Can It Be Done?

It was reported yesterday, by Andrew Marchand of ESPN New York, that the Yankees are planning a spending spree of around $300 million. And they say they can spend that much while also staying under the $189 million Luxury Tax threshold in 2014. 

Okay, get your calculators out.

The team plans on pursuing free agents Robinson Cano, Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran, and Masahiro Tanaka. Getting those four players would be great, but my initial thought was that the team would have only a few bucks left over to fill other holes on the team. So I put together what I think the team would look like, along with the average annual value of each player's contract (obviously, some are guesses).

Catcher - Brian McCann $15 million (signed for 5 years/$75 million)

First Base - Mark Teixeira $22.5 million

Second Base - Robinson Cano $25 million (signed for 7 years/$175 million)

Third Base - 

Shortstop - Derek Jeter $14.375 million

Left Field - Ichiro Suzuki $6.5 million

Center Field - Brett Gardner $6 million (arbitration 3)

Right Field – Carlos Beltran $14 million (signed for 3 years/$42 million) 

Designated Hitter - Alfonso Soriano $4 million

Bench - Eduardo Nunez $500,000 million (pre-arbitration)

Bench - Austin Romine $500,000 (pre-arbitration)

Bench - Vernon Wells $0

Bench - Brendan Ryan $3.25 (signed for 1 year/$3,250,000 million)

Starting Pitcher - CC Sabathia $24.4 million

Starting Pitcher - Masahiro Tanaka $12 million (signed for 6 years/$72 million)

Starting Pitcher - Ivan Nova $2.5 million (arbitration 1)

Starting Pitcher - Michael Pineda $500,000 (pre-arbitration)

Starting Pitcher - David Phelps $500,000 (pre-arbitration)

Closer - David Robertson $5 million (arbitration 3)

Relief Pitcher - Shawn Kelley $1.5 million (arbitration 2)

Relief Pitcher - Adam Warren $500,000 (pre-arbitration)

Relief Pitcher - Preston Claiborne $500,000 (pre-arbitration)

Relief Pitcher - Dellin Betances $500,000 (pre-arbitration)

Relief Pitcher - David Huff* $750,000 (pre-arbitration)

Relief Pitcher - Cesar Cabral* $500,000 (pre-arbitration)

The total here is $160.775 million. But we can't stop there, as you can add another $5 million for the remaining 15 players that would be on the 40-man roster, along with $12 million for the team's portion of league player bonuses. So that brings us to $177.775 million, leaving the team with $11.225 million. 

Don't jump for joy quite yet.

Unless you just skimmed that roster above, you probably noticed that there's nobody listed at third base. Nobody currently on the team sticks out as somebody that I'd be okay with playing there regularly. 

Then there's the fact that Shawn Kelly could be the set-up man for David Robertson. It would be nice to bring somebody in that could be better in that spot.

And finally, the team would want some money left over in case they have to spend during the season. There will surely be an injury or two that will require adding somebody to the team.

So I can see the Yankees spending a lot, but probably not on all four of those players.