Cashman Still Being Patient

From the MLB:

GM Brian Cashman has made it clear that the Yankees have decided to allow their young talent to develop before testing the market and trying to obtain players. Cashman often says that the Yankees want to try and find the answer from within before they try to find it elsewhere. That helps explain why the Yankees, too, decided to keep young pitchers Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy and outfielder Melky Cabrera instead of pulling the trigger on the Santana trade. Instead, they signed Andy Pettitte to a one-year, $16 million deal as a stopgap.

“We made long-term decisions when we made those assessments. I have a healthy left-hander in Andy Pettitte in the rotation, taking the spot where Santana would have pitched. I have the use of a guy [Cabrera] who is playing a heck of a center field and is one of the emerging center fielders in the game today, along with two potential starters for our rotation as well as some kids down in the Minor League system that we still retain. They’re assets.

“That money went to Pettitte and the remainder is still in place for us to utilize as we see fit. I think we made a long-term decision and you don’t judge a long-term decision in two months or in one year. That’s not why you make a long-term decision.”

Added Hank Steinbrenner: “We’ll just see what happens and bring these kids along, and not let them lose confidence. They shouldn’t. This is what the Red Sox have done, even though Lester is a little bit older than our three guys, and they’re bringing along Buchholz, too, at their own pace.

“We’re building for the future too. You can’t just do it year by year. Before the great team we had in the late 90’s, there were some real lean years there. We don’t expect to have it to be that lean this year or next year, but people forget there were some really tough years before the great teams of the late ’90’s. We’re building for the future as well, and we have to look at it both ways.

“We’ve got to keep going with the farm system and build them up as strong as we can, get everybody we can. If we have to, we’ll hoard everybody.”

Cashman’s making the right moves for the future. We’ll have to see whether or not those moves pan out for 2008.