Despite public comments from the Yankees' front office that the team aimed to cut payroll significantly by '14, in recent months, team officials have become "far less bullish on their publicly stated austerity plan, admitting to other executives and agents" that staying beneath the $189M threshold is "unlikely and impractical," according to Jeff Passan of YAHOO SPORTS. A source said, "They're going to be over 189. They know it. Everyone knows it. You can't run a $3 billion team with the intentions of saving a few million dollars." To "dilute the Yankee name for multiple years would necessitate a humongous monetary benefit" -- something a source said that the Yankees "no longer believe is coming to them," even if they were to dip beneath a $189M payroll. Sources said that while the "stash of money New York expected to reap was in the tens of millions, it's not nearly as large as the Yankees had hoped, a prognosis that is pushing the team to recalibrate its plans." The Yankees expected to receive money "not just from a decreased luxury tax rate but a complicated clause in the collective-bargaining agreement called the market-disqualification rebate." Sources said that the Yankees expected their rebate to be "significant" -- upward of $45M million between '14-16 -- "if they kept their payroll below" $189M for those seasons (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 4/25).
