{"id":74224,"date":"2024-05-23T17:30:48","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T21:30:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=74224"},"modified":"2024-05-24T14:11:47","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T18:11:47","slug":"yankees-owner-steinbrenner-payroll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/05\/23\/yankees-owner-steinbrenner-payroll\/","title":{"rendered":"The Yankees Finances May Be in Trouble with Possible Lower Payroll"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big questions are coming for the New York Yankees. One that stands out the most is if they can re-sign All-Star slugger Juan Soto<\/a> before he reaches free agency. This season may be a make-or-break one\u00a0based on owner Hal Steinbrenner’s recent comments.<\/p>\n

“I’m gonna be honest, payrolls at the levels we’re at right now are simply not sustainable for us financially. It wouldn’t be sustainable for the vast majority of ownership [groups], given the luxury tax we have to pay.”<\/p>\n

Not only does the team already have the second-highest payroll in baseball (behind the New York Mets), but they have answer some of those questions this upcoming offseason.<\/p>\n

Yankees Face Tough Questions<\/h2>\n

The Juan Soto Predicament<\/h3>\n

The biggest question mark that they have is, of course, Juan Soto. The superstar has thrived<\/a> as a Yankees hoped.\u00a0Unfortunately, adding another huge contract to their already-expensive payroll seems implausible. This is partially because of how many other Yankees are set to hit free agency at the end of the year. They include big names like Alex Verdugo<\/a>, Clay Holmes<\/a>, Gleyber Torres<\/a>, and Tommy Kahnle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In turn, this means that a lot of salary comes off the books at the end of the year, which should be enough to re-sign Soto. Unfortunately, this also means that there is less money available to address other potential needs on the rest of the team. Does this mean that the 2025 Yankees will be completely top-heavy without the depth of this year’s squad?<\/p>\n

Steinbrenner Addresses Reality<\/h3>\n

At an owners’ meeting on Wednesday concerning payroll, Hal Steinbrenner said the following about his team’s financial straits. He has a solid point. However, this doesn’t spell doom for the Yankees; it just signifies a potential shake-up in terms of roster-building strategies.<\/p>\n

Steinbrenner also said “I’ve been a broken record [on this topic]: I don’t believe I should have a $300 million payroll to win a championship. I believe I need a good mix of veterans, who are gonna make a lot more money, but, also, we\u2019ve put a lot of money into our player development system in the last 5-10 years. And in my opinion, we have one of the better ones in baseball now.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, there’s no reason to panic. If the Yankees sign Soto, they’ll have one of the best players in the sport long-term. If they don’t, they’ll have a lot<\/em> of money to work with, on top of one of baseball’s best farm systems. After all, Jasson Dom\u00ednguez<\/a> will need a spot in the outfield, and right now there’s not much room to spare. Maybe cutting back on spending will work out in the Yankees favor. Or, maybe they’ll keep spending and force their own favor, just like they always have.<\/p>\n

The Yankees Payroll in Question<\/h3>\n

New York has a payroll in excess of $300 million. It puts them deep into luxury-tax territory. However, they’ll have almost $100 million in salary at the end of the season. It clears up space for a pursuit of Soto. It should make Yankees fans wonder if Steinbrenner will be able to address other roster needs<\/a> if a deal gets done with Soto.<\/p>\n

Main Photo: \u00a9 Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Big questions are coming for the New York Yankees. One that stands out the most is if they can re-sign All-Star slugger Juan Soto before he reaches free agency. This season may be a make-or-break one\u00a0based on owner Hal Steinbrenner’s recent comments. “I’m gonna be honest, payrolls at the levels we’re at right now are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5148,"featured_media":74246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1071],"tags":[900,5566,1057,28263,2970,2133,1550],"class_list":["post-74224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-yankees","category-mlb","tag-alex-verdugo","tag-clay-holmes","tag-gleyber-torres","tag-hal-steinbrenner","tag-jasson-dominguez","tag-juan-soto","tag-tommy-kahnle"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}