Yankees could get below $189-million luxury tax threshold during the 2014 season
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Much has been made about the Yankees' quest to get their payroll below $189-million, the luxury tax threshold, heading into 2014. It's not going to happen, not after the free-agent signings of Brian McCann, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Carlos Beltran, and not if they're serious about signing posted Japanese starter Masahiro Tanaka, who they're reportedly very interested in.
However, as Joel Sherman of the New York Post reminds us, "it is where you finish, not where you start."
Sherman writes:
"So, in theory, the Yanks can use the opening months of the 2014 season to see if they are contenders and, if not, attempt a massive summer sell-off to attempt to revive their farm system and go under the threshold by season’s end."
There are two matters complicating this scenario, Sherman adds. One: Alex Rodriguez's suspension. If it's reduced to 150 games, or is for the entire 2014 season, that would help the Yankees a great deal. Rodriguez is due $26 million next year. Two: The Yankees don't know how to surrender. When was the last time the Yankees took part in a "massive summer sell-off"? Never. Right.
Sherman goes on to write that the Yankees don't quite seem to know what they're doing. They had a goal, to get under $189 million, and operated with that task in mind over the past two years. With injuries to Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira, and CC Sabathia heading into 2013, they could have tried to rebuild last year. Instead, they added Vernon Wells, and his money. But even that move was made based on the fact that the goal was to be under $189 million in 2014:
"On one hand, good for the Steinbrenner family for always going for it. On the other, bad for the Steinbrenner family for not recognizing sometimes you have to punt for better field position.
"How the trade for Wells was structured with the Angels, whereby the Yanks would pay a lot in 2013, but Wells would literally cost nothing toward the tax in 2014, was just one example of how much they planned to go under the $189 million threshold this year."
Then the Yankees missed the playoffs, and everything changed. Cue the big-ticket free-agent signings, and the Tanaka rumors.
"... [The Yankees] are roughly at $209 million for luxury-tax purposes in 2014, when you combine those already signed, likely arbitration results, budget for in-season call-ups and the approximately $11 million each club is charged for benefits.That is before, say, the $18 million or more it would take to land Tanaka and, say, another several million for a late-game reliever and perhaps a righty-swinging third baseman to replace A-Rod. That would put the Yanks in the $230 million-$235 million range."
Any way you look at it, getting under $189 million in 2014 is going to be a mission for Brian Cashman and the Yankees. But it's possible. More impossible than possible, but possible.