ADDING AN OUTFIELDER, NOT LUXURY

Baseball is less than 1 week away!  I would love to tell you how excited I am for this season’s NY Yankees, but that would be stretching the truth.  While I am always excited about baseball coming back each season, as I mentioned in my last blog, this year’s Yankees have a lot of issues, especially with all of the NEWLY incurred injuries since!  Amongst them are Granderson, Teixeira, and Hughes.

Additionally, Brian Cashman has been very busy acquiring many players that are past their prime or simply adequate.  Again, the infamous goal of achieving less than $189 million of expenses in 2014 is such a looming force.  I don’t mind “my” team cutting back and I fully understand it, but other things could have been done during the winter that would have given the 2013 Yankees some wiggle room in regards to signing above average players.  (Again, the specifics are all within my last blog.)

Today, the Yankees made yet another one of those “past their prime” signings, Vernon Wells.  He was an All-Star player several years ago, but has struggled a lot over the past few years.  My initial reaction was of grave disappointment, but after reading an article in the NY Daily News earlier, by Mark Feinsand, I began to slightly lessen my grave disappointment to just simply “disappointment”.  Thanks, also to Ken Rosenthal of FOX for collecting the final figures to help my numbers’ accuracies.

Since the 2013 salaries are mostly insignificant to the 2014 Luxury Tax, the Yankees can spend pretty much anything they want for the 2013 season, as long as the salaries are not included past this year; however, there is a loophole that only the Yankees’ well-paid team of lawyers/accountants could have found!  I’m attempting to try and illustrate their Vernon Wells acquisition/luxury tax achievement in more layman terms than the published articles I’ve read from the media.  While I’m providing my details of Vernon’s salary and effects below, you can choose to skip the breakdown below (I won’t be offended) and just read the paragraph under this 2012/2013 breakdown (especially the last sentence in that paragraph) to learn the bottom line:

Average Yearly Salary = $18 million (this number is included within a team’s luxury tax)

2013 Actual Salary Total (not average, but per contract) = $21 million

2013 Salary portion paid by the Angels = $9.5 million

2013 Salary portion paid by the Yankees = $11.5 million

2014 Actual Salary Total (not average, but per contract) = $21 million

2014 Salary portion paid by the Angels = $18.6 million

2014 Salary portion paid by the Yankees = $2.4 million

So, while the Yankees are paying a total of $13.9 million for Vernon’s remaining two years, they will only be paying $2.4 million in the all-important threshold year of 2014 while the Angels will take on the remaining $18.6 million next season!  The $18.6 is obviously $0.6 over the average $18 million luxury tax average salary.  Hence, the Yankees were attempting to utilize a flaw in the luxury tax rules, but most recently MLB would not allow it; however, they agreed that the Yankees would pay $0 luxury tax for Vernon in 2014 as opposed to receiving a $0.6 million credit.

The ultimate bottom line is that the Vernon Wells trade has given the Yankees an average outfielder for 2 years without any luxury tax commitment for at least one of their players in their conservative year of 2014!  Now, if they could just find loopholes for the other 24 players!!

Only the Yankees, over the last few decades, have compiled such a team of lawyers and accountants that can outdo the rest of MLB’s team of lawyers.  Thanks, George - it’s great to know that some of your initiated plots/hires are still bringing advantages to the Yankees and their fans.