ORLANDO, Fla. — What, me miserly?
The Yankees have committed more than $148 million on player talent this offseason to try to upend the Red Sox, yet Hal Steinbrenner knows he still faces a growing criticism from his fan base that he’s pocketing too much of his team’s profits.
On Thursday at the MLB owners meetings, the Yankees’ managing general partner fired back at those criticisms, which come from fan blogs, social media and even many older fans who contend that Steinbrenner doesn’t care as much about winning as did his late father, George.
“If there’s a narrative that we’re not spending money and being cheap, that’s just false,” Steinbrenner told a small group of reporters. “We’re above $200 million [in payroll]. We’re at $220 [million] right now in [annual average value, and that number also includes pension and benefits]. And we’re well above where we were last year [about $195 million]. We did everything we wanted to do to really improve … the pitching. That’s what I wanted to improve. As far as I’m concerned, pitching was a big problem in the division series. More so than anything else.”
Much of the criticism draws from the widely spread contention, based on revenue estimates by Forbes Magazine, that the Yankees own the lowest payroll-to-revenues ratio in the industry; the magazine calculated that the Yankees received $619 million in revenue in 2017, with the 2018 figure not yet released.
“With no discussion of our costs, right?” Steinbrenner countered. “That’s one of the problems with this narrative is, I hear everything about our revenues, and hear nothing about our costs. I hear nothing about the gargantuan debt service payment that we have to pay every year [about $90 million]. Nothing about all of our stadium operations, all the security. Not to mention player payroll. Not to mention revenue sharing.
“I just think it’s fair, if you’re going to have that kind of discussion, if you’re going to be talking about revenues, you’d better be talking about expenses. And every team’s different, obviously, with the things they have to pay for and don’t have to pay for and the cities they reside in.”Steinbrenner didn’t rule out further expenses for his team, as he refused to fully close the door on signing even a big free agent like Bryce Harper or Manny Machado. Nevertheless, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said earlier this week that he considered his roster complete, and the Yankees are not engaged with either player. Furthermore, MLB doesn’t want its teams publicly removing themselves from consideration for free agents.
“I wouldn’t be surprised [with another big acquisition] because these guys come to me all the time with stuff,” Steinbrenner said of his baseball operations employees. “I can’t tell you if, 17 days from now, they come to me with some kind of proposal that I say no or I say yes. I just can’t tell you that right now.”
Shortly after that, I asked whether fans should keep an open mind about either of the unclaimed free-agent jewels, Harper or Machado, joining the Yankees. His response cast further doubt on this possibility.
“Fans should keep an open mind that I’m never done until I’m done, and that’s usually not until Opening Day,” he said. “Proposals come to me every day with these guys, between the analytics guys and the pro scouting guys, and I’m going to consider every single one of them.
“But I have to look at the big picture, and it is my responsibility that my family expects, my partners expect, not just to look at the present, but to look at the future, too. Three, four, five years from now, we’ve got a lot of homegrown kids that we love, that our fans love, that are going to be coming up for free agency. And that’s something I’ve got to keep in mind as well.
“Look, this is why I take a long time — it aggravates some people — in my decision-making. If I’ve got the time, I’m going to take it. I’m going to use it. That’s my job.”
In other words, the Yankees don’t want to prioritize a player like Harper or Machado over one like Aaron Judge or Luis Severino. That many of their fans want all of the above leads to the tension of which Steinbrenner is very much aware.