Another familiar Brian Cashman response shows why Yankees need new front office voice

Shortly after the Winter Meetings, Brian Cashman spoke to the media as those on the Yankees beat were curious as to what went down. New York did nothing in Orlando outside of make a Rule 5 Draft pick, and their only moves to date have been bringing back four players from the 2025 team. Nothing else.

Here we are, two weeks after the meetings concluded, and nothing's changed. The Yankees remain embarrassingly inactive. Yes, the market is slow, but that hasn't stopped others from making the most of it.

We won't exactly praise what the Mets are doing, but David Stearns is at least seeking any and every opportunity in free agency and on the trade market as it pertains to rebuilding his flawed roster. Will it work? We don't know. But he's figured out a way to clear salary and get rid of legacy players who have failed to elevate the Mets.

And what about Ben Cherington and the Pirates? They've figured it out in some capacity! Craig Breslow and the Red Sox. The Orioles! The Braves. Even the damn White Sox made an impact signing when they added Munetaka Murakami! Those teams seemed to have figured out a way to navigate both markets! Meanwhile, the Yankees? Same old response.

“There’s not a lot of inventory that I’m interested in coming off the board yet,” Cashman said Wednesday morning before flying back north, via The New York Post. “So that means it’s tough to get.

“It feels like there’s still a lot of information gathering and information sharing or preliminary negotiations that are taking place, which is the beginning or middle of things, rather than you’re in the red zone and you’re finishing stuff off. It feels like overall, that’s what this market’s feeling like. It’s moving a little slower.”

While Yankees fans are impatient, they also understand how this works. Of course the top of the market is going to move slower as Kyle Tucker's future deal will likely impact others beneath him. Same goes for the big-name pitchers, who always take time. That's usually the story every offseason.

But what about creating your own opportunities? That's something the Yankees almost never do. Why do they always have to wait for the market to materialize? Can't they simply ... go out and get who they want? Every single year, it's waiting for the perfect time to strike. It's treating players as if they're items on a shelf (can we not refer to them as "inventory"?). This is the exact mindset that keeps the Yankees stuck in the mud during the Aaron Judge era.

Nobody is asking to empty the farm for Tarik Skubal. Nobody is asking for Hal Steinbrenner to shell out $400 million for Kyle Tucker. At this point, they're just asking for something of substance. Last offseason and last trade deadline remain Cashman's most transformative work since 2017 ... and that's not necessarily a good thing. His Plan B pivot after Juan Soto's departure was certainly good, but it yielded worse results. His active 2025 trade deadline had the right intentions, but did not deliver the desired results.

At that point, you'd think some sort of overture would be made. The Yankees losing a generational free agent followed by another disastrous Summer Swoon finally forced his hand. Fans thought there'd be a semblance of that energy when the offseason arrived. Instead, there have been next to no rumors involving New York. Even the team's closest insiders have little to divulge.

What does that mean? We don't know, but it feels like the front office is treating the 2025 trade deadline as an extension of their offseason work despite there still being a ton of work left. If this is the response to an early ALDS exit (alongside a $62 million luxury tax bill that represented money in the trash), then it couldn't be more clear that a new voice and change in philosophy is needed once Cashman's contract is up.