New York Yankees: Brian Cashman Reveals His Worst Trade

Brian Cashman has made a lot of deals as the general manager of the New York Yankees, and in the spirit of Groundhog Day, he revealed one he wishes he had back.

MLB.com did an awesome job reaching out to general managers around baseball about what trades they would like to have a do over on, similar to the famous move “Groundhog Day”.

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17 years ago, Cashman made a deal with the then Florida Marlins to send third baseman Mike Lowell to the Marlins in exchange for three pitching prospects. In exchange for Lowell, the Yankees received Ed Yarnall, Todd Noel, and Mark Johnson.

“We had Scott Brosius and we had a lack of pitching depth in the system,” Cashman recalled to Bryan Hock of MLB.com. “For the right circumstance, we were willing to move Mike Lowell, who was blocked by Brosius. He’d obviously had a lot of success with us and helped us in the ’98, ’99, 2000 World Series pushes, including 2001, where we obviously fell short in Game 7.

“So we secured three high-ceiling starters — Eddie Yarnall, Todd Noel and Mark Johnson, all three high [Draft] picks, all three with high ability. But all three busted. I know when the deal was done, it was something that we secured three high-end arms in the system, but none panned out.”

The Yankees were certainly the losers of the deal as Cashman looked back on it 17 years later, as Lowell ended up having a great career, while none of the pitchers amounted to anything in the majors.

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In his career, Lowell totaled a .279 batting average, 223 home runs, 952 RBIs, four All-Star games, and a World Series MVP with the Boston Red Sox.

“We’re in a better position, I think, because of analytics and our education on it,” Cashman said to Hoch. “The data streams and stuff, I’m not sure if it would have changed the decision-making back then or not. We didn’t have access to that type of stuff back then. I think it was a trade of need for both organizations. We had depth to trade from, as did the Marlins. It just didn’t work on our end. It worked out for them.”

The deal made sense at the time for the Yankees, as Lowell was going to be buried behind Brosius at third base, but it has gone down as the worst trade in the long career of Cashman.

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