He often uses a lot of buzzwords, but one thing was clear when the Yankees left the winter meetings, regardless of the words Brian Cashman used to reporters: the Yanks had a surplus of starting pitching, and while you can never really have enough, he was comfortable using that in trades to shore up holes on the roster.
And so, even as he called it ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ in discussing the trade sending Nestor Cortes to Milwaukee for Devin Williams, Cashman still has that vibe even with one less asset on the sheet.
“Ultimately, we have an inventory and are, in theory, deep in the starting rotation, and as I told you at the Winter Meetings, if we have to use that to shore up other aspects, we have to strongly consider that,” Cashman said in a Friday Zoom. “That’s how we currently have done that.”
Cashman thanked Cortes for his service in the Bronx, but again, this deal, which ostensibly saw the teams swap equally-salaried and service timed hurlers in different spots, was one he couldn’t pass up.
“I want to thank Nestor for everything he’s done while he’s been here; he’s been here multiple times, and is a quality pitcher that did a lot for us,” Cashman said. “Hopefully, this deal balances us out a little bit more between the starting rotation and bullpen options, and hopefully we’re in a better position than we were – but we felt the risk was worth doing it, given who Williams is.”
So now, with a Cole-Fried-Rodon-Gil-Schmidt crew intact for the next four years, the focus of everyone’s wonder will turn to Marcus Stroman, who was a key starter in the first half last season but was bumped from the rotation at the end and did not appear in a single playoff game.
Stroman has one guaranteed year at $18 million and an equal vesting option for 2026 if he throws more than 140 innings this season, and while it’s easy for many to just see him in the bullpen in ’25 and maybe gone after that, Cashman did say multiple times how you can never have enough arms – and also that he’s not afraid to use them to shore up other spots, either.
“I have no idea what this roster will look like in the end, but Stro was one of the reasons we were able to win the AL East, so we’ll see,” Cashman said. “He had a really good first half, second half wasn’t as strong, but he was there every step of the way for us in any category we needed him, and on the postseason roster two of the three rounds. The one thing about robbing Peter to pay Paul as we did today is we can never have enough pitching, so don’t make any assumptions. Let’s see how our winter shakes out, and I’ll leave personnel placements to the coaches.”