The quarterly Owners Meetings kicked off in Chicago this week, and reporters caught up with Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner to talk shop. With a good chunk of money coming off the books this season, a “decent portion” will be used to upgrade the roster with the pen being a high priority.
“For me, the bullpen is a high priority, because I think we’re going to have a young pitching staff, and if we can shorten the game for them by really strengthening the bullpen, I think that’s going to be to our advantage,” Steinbrenner said.
Former Yankee Aroldis Chapman is a free agent and doesn’t require surrendering a draft pick to sign. Steinbrenner did not count out a reunion with the dominant closer.
“Any time you can get a guy who’s already proven he can play in New York, everybody knows as well as I do that it’s a tough place to play, that’s a plus.”
As for the other former Yankee closer, he said that trading Andrew Miller was not an easy decision.
“Look, my family wouldn’t talk to me for a couple weeks,” he said laughing. “That was a sensitive one. That was a tough call. But when you have the ability to get four players of that caliber. It has to be a deal that good to consider getting rid of a guy like that. There’s no doubt we missed him. There’s no doubt we missed Chapman. That’s why it was a tough decision, right?”
With Mark Teixeira retired and CC Sabathia’s and Alex Rodriguez’s contracts coming off the books at the end of 2017, the Yankees have flexibility they haven’t had in years. Despite this fact, Steinbrenner remains committed to get the team’s payroll under the luxury tax threshold. That currently sits at $189 million, but that number could very well change when the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is finalized. The Yankees’ payroll was around $215 million in 2016. He explained the balance he hopes to strike between lowering payroll and putting money back into the team.
“We’ve got money coming off the payroll for the first time in a few years, and we’re going to put a decent portion of it back into the club, as we always do. How much remains to be seen, depending on what our needs are and what’s available. There are areas we need work on like every team, so we’re going to identify those areas. If we can’t fill them from within, if we can’t figure out a trade of some kind, then there’s the free-agent market. And we’ve always been involved in the free-agent market and always will be. So we’ll just have to see. That doesn’t mean I still can’t start to lower payroll, particularly when you think of the amount of money coming off the payroll. So that gives me some flexibility.”
Always the numbers guy, the fan experience and expectations are not lost on Steinbrenner.
“Clearly, my focus is to put a great product on the field that more and more people want to see,” he said. “An exciting product. It’s always going to be a product with key players and veterans, because we need them as mentors. It’s New York. It’s a marquee kind of town. And we finally have that base of good, young players. A lot of people are excited, and that’s what I want. I want to bring excitement back to the Stadium.”
