John Harper and Bill Madden are reporting that the Yanks are going to offer Phil Hughes in a package with Melky Cabrera and one other player to the Twins for Johan Santana.
After two days of internal discussions among front-office executives, the Yankees swallowed hard Friday and decided to offer Phil Hughes to the Twins as part of the trade package they hope will land them Johan Santana.
“We’re going for it,” was the way one club source put it…According to the club source, there was spirited internal debate in the organization via conference calls about whether to make Hughes available.
Among the prominent people on the calls were GM Brian Cashman in New York, and owner Hank Steinbrenner and superscout Gene Michael in Tampa. Though the club source wouldn’t say who needed to be convinced, it is no secret that Cashman has wanted to build the team around young, homegrown players, and saw the three pitchers as the centerpiece.
So if Cashman wanted to keep Hughes and Gene Michael as we knew wanted to trade him, I guess Hank could have been the deciding voice. My first reaction: Meet the new Boss, same as the old Boss.
At first glance, I’m not a huge fan of this deal, but the Yanks aren’t giving up anything else. Gene Michael was instrumental in building up the Yankee dynasty in the late 1990s. So maybe we should trust him. Or maybe we should all just jump off the nearest bridge. I’ll leave that one up to you.
We’ll find out over the next few hours, I’m sure, how this story progresses.
Update by Joe: Maybe Harper and Madden are hearing things, but mum’s the word from Hank:
“Anything said at this point, and I expect the other people in the organization to follow suit, you never know how it affects whatever, especially with other teams we’re dealing with,” Steinbrenner said. “It’s just no comment for now. At this point, until we get something done or don’t get something done on whatever we’re looking to do, it’s kind of as far as I’m concerned a lockdown now.”
I’m a psychiatrist. Believe me, I can be vague.
