God Is A Yankees Fan--Or, Is Hal Steinbrenner Maria von Trapp?

This offseason the baseball hills are alive not with the sound of music but with the wailing and gnashing of teeth of other clubs while the New York Yankees seem to climb ev’ry mountain and yodel like the lonely goatherd.  The good news for Yankees ownership, led by Hal Steinbrenner, just keeps coming.

In 2002 The Yankees launched the Yankees Entertainment and Sports (YES) Network, a regional TV network that televises Yankees games and other programming.  On Jan. 25 the AP reported that 21st Century Fox will raise its stake in the YES Network to 80 percent.  Sports blog Fangraph indicated that could mean more than $150 million per year in additional money for the Yankees.

 

That kind of money, combined with national TV revenue, ticket and concession sales and merchandise proceeds, can buy a lot of talent. So far this year the Yankees have complemented their list of favorite things by adding catcher Brian McCann ($85M, five years), outfielders Jacoby Ellsbury ($153M, seven years) and Carlos Beltran ($45M, three years) and starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka ($155M, seven years plus a $20M posting fee).  Tanaka was 24-0 with a 1.27 ERA last year for the Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball league. 

The richest team in baseball has committed nearly half a billion dollars in salaries so far this offseason, and their 2014 payroll will again be well above the “luxury tax” threshold.  Last year the team paid a $28 million luxury tax bill, pushing their total past the $250 million mark since the penalty began in 2003.

 

To look at it another way, the Yankees have eight players making $15M this year.  The rest of the AL East has five.  The salaries of Tanaka, McCann, Ellsbury and Beltran have a combined guaranteed value in 2014 of $91M—more than AL East rival Baltimore Orioles’ entire 25-man payroll.

Can it get any better?  Oh yes it can. 

The Yanks may be able to say so long, farewell to embarrassment Alex Rodriguez and the ridiculous contract they signed with him. 

How do you solve a problem like Rodriguez?

 

An arbitrator chosen by baseball’s owners and players ruled Jan. 12 that the Yankees’ banned-substance-popping, chronically lying, legitimate-records-stealing, enemy-of-the-game star Alex Rodriguez will be suspended for the 2014 season.

A-Rod’s $275 million contract, which The Yankees own, runs until 2017, when the doper will be a geriatric 42 years old, ancient in baseball years.  His health has been in steady decline in recent years—He played in only 99 games in 2012, and in January 2013 underwent surgery on his left hip, limiting him to just 44 games last season. 

A-Rod made his 2013 debut on Aug. 5, on the same day MLB announced he would be suspended through the 2014 season, pending an appeal, for: his links to Biogenesis, the anti-aging lab that supplied banned performance enhancing drugs to a number of ballplayers; his prior admission of using banned substances during the 2001-2003 seasons; subsequent claims of playing clean since then; and for conduct detrimental to baseball.

On Jan. 12 of this year an arbitrator for Major League Baseball and the player’s union ruled that Rodriguez must sit out the 2014 season and forfeit his salary.

A-Rod, who is now 38, will lose $21 million in 2014 salary and perhaps his salary for the remainder of his contract.  His endorsements, once a huge piece of his income, have dried up as his reputation has plummeted.  And the player who once seemed like a lock to be admitted to the Hall of Fame will almost certainly be locked out. 

That means the Yankees are off the hook for A-Rod’s $21 million salary and a portion of the 2014 luxury tax.  In addition, Rodriguez’s spot on the 40-man roster was opened.  And the ruling may pave the way for the Yankees to wash its hands of the remaining $40 million owed A-Rod.

It’s enough to make Hal Steinbrenner sing, “I Must Have Done Something Good.”

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