest General Manager in baseball history when he was named to the post at age 31. In his first season, he became the youngest-ever GM to win a World Series, and with championships in 1999 and 2000, he became the only GM in Baseball history to win world titles in each of his first three seasons. A pennant in 2001 gave him four straight League Championships, placing him alongside Barrow (1936-39, four) and fellow Yankees Hall of Famer George Weiss (1949-53, five) as the only GMs in Baseball history to win four-or-more straight league titles at any point in their careers.

Cashman’s lifetime winning percentage of .605 (1,369-895-2) is the highest of any General Manager with at least five seasons of experience since 1950, and marks the best team winning percentage in the Major Leagues since 1998.

Additionally, under Cashman’s watch, Yankees minor league affiliates have combined to post winning records in each of his 14 seasons as GM, and have captured nine league championships over the last five seasons since 2007. Entering the 2011 season, the Yankees boasted four of Baseball America’s top 50 prospects.

Cashman’s Yankees teams have also earned multiple awards, including “2009 Male Team of the Year” by the United States Sports Academy, 1998 and 2000 ESPN “Outstanding Team of the Year,” and “Organization of the Year” by Baseball America in 1998 and by USA Today in 1999.

Associated Press photo