There's no byline to the piece, just an afterword email address for Will Leitch, so I assume he wrote it. Me, I barely got past the first paragraph. This is how it begins:

The Yankees’ payroll for this year is around $206 million, at least $100 million of which is set to vanish after this season. Some of that is for players the Yankees will want back, like Robinson Cano, but the Yanks feel comfortable saying good-bye to fellow heavy earners Curtis Granderson, Youkilis, Hiroki Kuroda, Andy Pettitte, and the retiring Mariano Rivera.

As a devout, nationally recognized Yankees hater, I feel very comfortable saying good-bye to Mariano Rivera, too, for he is surely the most dominating figure in the postseason over the past 15 years. And what's Kevin Youkilis doing on this list? He just arrived in the Bronx. He hasn't even played one real game for the Yanks and the media and the fans and the team are happy to see him go? The Yankees say good-bye as Youkilis says hello? Hello Hello? Where is this info coming from? What front office figure?

Kuroda? Bum! Just a 3.32 ERA last year. Granderson? Sure, he hit only .232. He also smacked 43 homeruns, tied for second in the league, with the third-best OPS on the team after Cano and the now-departed Nick Swisher. These guys were horses. To the Yankees? Gift horses, apparently.

Onward:

The savings from those five contracts is $64 million. ... The point is, it’s a good time to get under the luxury-tax threshold. Getting below the tax line now and staying there for a couple of years will make it a lot easier to land high-priced, game-changing free agents like Bryce Harper, who will be entering his prime as a 26-year-old after the 2018 season. 

OK, seriously, this is why everybody hates the fucking Yankees. It's the sense of privilege. It's the assumption that any good young player coming through your farm system will be theirs. “He'll look good in pinstripes,” etc. It's as if every time George Clooney met a good-looking girl, he told the girl's boyfriend, husband, father, “She'll look good with me.” Assholes. And did the Cliff Lee experience teach them nothing?

(BTW: Early copyright on “The Cliff Lee Experience” as band name.)

Finally:

Just spending money like crazy is no longer the optimal way to construct a championship team; the penalties are too high. The Yankees are trying to adjust accordingly—building the farm system, avoiding veterans on long-term contracts (essentially what they did to build the core four of Jeter, Rivera, Posada, and Pettitte), while also making sure they can again spend like the Yankees you know and love when the time is right. It is exactly the right move.

Wait, I thought they were after the Bryce Harpers of the world. Now they want to build a core team via the farm system as they did in the early 1990s? I don't think you can do both. You get big-name free agents, you give up draft picks. What were the Yankees big free-agent signings in the 1990s? Wade Boggs at the tail-end of his career? Hideki Irabu? But nothing like a Bryce Harper. Once they started doing that—signing superstars like Jason Giambi in 2002 and Alex Rodriguez in 2004—they began to lose. Spectacularly. Gloriously.

The entire piece is about how the Yankees still look to win the AL East despite a cut in payroll to $206 million. Another reason to hate the Yankees. They think that's a cut. They think it's a sacrifice that another team is actually spending more than they are. They are truly the 1% of Major League Baseball.

The last Yankee at-bat of the 2012 season. Delicious.