Don’t Look Now but Ca$hman’s Plan Quickly and Quietly Taking Shape

I woke up this morning to my usually routine: Turn on WFAN, get online, search the major sports sites for all the Yankee news I can find. Unfortunately, what I found was all major media outlets devoted to Omar-Gate 2009 (Willie must really be enjoying this). All this negative press on the Met GM allowed me to reflect on how good a job Cashman has done assembling this group of talent. I think we all can agree that so far the big ticket signings of CC, AJ and Tex have worked out. What sometimes goes unnoticed is the actual amount of production they are getting from within their system.

As I proceeded to scour through Twitter I came across this tweet by Sweeny Murti, “The Yankees lead the American league with home grown players on their roster at 58%, second only to the Rockies at 64% in all of baseball." I knew that the Yankees were finally having some home grown talent pay dividends in the majors, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised by how large of percentage it actually was.

It was only a few years ago when the farm system was barren, the team was underperforming and not a week would pass without an article on lack of structure and communication between the Tampa & NY factions. (Insert 09 Met comparison here). Its not too difficult to look ahead to the not so distant future, as some of our aging veterans leave and see this number increase with the addition of Jackson, Montero, Pena, Cervelli and others. It would be foolish of us to think that all of them will pan out but at worse we will have some high-ceiling prospects to deal in a trade.

What amazes me most is how quiet this turnaround has been. The papers will always choose the juicier story to put on the back pages (i.e. Omar-Gate has been front and center). With regards to talk radio, most callers call to complain. Since there’s not much to complain about in Yankeeland, Met talk has been dominating the airwaves. All this allows Cash and crew to go under the radar, probably to their liking.

The plan that has been in place the last few years of establishing a chain of command, improving their talent evaluators and investing in high-ceiling power arms has shown immediate dividends. The final review on this plan however will have to wait til October. But so far so good.

So the next time you hear someone talking about the Yankees Buying a Championship... hit them with that little fact, I’m sure it will surprise them as much as it surprised me.