SAN ANTONIO — Yankees general manager Brian Cashman spoke to reporters as they arrived at the annual general managers meeting, primarily about the team’s decision not to add another year to the ace. Gerrit ColeCole’s contract decision to rejoin this agreement.
Over the weekend, Cole exercised that opt-out clause, which the Yankees could waive by adding another year at $36 million. Instead, the parties agreed to essentially reverse the opt-out decision and stay together for another four years.
Since no cameras were allowed during Cashman’s briefing, here’s much of what he said.
Q: Can you tell us how you arrived at the Cole decision today?
Brian Cashman: Yeah, obviously Gerrit exercised his right to opt out. We had a lot of conversations. (Yankees owner) Hal Steinbrenner obviously involved every step of the way, with me and (Cole’s agent) Scott Boras(president of the Yankees) Randy Levine and Gerrit Cole, himself. And certainly, I would say, taking into account a little bit of the time frame between us and the World Series and having, you know, a 48 hour window to try to make a decision as to whether we were going to put a fifth year on there. In our conversations, it was something, at the moment, that we weren’t necessarily comfortable doing, but we wanted our player and our ace back, and he certainly didn’t want to either. go at the same time.
So we’ve had a lot of healthy dialogue about just trying to thread the needle and keep it in play. And we could always talk more as we move forward about the future, because the intention when we signed Gerrit was to lead our team until the end of his career. And so ultimately, we currently have in place, you know, the contract that we signed him that takes him up to, I think, what, (age) 37? We hope his Yankees career ends with the Yankees. Whether it’s at the end of this contract or in the future, we can always talk about it. But the most important thing is that the most important first step is that we get our ace back, and we’re excited about that.
Q: You said you weren’t comfortable just adding that fifth year. Can you explain to us why you felt this way?
Cashman: It was a 48 hour window, very small. We just – it’s like he legitimately just came off the mound, and we were in our discussions, our verbal discussions. We were fighting against that and sharing that. And at the same time, an opportunity presented itself: Gerrit didn’t want to go anywhere either. And so the one thing that was certain in the discussions with Scott, with Gerrit, with Hal, with myself, with Randy Levine, was that all parties wanted to maintain the relationship. So the pressure point was the time frame we were in and the window we were in. So we removed the delay by canceling the option that both parties had all together and leaving the remaining four years in place, and that was, at least, you know, in the short term, the simplest solution to the point. pressure from the calendar problem.
Q: If he wanted to stay, why didn’t he just choose to enroll?
Cashman: You mean, no unsubscribe? I can’t speak for that.
Q: But you just talked about it. You said he wanted to stay. You could have, at the end, said, “Well, now you’re not staying,” right?
Cashman: But we didn’t want that. So I can only speak from my side, so I can only show you how things happened. So from my side, and from our side, on behalf of the Yankees, we certainly wanted him to be with us as we moved forward, and he is. And during the conversation, it was also clear that this was always what he wanted, no matter what. So the simplest solution was to cancel the options.
Q: Did you discuss the various extension options for him too much before today’s deadline? Was there a possibility, at some point, that you would have redone a different contract structure?
Cashman: In the time given, this would not have been feasible.
Q: What would be the motivation for an extension? You have him all the way through his age 37 season.
Cashman: We’ll see. I mean, at the end of the day – look, I can tell you, he’s one of the best starting pitchers in baseball. Has been. He knows us. We know him. One thing we can definitely count on is that New York isn’t too big for him. And as you and we have all experienced, this is not always the case for others. His work ethic is second to none. His preparation is second to none. So we’re really comfortable having it. Now that I’m here at the general managers’ meetings, we can try to build around it and (Aaron) Judge …But again, you know, anything about the future would be in the future. For now, we’re just happy to keep him locked up for the next four years.
Q: Cash, so you don’t see this as playing a game of chicken?
Cashman: No, I don’t. I don’t know. I don’t look at anything other than the number of conversations we have after the opt-out that probably should have happened before the opt-out… Gerrit is family, to be quite honest. He has an incredible relationship with us, whether it’s our manager, our owner, our pitching coach, our general manager, where we have such great interactions, that those interactions haven’t happened before unsubscribing, and many of them. started to happen during the period of non-participation, and it was a heavy dynamic for us to return to our desire to stay together.
Q: Do you still talk?
Cashman: At the moment we have no conversations. I flew here from Charlotte. I got off a plane. He was waiting with the union (and) MLB to approve where we are right now. So, you know, definitely, I’ll talk to Scott while I’m here, about a lot of things. My main focus right now is trying to find as much talent as possible to improve our chances in 2025, but it was definitely a huge and important chess piece, you know, to keep.
(There were more as the conversation with the GM continued for a while. We’ll take you to a later, more interesting part of the program.)
Cashman: Maybe the grass isn’t always greener. I think he’s happy where he is. I think he likes our setup. I think he likes playing for who he plays for and working for, and I think he likes his teammates. They give him a chance to win, and sometimes the grass isn’t always greener. And this also applies to us. I know we’d rather not try to think about how we’re going to replace our ace.
(There was a bit more, but I think it’s what you needed to focus on an interesting day at the start of the GM meetings and Yankee offseason.)
