The better the Commissioners Office does with the arbitrator in the Alex Rodriguez case, the worse the Yankees’ 2014 team will probably be.
Think of it this way: If Fredric Horowitz honors all or most of the 211-game suspension imposed by Bud Selig, then all or most of Rodriguez’s salary will vanish from the books for the 2014 season. That provides essentially the only way for the Yankees to get under $189 million for next season, but not by so much they could afford to address their remaining problems well.
But if the arbitrator goes light on A-Rod — and the lightest would probably be 50 games — then most of his salary would remain on the 2014 books and there would be just about no way the Yankees could get under $189 million. And once that is a reality, they may as well spend what they have to in order to, say, land Masahiro Tanaka (if he is ever posted) and sign perhaps Fernando Rodney to close.
Because as one member of the organization said to me, “We either have to be under $189 million or up over $200 million or more. Think how dumb it would look if we worked for a few years to get under $189 million and we didn’t and we were at like $192 million and just missed. Either we go under or way over.”
Let’s do some math to see if we can make this clearer:
At this moment, the Yankees are at roughly $209 million if you count the not yet official contracts of Brian Roberts and Matt Thornton; the approximately $11 million each team is assessed for items such as insurance and pension; the approximately $15 million their arbitration cases will cost; and the $5 million or so each team budgets for in-season call-ups and bonuses reached.
If you subtract all of A-Rod’s charge toward the 2014 cap ($27.5 million), then the Yanks would be at $181.5 million. If they get to that point, they almost certainly will follow through and go for the $189 million goal — and what they believe will be about $100 million in savings the next three years.
But that means just $8.5 million in wiggle room to add a starter, late-game reliever and righty-swinging bat that can help Kelly Johnson at third in Rodriguez’s absence. That promotes smaller moves such as (my speculation here) gambling the health-challenged Scott Baker can help the rotation and Andrew Bailey can help the pen, and that the near-minimum wage Eduardo Nunez can be a third-base complement to Johnson.
The Yankees could find some more dough. Perhaps a suitor would take some $3 million of the $6.5 million owed Ichiro Suzuki. The Yanks can go with Austin Romine or J.R. Murphy as the backup catcher and deal Francisco Cervelli, though that would save only roughly $500,000 — the difference between the expected salaries of Cervelli or Romine/Murphy.
To save more, the Yankees would have to do cut-your-nose-to-spite-your-face maneuvers. Maybe Alfonso Soriano (who counts $4 million toward the tax payroll) would waive his no-trade clause, but the Yankees would lose one of their few meaningful righty bats. Brett Gardner (due about $5 million via arbitration) definitely has a market, but with age in the outfield he has great value to the Yanks, as well.
Decision in January
So, you see, even this late into the offseason, why the Yanks would want clarity as soon as possible on just what they owe A-Rod. And when will they know that?
Reply briefs in the arbitration are due Saturday, and so resolution before January remains unlikely. My guess would be Jan. 3 or Jan. 13. Here is why: The Hall of Fame announcement is Wednesday, Jan. 8 and both the Commissioners Office and the Players Association would probably ask Horowitz to be respectful not to overwhelm such a special moment with a Rodriguez announcement.
Jan. 3 is a Friday, so it would give an entire weekend and a few days into the following week to get through the initial waves of Rodriguez coverage. However, since Rodriguez almost certainly will then amp up his court cases, the safest route not to trample on the Hall would be to wait until the Monday after the new members are announced before Horowitz issues his ruling. That would be Jan. 13.
Time for Tanaka
And this is where Tanaka and A-Rod cross. The new posting policy is bad for the Yankees because under the old system huge posting fees to win exclusive negotiating rights were not counted toward the luxury tax and artificially lowered the salary for the player, which is taxed. The posting fee is lower now and any team willing to pay the top offer (which for Tanaka would be $20 million) can negotiate with the righty, which will greatly increase his salary — six years at $120 million or more is now possible or at least $20 million annually toward the luxury-tax payroll.
The only positive for the Yankees is how long it took for MLB and Japan to reach agreement on a new posting system and now this delay as Rakuten decides whether to post Tanaka. If this all had gone smoothly and Tanaka was posted on Nov. 1 or even Dec. 1, there would be the standard one-month period to reach an agreement and there would have been no way for the Yankees to know how much of A-Rod’s salary they were obligated to in 2014.
Now, if Tanaka is to be posted, it will almost certainly come within the month the Yankees know for certain about Rodriguez, which would allow them to make more of an informed decision how much they could offer the righty. Some Yankees officials have believed for a while Rakuten will not post Tanaka under this new system that pays Japanese teams considerably less to post their best players. If that is the case — with or without Rodriguez’s money — the Yanks will scramble. Because they have shown no affinity for the top three starters available (Matt Garza, Ubaldo Jimenez and Ervin Santana). In that scenario, they might have to use Gardner and prospects in a trade to try to land someone such as Cincinnati’s Homer Bailey.