Brian Cashman talks about being overruled on the Soriano deal

Since the moment Rafael Soriano signed with the Yankees, people have been reporting that the Brian Cashman wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger on the deal. It was his higher ups, it’s been said, going against Cashman’s wishes. Today Cashman confirmed that:

“I didn’t recommend it ... I’m charged with obviously winning a championship. I’m charged with building a farm system. I’m charged with getting the payroll down, and this certainly will help us try to win a championship. There’s no doubt about that, so that’s in the plus column, but I didn’t recommend it, just because I didn’t think it was an efficient way to allocate the remaining resources we have, and we had a lot of debate about that ... My plan would be patience and waiting. They obviously acted. And we are better, there’s no doubt about it.”

He was pretty up front about it all, actually, as was team president Randy Levine, who said that the Yankees have a “sacred obligation” to the fans. That obligation is to win now, and that’s the case even if it comes at the expense of Cashman’s long term plans.

Like I said when it went down: it’s not that big of a deal. At least not on the Yankees. If it was a battle for the soul of the team or if doing X prevents them from doing Y, sure, there’s an issue. But it’s not like signing Soriano will bankrupt the Yankees. It’s not like it’s going to make Brian Cashman an ineffective leader. If he goes to Hal Steinbrenner and says “hey, we need $5 million more for player development this year because the Soriano deal blew our budget projection,” he’ll get his $5 million.

Why? Because that’s all part of the “sacred trust” too. A trust that will only be at risk if there isn’t enough money there to fulfill it. Which, in the Yankees’ case, will be never.