I’ve got The Little Boy with me visiting friends with a little boy of their own, so this will be brief. The full implications and machinations of the Yankees won’t be clear for a little while anyway, so we’ll circle back to this soon.
But, for now: today the arbitrator handling Alex Rodriguez’s 211-game suspension for PED-related infractions ruled that the suspension should be reduced to 162 games – i.e., the 2014 season. His $27.5 million salary is no longer expected to count against the Yankees’ salary for luxury tax purposes, meaning that, if the Yankees are inclined, they will be able to stay under the $189 million cap.
We’ll see what their plans are with respect to Masahiro Tanaka now. It would be difficult to sign Tanaka and stay under the cap, but the Yankees might not care about that either way. I guess we’ll see.