Cashman’s Yankees are back to the World Series, but Houston is still living rent-free in his head.

The New York Yankees are riding high, having outlasted the Cleveland Guardians in a wild five-game ALCS to get back to the World Series for the first time since 2009. (Hey, while 15 years between pennants might not qualify as a “drought” to most fan bases, it’s all relative.)

GM Brian Cashman, in particular, should be feeling himself right now. The pressure could not have been cranked up any higher after missing the postseason entirely in 2023, and he responded to a must-win season by swinging one of the greatest trades in franchise history and making several moves on the margins that have brought his team within four wins of a title. It’s been one of his best team-building jobs to date, and now a showdown with the powerhouse Los Angeles Dodgers awaits on the sport’s biggest stage.

You’d think that, ahead of the biggest series of his professional life, Cashman would be locked in on any way to help give the Yankees an edge. Instead, he’s busy trying to settle years-old scores.

Brian Cashman says Astros ‘cheated us’ during 2017 ALCS

Cashman made an appearance on High Heat with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo on Tuesday to talk about the Yankees’ postseason run thus far and how he’s feeling about the matchup with L.A. But in response to a very innocuous question about how it felt to finally make it back to the World Series after 15 years — by far the longest drought of Cashman’s tenure — he went in another direction entirely: That 15-year drought, Cashman argued, “doesn’t accurately reflect history,” because it fails to account for the fact that New York was cheated out of a pennant by the Houston Astros in 2017. (Cashman’s response begins at around the 1:15 mark of the video below.)

“I hate the 15-year thing because it completely forgets and discounts that some other organization cheated us when we were all the way in the end,” Cashman said. “If you knew what was going on, I don’t think they would’ve been advancing … I think we would’ve been advancing.”

Well then! That’s one way to kick up a firestorm days before your team plays the biggest game of its season. I certainly have no intention of going to bat for the 2017 Astros: There’s overwhelming evidence to suggest that the team was cheating in a way that was at least one step beyond the rest of the league, and the sign-stealing scheme may very well have been the difference between the team winning it all and an early postseason exit. You can’t blame Cashman for holding that grudge, especially when it came at the expense of a team that came one win away from a pennant — and fell short of getting that win thanks to an inability to win in Houston, where the sign-stealing would have been in effect.

Still, though: Is this the best look for Cashman and the Yankees right now? New York has finally gotten over the hump, while the Astros got bounced in the Wild Card round by the Detroit Tigers; shouldn’t this be the moment to move on and put the whole thing behind you? And even from a purely practical standpoint, how does this help your team prepare for what should be a toughseries against a very good Dodgers team? Do you want Aaron Judge to have to answer yet another round of questions about a series that took place the better part of a decade ago?

This feels like something that Cashman should’ve let fly in the group chat rather than in front of a microphone. It’s fine for him to want to rub Houston’s face in his and his team’s success, but they call it the high road for a reason.