They aren’t planning to NOW, because they don’t have the players to spend the money on. But once those younger more athletic players get old enough for their second and third contracts the Yanks will be 100 million over the “cap” in a jiffy.
Never believe the words. The words are a lie. Believe the actions. The actions are that the Yankees don’t give a damn about the cap and as soon as they have players they feel are worth spending the money on they spend it. They can afford the luxury tax, so they don’t worry about it. Saying they won’t do that now is just hoping to catch other teams off guard later. Even you admit it, the players WILL grow into the higher salaries, and those salaries WILL be over the “cap”.
Of course they have the players to spend it on. Don’t you think a Justin Upton, for example, would look good in the middle of that lineup? (Then you trade Gardner for pitching.)
The Yankees aren’t going “100 million” over the luxury tax threshold. I suspect that they’ll be over it in 2019 or 2020, but not by a lot. And by getting under, they reset the tax at a lower rate (which is the point.)
They’re not going heavily into the free agent market. Their new pattern is to dive in every three years or so, grab three or four guys, and sit it out for a year or two. That’s not just because of luxury tax, although that is a factor, but because if they were to sign Upton, for example, or Chris Davis, or Ian Desmond, or any of a number of others, they’d have to give up a first-round draft pick.
Rather than give up a series of first picks, they’d rather give up 1, 2, and 3 in the same year. They’re trying to build a farm system — partly to keep a flow of good young players to keep winning AND reduce payroll (thus hopefully getting under the payroll threshold numerous times.)
This is smart strategy. And they can have a lot fewer problems with luxury tax and give up fewer dollars in revenue sharing, while preserving resources to be able to sign players they really want.