So long, $189 million payroll!

In the 2020 Old-Timers Day celebration, after bringing out Ron Hassey and just before Matt Nokes, the Voice of the Yankees - CJ Nitkowski himself - will introduce a special guest: "Ladies and gentlemen, this Yankee icon in 2012 and 2013 briefly lowered spending and saved money for management. Won't you please welcome the one-hundred-and-eighty-nine million dollar payroll goal!"

Crowd roar. Cue the scoreboard. Wearing Jersey No. 189, the payroll cap will jog out onto the field, doff his payroll cap, and hug Lyle Overbay and Brennan Bosch, reuniting the scrappy third-place club from 2013. And the Yankiverse, collectively, will say, "Ahhh, I haven't thought of him in years."

Friends, it's over. Kaput. Done. The $189 million payroll cap, alias the "target" and later the "goal." The $189 million Yankee corset, the cruel shoes, the yoke, the spike-lined box. It's history. Ding dong, it's dead. As we speak, the Evil Empire is printing money, looking to buy every man, woman and child in the island nation of Japan a Yankee-logo Geiger counter - more specifically, we're looking to import Masahiro Tanaka, and make no mistake, this will cost big big big Yankee money.

For the last 15 months, the team practiced "austerity." It was Hal Steinbrenner's 1967 drug-flashback hallucination, a dream that the Yankees could cut expenses and escape paying luxury taxes, if they lowered the payroll to the magical $189 million. Ahh, but it was merely a fantasy, by a fly who dreamed he was a man who owned a baseball team.

Here are the Yankee 2014 options: We either outbid everybody on the planet for Tanaka - and then sign a relief pitcher and maybe Matt Garza, to boot - or we lose Tanaka and then go WILD with money - purchasing Garza, pluys one or both of the Ubaldo/Santana twins - maybe chase the OF, Cruz, figuring we'll then trade Brett Gardner and the entire Trenton Thunder for David Price and a bucket of Furbys. It doesn't matter. We will spend. The key to the Yankee future is not Cito Culver. It's not home cooking. It is not youth or crafty managerial acumen. It is money, folks. MONEY. We're back to throwing money at players. It's the only thing that seems to work.

If we spend enough money, we'll get Tanaka. If we get Tanaka, the YES ratings will explode in the spring.  If the YES ratings expand, we will rule the almighty back pages.  And if Tanaka is any good, we'll have a chance in 2014 (though Girardi better not do to him what he did to Kuroda, or the guy will be done in two years.) Pass the word. The Yankees are back. MONEY. The $189 million payroll is dead. It's moneyball, folks - the Yankee version.  Moneymoneymoney. Print more!