It became clear after the Yankees won the 2009 World Series that the team’s front-office was not going to continue it’s free-spending ways. Even though it was their lack of a budget that permitted Brian Cashman to go out and get CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and AJ Burnett the previous year, the Yankee GM was now ready to prove he could play money ball too.

One of Cashman’s first moves after the Bronx Bombers won their 27th World title was to make the Curtis Granderson deal. Every time someone asked him about the trade, he kept reminding the interviewer that Granderson was signed for three years at the relatively minuscule total amount of $17 million. He also wanted to prove that he had been right about Javier Vasquez all along so he put the one-time Yankee disappointment back in pinstripes for just $11.5 million and a one-year deal.

Cashman’s other discount moves that off season included signing Randi Winn and bringing back Nick Johnson as value-based free agents and acquiring today’s Pinstripe Birthday Celebrant to shore up the Yankee bullpen or possibly even the team’s starting rotation. When announcing Chan Ho Park’s free agent signing on February 28,2010, Cashman couldn’t resist reminding reporters that for just $1.2 million, the Yankees were getting the services of the 16-year veteran for less than half of what he had earned in Philadelphia the previous season.

Park’s best years had been as a starter for the Dodgers, for whom he had won 84 games between 1996 and 2001. He then got a huge 5-year, $65 million contract as a free agent with Texas in January of 2002 and proceeded to earn hardly any of it, becoming one of the Rangers’ biggest free agent busts ever. He went to the bullpen full time in 2008 and had just held the Yankees scoreless in four relief appearances against them in the 2009 World Series. Joe Girardi was hoping Park would become one of his most dependable late-inning bridges to Mariano. That didn’t happen.

After 27 appearances for New York, Park’s ERA was 5.60 and the native of South Korea was simply not getting the big outs the Yankees needed him to get. Winn, Johnson and Vasquez also didn’t work out for Cashman. By August, Park was put on waivers and Cashman made a great deal with Cleveland to get Kerry Wood to replace him.

Parks was picked up by the Pirates and finished the 2010 season in Pittsburgh. That turned out to be his final year in the big leagues. Park shares his birthday with this one-time Yankee third baseman, this hero of the 1969 World Series, and Derek Jeter’s predecessor as the Yankees’ starting shortstop.