Hal Steinbrenner is not naming the price of his 2026 payroll.
But the Yankees’ owner insists he is not set on lowering the number from the $319 million at which his club finished this year, another season gone by without winning a World Series.
“Would it be ideal if I went down [with the payroll]? Of course,” Steinbrenner said on a Zoom call Monday. “But does that mean that’s going to happen? Of course not. We want to field a team we know we believe could win a championship.”
Steinbrenner has said in the past that a payroll of $300-plus million was “unsustainable” and that it shouldn’t take a $300 million payroll to win a championship. Of course, he used to say the same thing about a $220 million payroll.
But in the early stages of the offseason, as general manager Brian Cashman tries to build a roster that can finally capture the Yankees’ first title since 2009, they are already at roughly $278 million (for luxury tax purposes) for their 2026 payroll, per Cot’s Contracts.
And if they are able to re-sign Cody Bellinger, which is their top priority, that number would vault over $300 million without further changes to the roster.
“We can talk before [Cashman] goes into winter meetings about a range, but because it’s a fluid situation, that range can go bye bye in two seconds if there’s a deal that arises that I feel would be very beneficial to some area of need that we have,” Steinbrenner said in his first comments since February. “So it’s hard to give you a number, that’s what I’m trying to say. It’s a different deal.”
