2014 Yankees - Fiscally Responsible

[terrisus]

 
Yet they have managed to cut their payroll for 2014 by 50 million (salary + tax).  A 20% cut. Imagine.

 
In other words, they had a couple of guys retire, and got out of Alex Rodriguez' salary due to him not just accepting his suspension and serving it last year like everyone else.
I mean, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, and Rodriguez are a good $45 million between them. It's not like they were trading away contracts to shed that $50 million or something.

 

[Sampo Gida]

 
What would anyone want?
 
Also the Yankees never ever give up or face reality.

 
Right now Cotts has their AAV at about 203 million, add another 4 million to fill out the roster and that 207 million
 
Gardner (FA), Robertson (FA), Kuroda, Nova, Thornton, Soriano (if he waives NTC), Johnson .  That's about 18 million they could drop from their AAV in a trade after the ASB if they replace them with league minimum callups.  .  You are right that they don't seem likely to wave the white flag,   but if they stunk (due to injuries) and attendance was already down with no hopes for the playoffs, they would have little to lose to reset the tax and collect revenue sharing rebates for a year. 
 
Maybe this explains why they have done nothing to bolster the infield of pen, they want to stay in range of 189.  That's foolish to me since right now they are not much more than a 88 W team.  Should have signed Drew and a Rodney or Balfour.

 

[Sampo Gida]

 
In other words, they had a couple of guys retire, and got out of Alex Rodriguez' salary due to him not just accepting his suspension and serving it last year like everyone else.
I mean, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, and Rodriguez are a good $45 million between them. It's not like they were trading away contracts to shed that $50 million or something.

 
What difference does it make how you cut payroll?. Santa Clause came to town for the Red Sox in 2012 and this year has given a gift to the Yankees with Arod.  They could have spent a bigger chunk of the savings from the attrition to fill the holes in the IF and pen but have not.
 
My main point was that despite the "spending" they have saved 50 million compared to last year so theoretically could spend more

 

[terrisus]

 
What difference does it make how you cut payroll?. Santa Clause came to town for the Red Sox in 2012 and this year has given a gift to the Yankees with Arod.  They could have spent a bigger chunk of the savings from the attrition to fill the holes in the IF and pen but have not.
 
My main point was that despite the "spending" they have saved 50 million compared to last year so theoretically could spend more

 
Because they didn't "cut payroll" by doing anything themselves - two players chose to retire, and one player got suspended/did a whole bunch of stupid stuff.
Sure, they could have gone out and spent that $45 million savings from those three on something else, but, other than holding themselves back from doing that, they didn't really do much of anything else to be "fiscally responsible"
 
It would be kind of like if you went out and spent $300 on some item, including insurance, the item broke, and the insurance covered it for a cost of $350, and you bought it again for $300.
Sure, you technically "saved" $50 in the process, but, it's not like you actually did anything to save that money beyond not spending the gift that you got, and you still spent $300.

 

[glennhoffmania]

 
Right now Cotts has their AAV at about 203 million, add another 4 million to fill out the roster and that 207 million
 
Gardner (FA), Robertson (FA), Kuroda, Nova, Thornton, Soriano (if he waives NTC), Johnson .  That's about 18 million they could drop from their AAV in a trade after the ASB if they replace them with league minimum callups.  .  You are right that they don't seem likely to wave the white flag,   but if they stunk (due to injuries) and attendance was already down with no hopes for the playoffs, they would have little to lose to reset the tax and collect revenue sharing rebates for a year. 
 
Maybe this explains why they have done nothing to bolster the infield of pen, they want to stay in range of 189.  That's foolish to me since right now they are not much more than a 88 W team.  Should have signed Drew and a Rodney or Balfour.

 
First you say they cut $50m between tax and payroll, and then you make the comparison by only using 2014 payroll and ignore the tax.  Their payroll last year was approximately $225m I believe (excluding the tax), so they have not in fact cut $50m.  If ARod wasn't suspended their payroll would actually have gone up.  And the offseason isn't over yet.

 

[Sampo Gida]

 
First you say they cut $50m between tax and payroll, and then you make the comparison by only using 2014 payroll and ignore the tax.  Their payroll last year was approximately $225m I believe (excluding the tax), so they have not in fact cut $50m.  If ARod wasn't suspended their payroll would actually have gone up.  And the offseason isn't over yet.

 
2 separate discussions. In the one you quoted I was responding to the topic of how they could get under the 189 threshold. 
 
In the 50 million savings discussion, they are 30 million less in payroll (228 vs 198 in 2013 vs 2014 ) and with a LT liability of 8 million at present , they are 20 million less than their LT payments last year.  Add them up and you get 50
 
Even with Arod, their actual payroll did not go up.  They would be 221 vs last years 228m in salary paid, although on a AAV basis its about the same.  They had to make decisions on who to sign, who not to sign and who to let go.   They let Cano and Granderson go, while resigning Kuroda and of course 400+ million for 4 free agents.  Resigning Cano would have made them a better team in 2014 but they obviously were looking at keeping payroll down.
 
Obviously, the off season is not over, and they could blow past where they are now. This is a strategy I highly recommend and have recommended from the start when I pointed out how foolish it was for the Yankees to stay under 189 and sacrifice enormous revenues by doing so, and pointing out they had the spending power to rebuild via free agency and be competitive in 2014.  They can sign Drew and Jiminez for example and be a real threat for the division if they can be reasonably healthy.