Was Brian Cashman for the Alfonso Soriano trade before he was against it?

What is Brian Cashman up to these days? Monitoring the New York media and reading columnists "the riot act" for not casting him in the most positive light is apparently a huge priority for him these days. (If only he monitored players for the MLB draft with such precision!)

Here's what I am talking about: I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I saw a Wallace Matthews Yankees' blog entry on ESPN New York. In a blog entry today entitled "First Pitch: Sori, Hal," Matthews wrote the following in the original version of the piece, noting how Cashman opposed trading for Alfonso Soriano:

This is what a lot of New York Yankees fans should be saying today: Sorry, Hal Steinbrenner, for criticizing the decision to bring Alfonso Soriano to the Yankees at the trade deadline. 

While we're at it, GM Brian Cashman might want to offer his apologies as well, after saying publicly that he was against the deal. 

Because now, a little more than a month into his second go-round with the Yankees, Soriano doesn't just look like a bargain, he looks like a steal. 

This evening, here's what the article looks like:

This is what a lot of New York Yankees fans should be saying today: Sorry, Hal Steinbrenner, for criticizing the decision to bring Alfonso Soriano to the Yankees at the trade deadline. 

Because now, a little more than a month into his second go-round with the Yankees, Soriano doesn't just look like a bargain, he looks like a steal. 

Notice that the middle paragraph is missing, and the fact that Cashman opposed the trade is gone from the column!

Instead of just putting the missing paragraph down the ol' memory hole, Matthews does explain the situation on Twitter:

For the record, Brian Cashman never said he was against the Soriano deal, only that he was against trading Corey Black. I apologize
— wallace matthews (@ESPNNYYankees) August 28, 2013

GM read me the riot act, and fair is fair. My bad in today's blog
— wallace matthews (@ESPNNYYankees) August 28, 2013

So I wrote the following on Twitter to Matthews: I linked to "Cashman anti-trade & overruled — again," Joel Sherman's July 27 New York Post column on Cashman, which I wrote about at the time, and said this:

@ESPNNYYankees Sounds like revisionist history on Cashman's part, especially given this article: http://t.co/qv6xhMnWeE
— Subway Squawkers (@subwaysquawkers) August 29, 2013

In Sherman's original article, he wrote the following (emphasis added):

Alfonso became the second straight Soriano that Brian Cashman advised Yankees ownership not to acquire — and was overruled on nevertheless.

Just as with the signing of free agent Rafael Soriano, the general manager believed Yankees assets could be spent better than on Alfonso Soriano, two executives not affiliated with the Yankees told The Post.

Cashman would not directly confirm what he advised Hal Steinbrenner, but told The Post: “I would say we are in a desperate time. Ownership wants to go for it. I didn’t want to give up a young arm [Corey Black]. But I understand the desperate need we have for offense. And Soriano will help us. The bottom line is this guy makes us better. Did ownership want him? Absolutely, yes. Does he make us better? Absolutely, yes. This is what Hal wants, and this is why we are doing it.”

That reads like Cashman is publicly taking a stand that he was against the trade. But I never understood why Cashman would be against the trade in the first place -- Soriano was old, made a lot of money, and looked washed-up -- three things that Cashman usually loves to get in his players! I wrote at the time that I thought that Cash made a big stink about being against acquiring Soriano to get the media on his side again, having them write sympathetic articles about how a big bad Steinbrenner is meddling again. The irony is, of course, that if Cashman hadn't made such a stink, he wouldn't have to do all this revisionist history, because we never would have known this was an issue.

Matthews disagreed with me on the meaning of what Cashman said, and we went back and forth on it on Twitter -- you can see the conversation here. While I didn't agree with Matthews, I was impressed that he took the time to talk with me, and that he was cordial, too!

Incidentally, I don't know how many Yankee fans opposed trading for Soriano -- I was against it, because I thought they ought to rebuild, not commit any more payroll to 2014,  but I was in the minority. And I am happy to admit that I was wrong!

At any rate, I have to agree with what my friend Steve of WasWatching.com says when it comes to Cashman: "The Thin-Skinned GM Strikes Again"!

Is Brian Cashman being insubordinate? Why is he making a stink about the Alfonso Soriano trade?

