Hal Confirms the $189m Goal

This morning Hal Steinbrenner confirmed that it is indeed the goal of the team to get team payroll at or under $189 million by 2014.

“The 189 in two years is definitely a goal of ours,” Steinbrenner said. “We’re not too far off. We’re going to have a very similar payroll this year to last year, but I think we have a better team. Somewhat of an accomplishment I guess, on paper anyway. We’ll see. But yes, that 189 is a real number, and we’re going to be shooting for it.”

I'm a numbers geek, as you've probably noticed in my writing. From using numbers to prove a player is good or bad, to looking into and organizing the Roster & Payroll page, I've always been interested in ways to prove my opinions. Some people are good with just saying "Player X is not that good", and that's fine for them. It's not fine for me.

I've already wrote articles, like this one about being able to sign Cole Hamels next offseason, concerning that $189 million goal. But until now it really wasn't confirmed by a front office member to be a true goal.

I understand wanting to save all the money the Yankees would by getting to $189 million in 2014 (and it's far from chump change), but I don't believe the team would feel too bad if they didn't get to that goal. We've all been shown how much the Yankees have spent on the Luxury Tax, or on Revenue Sharing, so doing so again can't be that big a deal (even though the Luxury Tax will be rising to 50%, instead of the 40% it was last season and this season).

Either way though I feel vindicated in talking about the austerity budget as much as I have. And we can move forward and keep it in mind without wondering if the front office is aiming for it or not.