The luxury tax threshold has been a constant topic of conversation around the Yankees in recent seasons, as multiple moves have seemed to suggest that staying under the threshold is of high importance for ownership.
This past offseason, the Yanks traded reliever Adam Ottavino, who is now thriving in Boston, to shed $9 million in payroll to acquire Darren O’Day and Justin Wilson, as well as bringing back Brett Gardner, which saved a couple million in payroll.
Now, the Yankees are stuck around the .500 mark halfway through the season, and with the deadline approaching, is managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner willing to cross that threshold to add a piece and get the Yanks back into contention?
“This is not a question I get much, because we’re normally always over it,” Steinbrenner told reporters on Thursday. “Although I have a small record, I have a track record. The answer to the question is, any given year, there’s a number of reasons it makes sense to be under that threshold. But if I feel we’re not good, enough, we need another piece to be the championship caliber team we want to be and expect to be, then I’m gonna seriously consider doing whatever I need to do.”
Simply put, despite recent efforts to avoid luxury tax penalties, Steinbrenner was firm in his belief that if the right opportunity presented itself, he would be willing to take the financial hit if it brought the Yankees closer to its first title since 2009.
“If a piece comes up that I think is a good piece and that baseball ops thinks is a good piece and something we should do, I would absolutely consider doing it,” Steinbrenner said.
Steinbrenner pointed to previous signings during his tenure to reinforce his comments, citing Masahiro Tanaka’s $155 million signing prior to the 2014 season, just after the team splurged on contracts for Jacoby Ellsbury and Brian McCann.
“I always use Tanaka’s signing years ago as an example,” Steinbrenner said. “We were under the threshold at the beginning of the season, we were not good enough, I knew we weren’t good enough, and we went ahead and signed Tanaka and went right through the threshold.”
With that in mind, Steinbrenner said general manager Brian Cashman is doing his typical due diligence to see where the Yanks could make upgrades prior to the deadline, as the team currently sits in fourth place and clearly needs a roster boost. Steinbrenner also repeated recent history by citing potential returns of injured players as upgrades in their own right, though that is not guaranteed in the near future when it comes to pitchers like Corey Kluber and Luis Severino.
“We do that every July every June as the trade deadline approaches,” Steinbrenner said. “If we feel we need another piece that’s gonna take us over the top, that we’re not quite good enough, then we’re gonna look seriously at that.”
Steinbrenner has overseen an all-out sale at the deadline back in 2016, which thrust the Yankees into an accelerated rebuild that put them within a game of the World Series the very next season. But he doesn’t anticipate this season following a similar narrative, and still plans on viewing the Yanks as a playoff team with the deadline approaching.
“Cash’s job is to consider everything and look at everything, but that’s not a direction I’m contemplating right now or even thinking about,” Steinbrenner said. “We faced a situation four or five years ago where we weren’t hitting, didn’t have the offense just didn’t seem like we could get what we needed to get us over the top, and the difference is we had aging players…I just don’t see that as this situation. These guys are in their prime. They’ve been incredible in very recent years, and there’s no reason why they cant be incredible again.”
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