Steinbrenner: Rebuilding Yankees' bullpen 'my priority'

The great super-bullpen experiment failed in the Bronx in 2016, but it appears Hal Steinbrenner wants to give it another go next season.

Steinbrenner, the New York Yankees' owner and chairman, has his eyes on making a splash in his team's bullpen for a second straight winter to help ease the load on a young starting rotation.

"For me, the bullpen is my priority," he told Ken Davidoff of the New York Post at the MLB owners' meetings in Chicago. "Because I think we're probably going to have a young pitching staff, and I think if we can shorten the game for them by really strengthening the bullpen, that's going to be to our advantage."

Though he didn't cite him by name, Steinbrenner alluded to a possible chase of free-agent closer Aroldis Chapman as part of his bullpen rebuild. Chapman provided New York with a half-season of lights-out relief work last season, posting a 2.01 ERA and saving 20 games while walking just eight hitters in pinstripes before a July trade sent him to the Chicago Cubs.

The fact that Chapman's already experienced the intense New York spotlight appeals to the owner as he considers whether to dip into the free-agent waters.

"Any time you can get a guy that's already proven he can play in New York - you guys know as well as I do it's a tough place to play," Steinbrenner said. "If you get a guy who's proven he can play there, then that's a plus in the column."

Spending some dollars on non-bullpen pieces, however, might not be in the cards for the Yankees this winter. The team didn't sign a single major-league free agent last offseason, and the emergence of young position players - Steinbrenner cited Aaron Judge, Tyler Austin, and Rob Refsnyder here - has him leaning toward running with the youngsters and spurning some of the available positional talent to, in part, keep some of the team's payroll flexibility.

That doesn't mean the available money won't be spent - it's just more likely to be used to improve other areas, like the bullpen.

"We've got money coming off the payroll for the first time in a few years, and we're going to put a decent portion of it back into the club, as we always do. How much remains to be seen, depending on what our needs are and what's available," Steinbrenner told Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. "There are areas we need work on like every team, so we're going to identify those areas. If we can't fill them from within, if we can't figure out a trade of some kind, then there's the free-agent market. And we've always been involved in the free-agent market and always will be. So we'll just have to see.

"That doesn't mean I still can't start to lower payroll, particularly when you think of the amount of money coming off the payroll. So that gives me some flexibility ... if I have the (younger players) to put in there, and if they perform."