MLB

Yanks not favorites despite top payroll

ONE LAST PUSH: The Yankees’ acquisition of Vernon Wells added millions of dollars to their payroll, pushing it to $229 million and past the Dodgers to secure a 15th straight season of the highest payroll in baseball. (AP)

In What has felt like the longest, most grueling offseason in Yankees history, the Dodgers stood as a welcomed symbol. The Steinbrenners and their lieutenants could gaze west at their longtime World Series nemesis, who have been throwing money around like they’re Richard Pryor in “Brewster’s Millions,” and think, “Hey, at least we’ll get less grief now that we won’t have the game’s top payroll anymore.”

Ah, but in a fitting conclusion to this miserable stretch, the Yankees rallied to win the one title they’ve never wanted.

Barring the Dodgers’ acquisition of Barry Zito over the weekend — you never can have too many left-handed specialists out of the bullpen — the Yankees will enter Opening Day as the industry’s most expensive team for the 15th straight season. As the Associated Press first pointed out, the Yankees’ acquisition of Vernon Wells, and the way they structured the money, ensured they would place well over the Dodgers, with $229 million worth of expenditures to Los Angeles’ $216 million.

The Yankees can of course try to spin this positively: “We’ll stop at nothing to satisfy our customers!” And there’s plenty of truth to that sentiment. It’s just that those customers are particularly fed up nowadays, as it sure doesn’t seem their team is getting much bang for those 229 million bucks.

Alex Rodriguez, who will pull down $29 million in 2013, making more than the entire Houston Astros team ($24.3 million) could return from his hip surgery right after the All-Star break. Or he might never play again. Mark Teixeira, at $23.1 million, hopes to return from his right wrist injury in May and acknowledges that season-ending surgery is possible.

Wells, earning $24.6 million overall and $11.5 million from the Yankees this year, is a Hail Mary pass, a hope that a player who has looked virtually done the prior two years — done, as in no value on defense, as a hitter against lefties or as a clubhouse presence — will be energized by a revised winter routine and a new workplace.

CC Sabathia, at $24.3 million, the fourth Yankee of the six highest-paid players in the game, represents the best risk, though even he is coming off left elbow surgery.

Surround those guys with a core of aging players, another seven of whom (Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, Hiroki Kuroda, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Kevin Youkilis) are making eight figures, plus a paucity of roster depth that propelled Wells here in the first place, and you have your number one payroll that is definitively not the favorite to win it all this year.

The real suspense, though, comes after this season. Hal Steinbrenner is on record that he wants to get the Yankees’ 2014 payroll beneath the luxury tax threshold of $189 million. Given the Dodgers’ future commitments, the Yankees would indeed drop below their historic October rivals if they follow through on that plan.

As Steinbrenner first said to The Post and Wall Street Journal, back in January at the baseball owners’ meetings, “I believe that you don’t have to have a $220-million payroll to win a world championship. And you shouldn’t have to.”

Who couldn’t agree with that statement? Steinbrenner takes pride in making good deals, and his general manager Brian Cashman shares that philosophy.

Too many questionable decisions from the past loom, however, with the A-Rod boondoggle by far the worst. And that’s why, if Steinbrenner holds true to his vow that nothing will trump the importance of fielding a competitive team, the Yankees will find it awfully difficult to fall short to the Dodgers next winter. In the one area they would love to fall short.