I'm not saying that won't happen, but the Yankees have serious luxury tax problems.
They're currently going to pay a 50% tax in 2013 (and every subsequent year) if they exceed the threshold. Under the new CBA, they'll reset to 17.5% if they get under the cap for one year. They'll also get money back from revenue sharing that they're currently penalized for being over the threshold as well.
So basically, if the cap's $190 million, the Yankees can either (a) get below $190 million and reset themselves or (b) stay up at at $215 million or so where they've been the last couple of years and really pay more like $250 million.
Even for the Yankees, $60 million (and probably $150+ million in chained benefits based on lower tax rates as they increase payroll again) is a substantial amount of money.
But there's not a whole lot they can do in the near-term to do to get below that threshold, unless they refrain from signing new players.
And as much as the Yankees would love to sign Josh Hamilton for 5/$125 million, Brian Cashman is smart enough to understand that Hamilton for 5/$275 million (what I'm approximating the cost is if signing Hamilton keeps them over the luxury tax threshold for the next five seasons) is a bad deal.
