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Two seasons ago, when the Minnesota Twins were shopping Johan Santana, the team’s front office reportedly asked Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman for Melky Cabrera, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy. For many fans, this was, in the parlance of sports talk radio, a no-brainer. Cashman, though, took his time making his decision. Why give up, Cashman reasoned, a serviceable outfielder and two promising young arms, especially when Santana’s contract was about to expire? Cashman figured he’d end up paying for Santana twice, first with a package of young, cost-controlled talent and, later, with a lengthy, multi-million-dollar contract. Cashman, to the dismay of many, passed, and Santana was shipped to the Mets for, it must be noted, a lesser package.

At first, Cashman’s decision didn’t look too good. Cabrera, predictably so, regressed. Hughes stunk. And Kennedy, a soft tossing, finesse pitcher, got rocked to the tune of an 8.17 ERA and a 1.916 WHIP. Even worse, he didn't care. The Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time in 12 years, and New Yorkers, true to form, spent most of the season ripping Cashman for his decision not to go after Santana.

Cashman, though, rebounded in the winter, signing CC Sabathia, which helped solidify the starting rotation. (The signing of A.J. Burnett and the resigning of Andy Pettitte helped a great deal, too). Meanwhile, two of the players Cashman refused to part with rebounded from a disastrous season. Mellky, pushed by the addition of Brett Gardner, is playing a serviceable outfiled, and Hughes has been a revelation since moving to the 8th inning.

But what about the third, Ian Patrick Kennedy?

After spending most of the second half of the 2008 season in Scranton, Kennedy was sent to play in the Puerto Rican Winter League, where he posted a league-low 1.56 ERA, seemingly rediscovering the better-than-average control that inspired the Yankees to select him in the first round of the 2006 MLB Draft. By the middle of Spring Training, Kennedy, still only 24, had regained the respect of his manager, and was back in the team’s plans for the future.

A few weeks later, though, Kennedy, pitching well in the minors, left a game with numbness in the middle finger of his right hand, which was diagnosed a vasospasm in his right middle finger. Doctors later discovered an aneurysm in an artery near his right shoulder. His season—and, quite possibly, his career—was thought to be over.

But Kennedy fought back, working his way back to professional baseball. Last night, he pitched three hitless innings in his first Triple-A start since his surgery in May. Kennedy struck out the side in the first inning (Ed. Note: the Durham Bulls made contact on one of his first 15 pitches) and struck out two in the second. He racked up his sixth and final strikeout in the third, sandwiched between a flyout and groundout. After 50 very good pitches, Kennedy’s night was through.

“Everything felt good,” Kennedy said. “I got ahead of guys. My fastball command was better than in my first [rehab] outing. I felt back to normal again, and it’s much more comfortable pitching at that adrenalin rush rather than like my first outing when I couldn’t control it.”

This could be a big boost for the Yankees next season, as Kennedy still projects as a reliable back-of-the-rotation starter. Even if he doesn't crack the rotation, though, it's nice to see the kid pitching again. 

A-Rod Shocks World With Uncharacteristic Sound Decision

According to various sources, Alex Rodriguez has decided to have partial surgery on his torn right hip labrum Monday, which would allow him to rejoin the team by mid-May. After discussing his various options with Brian Cashman, his agent, Scott Boras, and noted hip specialist Dr. Marc Philippon, Rodriguez opted to undergo a limited procedure, a so-called "hybrid" approach to repairing the injury rather than simply playing through the pain or fixing in full the bone irregularity in his hip. Rodriguez will reportedly wait until the end of the season to go back under the knife for a more extensive procedure. 

"The goal here is to allow Alex to rehab rapidly in a safe manner," said Philippon, who co-runs the Steadman-Hawkins clinic for sports medicine and orthopedic surgery in Vail, Colorado. "The approach we're using is much safer than letting Alex play the way he is now."

Philippon said he was about 85-90 percent certain this first operation would be successful, and almost 100 percent certain A-Rod will need further surgery after the season. 

