Yankeetorial: Onward to $188,999,999.99!

For the last 10 months, we've been wrestling with Hal Steinbrenner's goal to shrink the 2014 Yankee payroll to below $189 million.

After 10 months of pain, I say this: "Make it so, Commander Data!"

The worst part is over. We just pissed away a season. Not just any season, either. We threw overboard Mariano Rivera's last shot at a World Series. We did this because of an ownership ban on multi-year deals, (which we broke for Vernon Wells and Ichiro Suzuki - the two-year contracts with Hell.) We passed on every international free agent who washed ashore. Instead, we recycled the Brennan Boschs and Alberto Gonzalezes. We spent 2013 in a modified self-immolation. But we have money coming off the books, and $189 million is within reach, and I'd hate to think we screwed Mariano's last chance for nothing.

I say this because a segments of the Yankiverse are already perusing the free agent ranks like licorice twists in a candy store. They have forgotten the 1980s, or they aren't old enough to remember them. They are forgetting that fat contracts with fat players are what got us here.

Right now, bloggers are contending that we should sign Brian McCann of the Braves. God help us. We might get two years from him behind the plate,  and then what? Three years as a low-hitting DH? And he'll be so expensive that we have no choice but to play him. Eric Bedard? God help us. Another five-inning starter who gives up three runs? Please.

And if we sign type A free agents, we give up our first-round pick. Folks, this is how the 1980s happened: We signed lame free agents to overpriced contracts, which forced us to play them, and other teams grew younger, while we steadily aged.

Folks, it wasn't injuries that wrecked 2013. It was old players who are constantly getting injured.

It took the Redsocks two years to turn around their team. Right now, they could be sitting on a two or three-year World Series run. We fielded a crappy team this year, though the season was masked by that extra Wild Card slot and the lack of exceptional teams chasing it. We have to get younger. We cannot give up our first-round picks any more. The rules have changed. There are ways to spend our money to advantage, but they don't including gorging at the free agent buffet.

A $189 million budget might be the best thing that ever happened to us.