Little Piece Of Brian Cashman Dies With Every Jose Contreras Victory

NEW YORK--When Jose Contreras won his 8th game of the season Friday night against the Houston Astros, Yankees GM Brian Cashman felt a familiar knot in his stomach accompanied by a slight sense of dizziness. He then paused to reflect on Contreras’s time with the Yankees, from the bidding war to win his services to the day he was unloaded to the White Sox for journeyman Estaban Loaiza. And for the 8th time this season, a little piece of Brian Cashman died.

“Oh God I feel sick,” Cashman said as he turned the TV off in disgust. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t even see that guy’s face anymore without getting nauseous. And when he wins a game, forget it. I can actually feel a tiny piece of my insides shriveling up and dying. I guess Jose just wasn’t meant to be a Yankee. I just wish I knew that before I gave him that $32 million contract. Ow! There’s that shooting pain in my stomach again.”

Contreras, a right-hander from Cuba, was pursued aggressively by both the Yankees and Red Sox in the winter of 2002. The ensuing bidding war was won by the Yankees. Unfortunately, Contreras never fulfilled his promise in New York and quickly became known as a colossal bust.

“He self destructed with us. He just totally lost confidence,” said Cashman, wiping the sweat off his forehead with a tissue. “All of a sudden his stuff was just gone. The fastball, the split finger, the pinpoint control, all of it. We figured we could trade him somewhere, get some kind of value, and he’d flame out and head back to Cuba. Boy were we wrong. Apparently he just some minor mechanical problems. Thanks for nothing, Mel Stottlemyre, Mister Awesome Superhero Pitching Coach. What were we paying you for again?”

Contreras’s turnaround with the White Sox has been nothing short of spectacular. Since August of last year, he has won 16 consecutive starts and is currently a frontrunner in the AL Cy Young race. Winning the Cy Young would be another slap in the face for the Yankees.

While Cashman accepts most of the blame for the Contreras fiasco, manager Joe Torre says that the coaching staff bears some responsibility as well.

“It was a failure on a lot of different levels,” said Torre. “For some reason we just couldn’t make it work with Jose. He had electric stuff, but when he came here he seemed to develop some bad habits and he just never recovered. I can understand how Brian feels about this, but he shouldn’t beat himself up over it. He should beat himself up over the Carl Pavano signing instead.”

When Contreras arrived with the White Sox, the coaching staff immediately began searching for flaws in his mechanics. Don Cooper, the pitching coach, noticed a few things right away.

“He was tipping his pitches every so often,” Cooper said. “Also, he was trying to paint the corners too much instead of just challenging hitters. Once we worked that stuff out things started coming together. It’s just one of those things. The Yankees have nothing to be upset about. Don’t forget we gave up something in that trade, too: Estaban Loaiza, who ended up having an 8.50 ERA with the Yankees. Say what you want about him, but if he had the proper run support – 9 runs a game – he would’ve been a winner.”

Contreras sees his time with the Yankees as a valuable learning experience and says he has no hard feelings towards the Bronx Bombers. In fact, he credits Brian Cashman for giving him his first shot with a major league ball club.

“The Yankees showed faith in me and gave me an opportunity to pitch in the major leagues,” said Contreras, speaking through a translator. “Now I’m here with the White Sox and I’m very happy. I hope I can pitch for many more years and go to the Hall of Fame someday. Perhaps when I get there I will wear a Yankees hat as a tribute to the team that discovered me and brought me to America. I think Brian Cashman would feel a great sense of pride at that moment, once they scraped him off the floor and administered smelling salts.”

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