Hank Scorpio said:Very unlikely that it matters whether the payroll is $190M or $250M next season, as long as enough salary is off the books by 2016 or 2017 in order to reset the luxury tax. If Napoli had another year or two in his deal after 2015, then it would make. More sense to move him for financial reasons.
However it does make a difference! The gap between the luxury tax effective cap ($189M) and what you would pay ($250M) is roughly $71M ($61M greater salaries plus 17% tax). If this was Monopoly money nobody would care. Nevertheless, IMO it's highly likely that how high the payroll goes does matter to Mr. Henry. If they are contenders, I could see how they might go to $200M or a little above that. Nevertheless, it makes little sense for a last place team to pay so much plus luxury tax until it is clear that they are contending. The Sox aren't the Yankees although it seems like it when they go on a spending spree every few years. Hanley and Panda were within budget in the first place because they were relatively frugal during the last few years and the Yankees apparently can't bid with them competitively this winter because they fielded a non-playoff team with $250M or more of Steinbrenner Monopoly money. No thank you.