Yankees rumors: Steinbrenner prioritizing winning over $189M goal

Getting under the luxury tax threshold is still a “serious goal” for the Yankees owner, but he says he won’t do it at the expense of putting a contender on the field.

by Nate A

Oct 8, 2013, 8:17 PM UTC

Jason Szenes

Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner is still focused on getting his organization under the $189 million luxury tax threshold for the 2014 season, but he will not do so at the expense of putting a winning product on the field, reports Joel Sherman of the New York Post.

More Yanks: Notable Free Agent Departures

Steinbrenner iterated Tuesday that avoiding the big end-of-season tax for the first time is still “a serious goal” for the franchise, but made sure to assert that it would not have an effect on the club’s chances next year:

“It is something to shoot for, but not at the expense of having a championship-caliber team,” Steinbrenner said.
”It is not. It never has been and never will be. It has always been my contention you don’t need a $230 million payroll to field a championship-level team.
“We are going to get to that [under $189 million] at some point.”

Steinbrenner conceded that realizing both goals may be tough given the state of the club’s minor-league system and the going rate for players on the open market, but kept returning to the theme that the fans should have confidence that the front office will be “taking the dollars and putting them back into the team.”

There are a few large hurdles standing in between Steinbrenner and realizing his $189 million payroll goal.

The club already has roughly $89 million locked up in guaranteed payroll for 2014 -- $95.5 million if you include Derek Jeter’s player option.

Once you throw arbitration raises into the mix, there’s really not that much to work with.

If Alex Rodriguez’s 211-game suspension holds -- or at least remains somewhat lengthy -- the Yankees would immediately have around $25 million freed up for 2014 to use on a big-ticket free agent like Robinson Cano. If it doesn’t, however, they’re in a tough spot.

Steinbrenner said that the Yankees do want to re-sign Cano, but that they have a limit, stating that they are not in a position to hand out a 10-year contract, per Andy McCullough of the Newark Star-Ledger. Cano has come out saying that he wants a 10-year, $305 million contract, which would seem to exceed New York’s current limit.

The Yankees won 85 games this year, a figure that the 29 other big-league franchises would probably be content with, especially given the number of injuries the club had to endure. Because it’s the Bronx Bombers, though, the season marked the team’s worst full-season record since 1992.