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When Brian Cashman arrived at Yankee Stadium Wednesday in a not-so-good mood over the way the last-place Baltimore Orioles had cuffed around his Yankee team the previous two nights, he did not envision in his wildest imagination bagging a potential Hall-of-Fame catcher before the seventh-inning stretch.

But then, how could he know what Pudge Rodriguez was up to in Cleveland? How could he know the Detroit Tigers' perennial All-Star and Gold Glove catcher had become disconcerted over the decision of his manager, Jim Leyland, to give an increased percentage of the catching role to Brandon Inge? It seems nobody had an inkling of this until Rodriguez, who is a free agent after the season, asked for a meeting with Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski at the team hotel in Cleveland, at which he was the one who suggested a trade to the Yankees according to New York Daily News baseball columnist Bill Madden.

"They need a catcher and I want to catch every day," Rodriguez reportedly told Dombrowski. "Why don't you see if you can work something out?"

It turns out that the Tigers' most pressing need as they make a belated postseason run in the AL Central has been another power arm in the bullpen - a commodity of which the Yankees had surplus. As soon as his conversation with Rodriguez concluded, Dombrowski phoned Cashman and asked if he would be willing to trade Kyle Farnsworth, who's also a free agent after the season, for his 36-year-old catcher. It was essentially a deal of mutual "rentals" to hopefully help get both teams "to the finish line," as Cashman put it. Before he agreed to it, however, he wanted to check with his manager, Joe Girardi, himself an old catcher.

"He's the complete package," Girardi said of Rodriguez, who is hitting .295 and still maintains one of the stronger throwing arms in the game.

From Cashman's standpoint, the Yankees had already been asking a lot of Jose Molina, a career backup, and there was also private concern that he might eventually break down. With Rodriguez coming in, those fears have been alleviated, but it remains to be seen how the Yankee pitchers, all of whom apparently love working with Molina, will interact with Rodriguez. Despite Rodriguez's Hall-of-Fame credentials, his reputation is that he catches for himself.

"We are robbing Peter to pay Paul," said Cashman, "and I just hope this works out. It was one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make, trading a good guy like Farnsworth who did everything we asked of him in what was at times a tough environment for him."

Source: New York Daily News