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.
“Yet somehow, when the Yankees do it, you object to it. Your team does it too.”
At the end of 2016, when the amounts were finalized for the season, the Yankees were one of six teams that broke the numbers and over spent. Dodgers, Giants, Red Sox, Tigers and the Cubs were the other five. And two of them are first time offenders. The Yankees were 14 time offenders.
And according to Yankee Editorials and Reactions, they ran out of money trying to acquire a second pen operative in Brad Zeigler.
But what I’m trying to get across is that all this talk about who they trade for and acquire through different means is not home grown. And you’re telling me that this huge amount of players they acquire they just let go with a payoff or buyout. Can other teams do that with their small market in those amounts. I don’t think so. This just makes the Yankees a big bully not caring what happens to the league. I don’t like people like this.
And the reason I dislike it is because they are aware why the league set up this system to be a deterrent to the teams with the money to do damage to the small market teams who can’t afford to throw out the huge sums to make themselves competitive with the large market teams. And teams like the Dodgers, and Red Sox, and Giants are very aware of what they are doing. They are the repeaters. And the Yankees are the worst of the group. They are literally telling MLB that they don’t care if they are punished and they will do what they want, right or wrong.
It’s like a person ignoring a law because they don’t care about anyone else or how much damage they will do. The others are bad enough. The Yankees are horrible for it. Oh, I don’t have a particular team I root for. I just enjoy the game. I’ve been in it all my life in one way or another, about 60 years. But I dislike a group who doesn’t care how much damage they do to other people, knowingly.
rwood