All things considered, I do think A-Rod made the best decision available to him and the Yankees. Although he will be out for at least the first month of the season, the partial operation should help alleviate at least some of A-Rod's most immediate pain, protect his long-term health and enable him to play in the majority of games this year. Seems like a win-win for him and the Yankees, who have to be sweating A-Rod's increasingly problematic contract which handcuffs him to the team through 2017. 

Also, as Bernie Williams already noted, A-Rod gets to take a much-needed break from baseball and the intense scrutiny of New York in bucolic Vail. Don't think for a second that A-Rod's two-month exile isn't entirely welcome or won't do him a world of good.

Read Between the Lines

While the New York sports media continues to overplay its hand, Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman offered four telling quotes about his $275 million tool of a third baseman, which pretty much sum up the entire A-Rod situation. And, once you break down what Cashman actually said and figure out what he really means, you get a pretty reliable primer on how the Yankees plan on dealing with Rodriguez throughout the duration of his impossibly long contract. 

You can also tell that the normally calm and collected Cashman, if given the chance, would beat A-Rod like a rented mule.    

“Those are the facts [Alex] gave you, it doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. I like the fact more that he was stupid rather than young or naïve. It was a bad decision that may cost him on so many levels.”

Cashman doesn't buy Alex's bullshit story either, but that's besides the point. A-Rod's reputation is in tatters, because he got cocky and stupidly pissed away his Hall of Fame career; he has to live with the repercussions of his decision for the rest of his life. Who cares about the details?

“We’ve invested in him as an asset. And because of that, this is an asset that is going through a crisis. So we’ll do everything we can to protect that asset and support that asset and try to salvage that asset.”

Cashman and the entire Yankees organization are stuck with A-Rod through the 2017 season, and by god, they are going to wring every penny out of their $275 million investment, even if Cashman himself has to make A-Rod sing "Cotton-Eyed Joe" before the 8th inning at the new stadium. 

"I don't think Alex is very good at communicating. Whether it's about talking about your game and the impact you had on it after hitting a home run or if he had a tough game at the park, let the team down....Anybody that's been in that clubhouse when he's trying to talk about success or failure on the baseball diamond knows that is something he is not very good at."

Cashman thinks Travis the Killer Chimp is better at expressing his feelings than the emotionally crippled A-Rod. 

"I think there's genuine, sincere support for him [in the clubhouse], and I'm sure at the same time, from a professional side, it's, 'I need this guy.' I'm sure there were all aspects of that."

If Eric Duncan could hit 40 home runs a season, the organization--from Hank and Hal at the top, to Humberto Sanchez and Wilkin De La Rose at the bottom of the 40-man roster-- wouldn't even piss on A-Rod if he were on fire, but he's still the team's best player and they probably need him to win a World Series.  So, yeah, Cashman and company totally have A-Rod's back. 

He Said, He Said

An excerpt of Torre's book is now available here. Check it out for yourself. It isn't pretty but, again, not particularly surprising. The details, as I recall them, are pretty similar to what was reported at the time of Torre's departure. I even remember hearing about Hal's semi-serious offer to Torre to announce Yankees games on YES, the Yankees entertainment and sports network. 

Although I understand why Torre is still pissed off by the way his final negotiations with the team were handled, I can't really get too upset with the way Cashman comported himself either. At the end of the 2007 season, it was an almost foregone conclusion that Torre was on his way out. It wouldn't have mattered if Derek Jeter, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and Cashman had all asked the Steinbrenners to keep Torre. George, Hal and Hank wanted to go in a new direction. Hence the offer Torre could refuse. 

In an ideal situation, Cashman, who knew better than anyone that the organization wanted to go in a different direction, would have spoken up and fought for Torre. As Verducci's and Torre's excerpt demonstrates, however, he did not. Cashman most likely wanted a new manager too. But even if he didn't particularly have Torre's back, I don't think anyone can say that he stabbed Torre there either. Granted, Cashman reportedly never relayed Torre's complicated two-year proposal to the Steinbrenners before the fateful last meeting down in Tampa, but does anyone, including Torre, really think it would have made a difference in the end? 

