WasWatching.com

I think that Cashman has done a good job as GM. Of course, it is hard to tell who's responsible for certain moves. I don't think that he can be blamed for Wright/Womack, but I think that he can be blamed for Pavano. The Enrique Wilson-Marte trade was bad, but I don't know how much he had to do with that.

On the positive side, I don't think that he gets enough credit for the Clemens, Justice, Glenallen Hill, Chacon, and ARod trades. We need another Glenallen Hill, circa 2000, this year.

Without PEDs, I don't think there's another Hill coming.......and, IIRC, Pavano was 100% Cashman.

Pavano was an organization-wide decision. Every team in baseball wanted Pavano. HE chose what team HE wanted. If he wanted to play for Boston, he'd be in Boston. If he wanted to play for the Tigers, he'd be with the Tigers. The Angels, the Angels. The Mariners, the Mariners.

People continually attack the Yankees for signing Pavano, and some media people even say they overestimated him, but it was a consensus opinion that Pavano was a stud pitcher who could lead a staff. They also got him at a reduced rate.

It didn't work out. If you look at Pavano as a Yankee before his shoulder gave out, he looked pretty good. Pavano looked like he had put his injuries behind him. If you're afraid to sign a pitcher with injuries in his past, you're probably going to be limited to half a dozen guys. I question the Wright move, but I think the Pavano move was a no-brainer.

Plus, where are all the Einsteins who thought the Red Sox one-upped the Yankees by signing Matt Clement? In this day and age, pitchers are literally a shrug away from TJ surgery. And it starts before ML clubs even get their hands on these kids. Zach Kroenke, a 2005 draftee playing now on our Tampa High-A team, recalls how college programs routinely force their best pitchers to throw 150-175 pitches a game. They simply don't care what happens to you after you're gone from their program. Should we be surprised that the majority of prospects encounter significant injury problems? Just based on scarcity, a healthy stud pitcher ought to be the highest paid player in the game not Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez.

People continually attack the Yankees for signing Pavano, and some media people even say they overestimated him, but it was a consensus opinion that Pavano was a stud pitcher who could lead a staff. They also got him at a reduced rate.
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THose who thought that, werent paying attention

Here's what they were paying attention to, Raf: a young pitcher who had a solid post-season and followed it up with a stellar year (18 wins).

Raf, all a pitcher has to do nowadays to get money is have ONE good, healthy year. Even though Ben Sheets is hurt every single year, and he's only had one winning season (10-9), if he was a free agent this off-season he's get twelve million a year. Because he's so talented. There isn't a lot of good pitching around and when a guy has a year like Pavano had, he gets big bucks.

He had an excellent, injury-free season with the Marlins in '04 and every team wanted him and the Yankees were the team he wanted to sign with. End of story. There's no reason to "blame" anyone about the deal.

It was a dumb move then, it's a dumb move now

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/buyer-beware/
http://www.hardballtimes.com/daily/article/free-agent-wrap-up-the-second-wave/

http://www.newpartisan.com/home/our-man-on-mediocrity-movie-star-looks-and-other-baseball-conceits.html

http://cliffordsbrb.blogspot.com/2004_12_12_cliffordsbrb_archive.html

And this is after a quick search...

Weren't these the same people who preferred Matt Clement over Pavano? Second verse, same as the first.

Weren't these the same people who preferred Matt Clement over Pavano?
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And to date, Clement has been better than Pavano, though not by much...