MLB

Hal Steinbrenner wants A-Rod appeal decision

ORLANDO, Fla. — Hal Steinbrenner reiterated Tuesday night the Yankees are proceeding as though Alex Rodriguez will be their starting third baseman. The Yankees’ managing general partner also expressed frustration the team will continue living with such a flimsy premise for another month or so.

“It gets complicated,” Steinbrenner said of the 211-game suspension, which Rodriguez is appealing. “I know everybody’s doing the best they can — the arbitrator, the commissioner, MLB. There’s a lot of evidence I’m sure they’re looking at. A lot of things they’re looking at. It takes time.”

Independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz has heard eight days of testimony, and the hearing is scheduled to resume Nov. 18 at Major League Baseball’s Park Avenue headquarters. Horowitz is expected to issue his decision a few weeks after the hearing’s conclusion; there is cautious optimism the hearing can wrap up next week.

Asked if he’d like a resolution quickly to the A-Rod mess, Steinbrenner said, “I think that would be best for everybody involved.”

Steinbrenner arrived at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes for an ownership television committee session, as these general managers’ meetings are now transitioning to the joint GMs/owners’ meetings. On Wednesday, the owners, team presidents and GMs will all attend a session with commissioner Bud Selig.

The Yankees’ chief executive reiterated the team will look to get under the $189 million luxury-tax threshold for next season, but “not at the expense of fielding a championship-caliber team.” There appears little doubt the Yankees will achieve their goal, even at the expense of a lousy 2014 performance, so they can save as much as $100 million over the next two years by lowering their luxury-tax rate as well as qualifying for a revenue-sharing rebate.

Part of Steinbrenner’s plan of lowering the payroll, even temporarily, revolved around relying on a burgeoning farm system, and that simply hasn’t happened, as the Yankees’ minor leagues experienced a terrible 2013 campaign. Steinbrenner said both senior vice president of baseball operations Mark Newman and scouting director Damon Oppenheimer would retain their current positions, but that many changes already had been instituted.

“We looked at this thing from top to bottom, and it’s really easy to say, ‘Get rid of this guy, get rid of this guy, get rid of that guy.’ And there’s certainly some owners that might do that,” Steinbrenner said. “But that doesn’t always solve the problem. Sometimes, it’s a procedural. A process. The way scouts influence each other, because they’re talking too much to each other. Somebody has a preconception about a player they haven’t even seen yet because they talked to two scouts about him. Then they go in to see the player with those preconceptions. Those are the kind of things we’re working on.”

Steinbrenner added that “We certainly like” Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, who is likely to be posted shortly by the Rakuten Golden Eagles. And while he shared concerns about Derek Jeter’s ability to come back fully from the broken left ankle that sabotaged his 2013, he said, “If anybody is going to succeed, it’s going to be Derek.”

Re-signing Jeter to a one-year, $12 million contract for next season, Steinbrenner said, reflected how much the team captain meant to the organization.