The utter failure of baseball's luxury tax

Exhibit A: The big-spending Dodgers. Exhibit B: The loophole-exploiting Yankees

Robinson Cano
(Image credit: Jason Miller/Getty Images)

If you're a Yankees fan frustrated by the team's slow start this season, you can blame one of two things: You can either rail at the plague of injuries that has robbed the team of Curtis Granderson, Mark Teixeira, and Derek Jeter, or you can point the finger at New York's budget plans for 2014, as the Yankees try to pull a fast one on Major League Baseball.

There's one number that guided the Yankees' offseason: 189. As in, if the team can get its payroll under $189 million for 2014, it will save millions in the luxury tax, MLB's penalty for the rich. So the big-spending Yankees made a commitment to pinch pennies like never before, spending as little as needed to stay competitive for 2013, and leaving the team with little depth at many positions.

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Jon Tayler is a freelance journalist and associate producer for SI.com. His work has appeared in the Miami New Times, the Seattle Times, and Columbia College Today. You can find more of his work at jontayler.com.