Torre's oddly timed postmortem of his final days with the Yankees will never take away from his many accomplishments as manager, which he and Verducci describe throughout the rest of the book. A part of me, though, can't help but wish that Torre would have kept the details of his negotiations--and what occurred inside his clubhouse--to himself. 

Et tu, B-Cash?

Former Yankees skipper Joe Torre is still less than pleased with the way his tenure with the club ended. According to Bill Madden of New York's "Daily News," in his new book, The Yankees Years, which was co-written by "Sports Illustrated" writer Tom Verducci, Torre lashes out against Alex Rodriguez and General Manager Brian Cashman.

While discussing the complicated talents of Rodriguez, Torre reportedly reveals that a number of Yankees referred to A-Rod as "A-Fraud," and writes that Rodriguez was "obsessed" with his rivalry with Derek Jeter. No big surprises there. Rodriguez's tenuous relationship with Jeter and his other teammates is already pretty well-documented, most notably in this damning "Sports Illustrated" profile of Rodriguez, which was written by, yep, Tom Verducci prior to the Yankees' first-round loss to the eventual World Series champions Detroit Tigers in 2006.  Anyone who follows baseball knows that A-Rod is fragile, to say the least. The fact that the 30 or so guys who spend approximately two-thirds of the year with him are also aware of Alex's fragility should come as little or no surprise.  

Torre also goes on to cast a startling light on how Yankees owner George Steinbrenner goes about his shadowy business, reportedly keeping a close tab on Torre via strategically placed spies in every corner of the clubhouse. According to Madden, Steinbrenner already knew about Torre's prostrate cancer diagnosis before Torre even had a chance to inform him of the news. Super creepy, even if, again, not particularly surprising.

What is surprising, however, is Torre's public outing of Brian Cashman as a traitor. Since Torre left the Yankees to manage the Los Angeles Dodgers, the official line has been that Hal and Hank Steinbrenner wanted Torre out, while Cashman fought unsuccessfully for retaining Torre, the skipper who guided the Yankees to four championships, six American League pennants and 12 divisional titles in each of his 12 seasons managing the club. Not the case. Torre claims Cashman betrayed him on "several fronts."

I'm sure much of this is Torre just wanting to set the record straight about what really went down during his tenure with the Yankees, and the majority of the book probably deals with the team's many successes. Torre simply doesn't burn bridges or hardly ever talks out of school, and any controversy surrounding the book's publication, which is slated for February 1, should die down before Spring Training. 

Still, this new insight into the inner workings of the Yankees organization is sure to rub longtime Yankees fans the wrong way, especially those of us who hold Torre in the highest of regard.

UPDATE: According to ESPN's Buster Olney, Torre called Brian Cashman yesterday afternoon to clear the air. Cashman told Olney that he holds no hard feelings and that he still considers Torre a friend, saying he is "very comfortable with my relationship with him."  

Meanwhile, Tom Verducci told "Sports Illustrated" that context is everything. He says:

I think it's important to understand context here. The book is not a first-person book by Joe Torre, it's a third-person narrative based on 12 years of knowing the Yankees and it's about the changes in the game in that period. [...] Joe Torre does not rip anybody in the book. The book really needs to be read in context.

Anybody who knows Joe, especially during his time in New York, knows he's a very honest man and he is very honest in the pages of this book. People also know Joe Torre doesn't go around ripping people and he doesn't do that in the pages of this book. There is a lot of information in this book over a tremendous period of baseball history. It's been reported out by me as well as informed by Torre's own insights into that period.

So there you have it. It is interesting, though, that neither Torre nor Verducci, when given the chance, didn't exactly back down from what Torre reportedly said about Cashman.