Sorry, folks, but I am not buying Brian Cashman's claim that he was against trading for Alfonso Soriano, and I think he has an agenda behind his claims to be against the trade. 

Here's the story: Joel Sherman wrote in Saturday's New York Post that Cashman opposed the trade: 

Alfonso became the second straight Soriano that Brian Cashman advised Yankees ownership not to acquire — and was overruled on nevertheless.

Just as with the signing of free agent Rafael Soriano, the general manager believed Yankees assets could be spent better than on Alfonso Soriano, two executives not affiliated with the Yankees told The Post. 

And Sherman was treated to an on-the-record interview from Cashman himself, with these quotes:

Cashman would not directly confirm what he advised Hal Steinbrenner, but told The Post: “I would say we are in a desperate time. Ownership wants to go for it. I didn’t want to give up a young arm [Corey Black]. But I understand the desperate need we have for offense. And Soriano will help us. The bottom line is this guy makes us better. Did ownership want him? Absolutely, yes. Does he make us better? Absolutely, yes. This is what Hal wants, and this is why we are doing it.”

In addition, Sherman writes some revisionist history about how Cashman really wanted to sign Russell Martin, even though he said at the time he was too busy taking care of signing starting pitchers to worry about the catching situation.

Sherman also claims this:

According to multiple executives, [Nate] Schierholtz’s agents were seriously weighing signing with the Yankees, but wanted playing-time assurances and guarantees the Yankees would not sign fellow lefty swingers Josh Hamilton or Suzuki. 

Except for the fact that 1) Hamilton signed with the Angels a week before Schierholtz went elsewhere, 2) the Yankees never negotiated with Hamilton, and 3) I guess I missed when Schierholtz was so A-list that his agents could dictate such demands to the Yankees.
 In addition, I have a few other thoughts: First of all, why do executives "not affiliated with the Yankees" know the Yankees' business on the latest Soriano trade? Cashman is a bit of a blabbermouth, isn't he? How is this not insubordinate?

Second, Corey Black was a 2012 fourth-round draft pick. I have never heard of the pitcher before this week. Maybe he will be a good pitcher, but given Cashman's shoddy track record on drafting pitchers, I wouldn't polish the Cy Young trophy just yet.

Third, no GM in baseball has 100% autonomy. All of them have to deal with ownership, and get overruled on things. But Brian Cashman is the only one who spreads the Yankees' business, and talks about internal issues, to other executives and newspaper reporters. I think it's insubordination, and he gets away with it again and again.

Fourth, the bottom line is this: Brian Cashman is a bad general manager who should lose his job for assembling this bad team. And he is still playing the Steinbrenner card, three years after George's death, and a decade after The Boss was a force to be reckoned with.

Why would Cashman be against this trade? It is a quintessential Cashman deal -- trading for an aging player past his prime who makes a lot of money! That's pretty much all he does these days!

I think Cashman's opposition to this trade is his way of trying to save his job through the media. He has ginned up the whole "the Steinbrenners are taking away Brian's autonomy again" nonsense, and is trying to get the fans to feel sympathy for poor Brian. The implication, of course, is that if only that meanie Hal Steinbrenner let Brian do his thing, this team would be good.

Never mind that Steinbrenner was right, and Cashman was wrong, on the first Soriano deal -- without that pitcher, the Yankees would not have made the playoffs last season after Mariano Rivera got hurt. Having Rafael Soriano was a great contingency plan, something Cashman has shown zero interest in. It's why there is no successor for Jeter and A-Rod.

And never mind that no GM in baseball has 100% autonomy -- they all have bosses who overrule them. But we never hear about when they are overruled. That is because they aren't insubordinate to their bosses, the way Cashman is here.

Incidentally, you know how we know that the Steinbrenner kids are not acting like their father? Because Brian Cashman still has a job, after second-guessing his bosses in the media. In fact, they are the opposite of their father. They don't have the appetite to fire anybody!

Agiain, Cashman is a terrible general manager. He needs to go. And Hal Steinbrenner is not a good owner -- the fact that he has kept Cashman on after his employee publicly second-guessed him in the media shows that.

This team needs to clean house -- now -- starting with their idiot GM.