Yankees Could Lay Low, Cut Payroll This Offseason
Among baseball's eight playoff teams, the Phillies spent the second-most behind the Bronx Bombers, pumping just under $128 million into their NL pennant-winning ballclub. That $78 million gap is itself bigger than 13 major league payrolls. It's also greater than the GDP of the island nation Kiribati.
With that in mind, the Yanks could probably afford to let a few million slide off the payroll sheet this winter and still remain competitive. In fact, rumor has it they could do exactly that.
The Yankees have over $40 million in contracts coming off the books this winter. The salaries of Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Andy Pettitte and a few others add up — and the Yanks are now being unburdened in a big way. So what will they do with all that money? Save it, perhaps.
According to the New York Post's Joel Sherman, the Yankees are likely to lay low this offseason, cutting payroll and staying out of the sweepstakes for any huge free agents. If he's right, that means the Yankees won't be major players for the market's major players — no Jason Bay, no Matt Holliday, no John Lackey in the Bronx.
It's certainly plausible. The Yankees are a well-oiled machine as currently constructed, and after a 103-win season culminating in a World Series title, it would make sense to not fix what's not broken. For the Yankees, the best path to a repeat title next season might be quietly re-signing Damon and Pettitte to cheap one-year contracts, developing their existing talent, and rolling the dice on a reasonably priced winning season in 2010.
Pettitte made $5.5 million last year. He turned 37 in midseason.
Damon made $13 million, but that was the final year of a four-year contract he signed with Scott Boras when he was 32 years old. Damon's 36 now.
Both guys, rings and all, will be affordable pickups this offseason. And both are likely to take modest discounts to stay with a championship-caliber Yankees team.
Is that enough?
It might as well be. With Damon in the fold for another season, there's no need to overspend on Bay or Holliday. With Pettitte slotted into the middle of the rotation, all they need is a healthy Chien-Ming Wang and a mature Joba Chamberlain to round out a star-studded five-man rotation. You can forget about Lackey.
Of course, the Yankees won't be dead silent this offseason. They never are. They may enter the free-agent fracas in December simply for the sake of posturing. By putting in a couple of well-timed bids, Brian Cashman can drive up the prices for the Red Sox and Angels to keep Bay and Lackey, respectively.
The Yankees won't stay out of the headlines altogether. It just isn't their style. But you have to admit, the sense of urgency is gone. They're not where they were a year ago — sitting in third place, watching their roster grow old and telling themselves that they desperately needed to make a deal.
No, these are the new Yankees. And for the first time in this millennium, they've lost their will to overspend.
They're still the richest team in baseball. And even if they invest as modestly as possible this winter, you're still looking at a Yankees ballclub spending between $170 and $180 million.
But this is one small step toward parity. You might see the Yankees next year back down to earth, with a payroll under $200 million, slumming it with everyone else. Hard to imagine.
