Check the listing from this site:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/2016-transactions.shtml
concerning acquisitions since late 2015 till March of this year. You can show me rosters, but please tell me what they did with this many players that had signed into the organization. They were a part of the club. Where are they hidden? And that number really puts a damper on the idea of home grown.
And the Yankees are paying the luxury tax for the 14th straight year according to the AP:
rwood
A lot of these transactions involve players leaving the organization. Most of those players, in fact. This is normal. Teams sign players, bring them to spring training, sign them for the minors, let them go. Routine procedure. Check MLB Trade Rumors http://www.mlbtraderumors.com and you see these kinds of maneuvers all the time. The Yankees are not unique in this.
Most of these guys got released, claimed on waivers, or otherwise left the organization. And it’s that way with 29 other clubs too.
Players are acquired several ways, basically: developed through your system, in trades, via Rule 5 (the Padres have taken 5 of those guys in the last 2 years), through a waiver claim, and through free agency. Now, there are different kinds of free agency. There are players who are free agents because their contracts are up, major league free agents. Then there are 6-year minor-league free agents. Then there are players who have been released.
Every team uses all of these methods at one time or another. Yet somehow, when the Yankees do it, you object to it. Your team does it too.
Most of those players were not part of the big-league club. And most of them have moved on to other organizations.
As I said, the bulk of the Yankees are from the system, or they were acquired for someone from the system in a trade. The cornerstone young guys are homegrown. Only three or four are major-league free agents.
Yes, the Yankees have been paying the luxury tax for a long time, which means that for them, it’s 50 percent. So if they sign a guy for $10 million, he costs them $15 million. That’s why they’re trying to get under the threshold. Somehow, Yankee haters object to that. The idea that the Yankees might cut their payroll enough to get under the threshold seems to bother people. (Not Yankee fans, BTW.)
Please note that the last transaction on the page you linked is about a year and a half old. Try to find something more current.