The New York Yankees introduced their first notable free agent pickup of the offseason yesterday in reliever Rafael Soriano. They conducted a typical Yankee press conference featuring your standard helping of awkward hugs and handshakes, to go along with all the proper cliches until Brian Cashman’s pinstripes began to wiggle as he spoke with reporters afterward:

“I didn’t recommend [the deal],” Cashman said. “I think it’s a sign that at times if Hal feels he wants to go in a different direction — that could happen. And I think that’s certainly the case. I’m charged with obviously winning a championship. I’m charged with building a farm system. I’m charged with getting the payroll down, and this certainly will help us try to win a championship. There’s no doubt about that, so that’s in the plus column, but I didn’t recommend it, just because I didn’t think it was an efficient way to allocate the remaining resources we have, and we had a lot of debate about that.”

Not to mention the Yankees are also surrendering a first-round pick, but this is nothing new. Cashman routinely felt this way about deals when George Steinbrenner was still around, with the atrocious Kevin Brown trade being a glaring example that sticks out like a grotesque goiter. The more the Yankees change, the more they stay the same. Cashman is the GM of the team until someone disagrees with him. Some might refer to this line of thinking as excellent “strategery.”

Cashman’s contract and sacred Dockers Preferred card expire at the end of this coming season.

Brian Cashman against Soriano deal [ESPN New York]