Yankee payroll for 2009
Cots baseball contracts is a great place for team payroll data. Click Here to see the information on Yankee contracts.
I have not done the math, I have seen some other blogs do the math and it looks like the Yankees will have an opening day payroll of about 200 million. A little less than the 208 million from 2008 but not much. The positive thing is the team did get younger and more talented. Matsui, Molina, Nady and Damon are free agents after 2009 so another roughly 34 million will be off the books and there does not seem to be any big free agents for 2009 besides maybe Holliday. Hopefully Tex settles in nicely, Cano bounces back, A-rod and Jeter have good seasons. Gardner or Melky establishes themselves in CF. CC, Wang, AJ and Joba stay healthy and develop into a good rotation. Hughes, Kennedy or some young pitcher establishes the 5th spot. The Yankees will not need to sign a lot of free agents after 2009. Probably just a LF and RF although Swisher could develop into a good corner outfielder in 2009.
