C-Mac and Marco spent part of Tuesday morning’s show looking back on critical moves of Brian Cashman’s tenure as Yankees general manager, and it led to a heated debate.
It began by revisiting the Giancarlo Stanton trade, which has been put back under the microscope as Bryce Harper has once again been on a postseason tear with the Phillies.
“If you tell me that Cashman doesn’t have the open purse strings, that he doesn’t have unlimited budget, that it’s not like the 1980s Yankees, then I’m listening, but then you have to make smarter, sound decisions, and that means you don’t trade for Stanton if it stops you from even having the conversation about Harper,” Marco said.
“I don’t know Harper makes free agency,” C-Mac replied. “And I just went to game seven of the ALCS with this group, and I thought it was about stacking the deck and going for a championship, and I was just offered the reigning NL MVP for Starlin Castro, and they were eating some of the money.
“Harper was the better fit, and the better overall player. But let’s be fair. We didn’t know Stanton was going to turn into a glorified DH who couldn’t run four years into his tenure.”
Marco then brought up the Sonny Gray deal, which was followed up by the Yanks passing on Justin Verlander.
“Sonny Gray was the premier pitcher on the market,” C-Mac said. “He was the ace of the A’s…at the time, Sonny Gray was considered the much better pitcher to go after. [Verlander] was falling apart at the end of his Detroit tenure…he wasn’t having a good year. People thought he was at the tail end of his clear.”
The debate got heated, but both agreed that it’s time for the Yankees to move on.
