The NYTimes has an extended article on Hank and Hal in their Sunday Magazine. I'll break it down in greater depth tomorrow, but this caught my eye:
But the Yankees will almost certainly exceed the luxury-tax threshold for the duration of his time with the team (and the rest of eternity, for that matter), which means that they'll have to pay an extra 40 cents for every dollar A-Rod earns.
With Giambi, Abreu, Pettitte, Mussina, Pavano, and Farnsworth all coming off the payroll, and without a Roger Clemens signing, the Yanks figure to trim around 90 million dollars next season even after giving hefty raises to Arod, Cano, Wang, and Melky.
The payroll will start around $210 million for 2008, and if you figure the Yanks will give around 40 million dollars to C.C. Sabathia and Mark Teixeira, the 2009 payroll should log in at about 160. The threshold for taxation will be $160 million (check out the sidebar halfway down the page).
There's plenty you can fault Cashman for (most of their contracts expire at the end of this season), but he's got the finances under control for the first time since the last championship.