Brian Cashman is looking at Yankees disastrous issues all wrong

SAN ANTONIO — Brian Cashman kept defaulting to the big picture.Yes, there were problems in fundamental areas on defense and especially baserunning, but that in the GM’s view did not prevent the Yankees from being a terrific team that reached the World Series.But it sure did a lot to keep them from winning the championship.

The Yankees coughed up Games 1 and 5 to the Dodgers with unsound play, which Cashman acknowledged on Tuesday at the GM meetings by saying, “Our game didn’t show up when it counted the most.”Except there are times your game doesn’t show up because baseball is fickle, and in a short burst, the best teams can look terrible and vice versa.But what the Yankees suffered in blowing Games 1 and 5 to the Dodgers was not mercurial.

It was predictable.They never cleaned up the finer points of the game.

If anything, they worsened as the season progressed.This was not an October problem or a World Series problem.

You could see this mounting from April onward.“I said we had a struggle with our baserunning this year,” Cashman said.“We were a bad defensive team, without a doubt at times this year, but we also, when you take it all, add it all together, we were a really good baseball team that earned the right to win the American League and get all the way to the World Series, and we’re really super proud about it.”He’s the architect of this and, thus, I understand his pride — and defensiveness.

Cashman was feisty at these same meetings last year after a playoff-less 82-80 season he himself termed a “disaster.” Cashman defended his lieutenants and the organization’s processes, insisting the Yankees were an elite operation and that would be proven out.And he used the word “vindicated” a year later.But harping on the fundamental shortcomings made Cashman feisty again.

Nevertheless, they were worth harping on.First, because the Yankees are good enough to win it all and state annually they are championship or bust.

Thus, the ...