TAMPA, Fla. — New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner on Friday emphasized that he has not ordered his front office to drop the team’s player payroll below the highest competitive balance tax threshold of $301 million this season.

Steinbrenner, however, questioned whether fielding a payroll in that range is prudent.

“Does having a huge payroll really increase my chances that much of winning the championship?” Steinbrenner said. “I’m not sure there’s a strong correlation there. Having said that, we’re the New York Yankees, we know what our fans expect. We’re always going to be one of the highest in payroll. That’s not going to change. And it certainly didn’t change this year.”

In the wild-card era (since 1995), 21 of the 30 teams to win the World Series ranked in the top 10 in Opening Day payroll. However, just three teams since 2009, the year the Yankees claimed their last championship, have won the World Series ranked in the top three in payroll: The 2018 Boston Red Sox (first in the majors), 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers (second) and 2024 Dodgers (third).

This year, Steinbrenner said the Yankees, one of the most valuable franchises in professional sports, are currently projected to have a CBT payroll between $307 million and $308 million after a busy winter that included losing Juan Soto in free agency but adding Max Fried, Devin Williams, Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt. Cot’s Contracts, which tracks baseball salaries and payrolls, estimates the number to be $304.7 million, ranking fourth in the majors behind the Dodgers, New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies.

The Yankees have ranked in the top three in payroll in 16 of the 17 seasons since Steinbrenner became chairman and controlling owner of the franchise in 2008. The exception was 2018, when the team finished seventh.

The team was one of the nine levied tax penalties last season — the Yankees paid $62.5 million as one of four clubs taxed at a base rate of 50% for exceeding the lowest threshold in three or more straight years — and one of four levied the stiffest penalties for surpassing the highest threshold. As a result, their first-round pick in the 2025 draft dropped 10 slots.

This season, any dollar spent over $301 million will come with a 60% surcharge.

“I would say no,” Steinbrenner said when asked whether dropping below the highest threshold is a priority. “The threshold is not the concern to me.”

The Yankees, however, have tried to trade right-hander Marcus Stroman to shed salary and perhaps allocate the money elsewhere, according to sources. Stroman is due to make $18.5 million this season, but he isn’t projected to break camp in the team’s starting rotation.

The two-time All-Star started the Yankees’ first Grapefruit League game of the year Friday against the Tampa Bay Rays, tossing a scoreless inning a week after missing the first two days of workouts and emphasizing he would not pitch out of the bullpen this season. He maintained his stance Friday.

“I haven’t thought about it, to be honest,” Stroman said after departing the Yankees’ 4-0 win. “I know who I am as a pitcher. I’m a very confident pitcher. I don’t think you’d want someone in your starting rotation that would be like, ‘Hey, I’m going to go to the bullpen.’ That’s not someone you’d want.”

Steinbrenner also reiterated that he would consider supporting a salary cap for the next collective bargaining agreement if a floor is also implemented “so that clubs that I feel aren’t spending enough on payroll to improve their team would have to spend more.”

The current CBA is set to expire after the 2026 season.

Reds manager Terry Francona plans to opt out of elective participation in the automated ball-strike challenge trial during spring training but is willing to let Cincinnati’s minor league players accustomed to the procedure use the system.

ABS allows pitchers, hitters and catchers an immediate objection to a ball-strike call. Major League Baseball is not fully adopting the system — which has been used in the minor leagues — this season but began a trial Thursday involving 13 spring training ballparks. Teams are allowed two challenges per game, which must come from on-field players and not the dugout or manager.

“I’m OK with seeing our younger kids do it because they’ve done it,” Francona said. “It’s not a strategy for [the MLB teams], so why work on it? I don’t want to make a farce of anything, but we’re here getting ready for a season and that’s not helping us get ready.”

ABS was used for the first time at Camelback Ranch in Thursday’s spring training opener between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs.

For nearly a half-century, the New York Yankees‘ facial-hair policy kept the visages of some of the world’s most famous baseball players whisker-free. Over the past week, with a nudge from a new player and the advice of an All-Star cast, team owner Hal Steinbrenner changed the face of the Yankees. Literally.

“Everyone was kind of stunned,” said Yankees closer Devin Williams, whose desire to sport his signature beard helped spur the rule change that will allow players to wear more than a mustache. “There were a few guys who had heard it was being discussed and a possibility, but that it actually happened — I’m just looking forward to it growing back.”

The announcement by the Yankees on Friday morning that players would be allowed to grow a “well-groomed beard” sent shockwaves through the sport. The draconian rule instituted in 1976 by then-owner George Steinbrenner had been maintained for more than a decade and a half since his death, and Hal Steinbrenner, his son, had shown no signs of relenting.

When Williams showed up to Yankees spring training in Tampa, Florida, last week for the first time after arriving in an offseason trade with the Milwaukee Brewers, he finally came face-to-face with his longtime nemesis: a razor. Never had Williams thrown a pitch in the major leagues without at least a healthy layer of stubble. After shearing his beard, he looked in the mirror, didn’t recognize who was looking back and eventually took his concerns to Yankees manager Aaron Boone.

Williams later relayed the frustration to general manager Brian Cashman, who listened to his points — about how players who feel their best will play their best, about the hypocrisy of a policy implemented to promote clean-cut players applying only to facial hair below the upper lip — and agreed. Steinbrenner then sat down with Williams, and the moment to push for a facial-hair revolution had arrived.

The inconsistent application of the policy — from Goose Gossage’s Fu Manchu to later-than-5-o’clock shadows on the faces of Thurman Munson to Andy Pettitte to Roger Clemens — was just the beginning of the argument for change. There were concerns that players might pass up opportunities to play for the Yankees because of an attachment to their beards. Steinbrenner heard the case and Monday discussed with a cast of stars — alumni Ron Guidry, Pettitte and newly minted Hall of Famer CC Sabathia plus current players Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton — how they saw it.

In the days thereafter, Steinbrenner came away from the conversations convinced: No longer was banning stubble worth the trouble.

“Winning was the most important thing to my father,” Steinbrenner said. “And again, if somebody came and told him that they were very sure that this could affect us getting the players we want to get, all we’re trying to do every offseason, right, is put ourselves in the best position to get a player that we’re trying to get. And if something like this would detract from that, lessen our chances, I don’t know. I think he might be a little apt to do the change that I did than people think because it was about winning.”

Steinbrenner and Cashman announced the change to the team Friday morning — and the players responded with appreciation.

“It’s a big deal,” said Cole, who had worn a beard with his past two teams, Pittsburgh and Houston. “I just threw today, and no one cares. Nobody is talking about how I look. I feel like I obviously, being a Yankee fan [growing up], wanted to emulate everything the Yankees did, so it was kind of cool that I was able to shave and be a part of that legacy. And then it’s also really cool at the same time that we’re transitioning to a different legacy to a certain extent, moving forward.”

Williams will be moving forward by not shaving. He said he expects his beard to grow back in two to three weeks. While he believes his past facial hair “was pretty well-groomed,” he’s happy to cut it shorter if the team desires “because it’s nice to feel like you’re being listened to.”

“Hal took the time to hear Devin out, spoke with other players and made a decision that I’m sure was very difficult,” said Nate Heisler of Klutch Sports Group, Williams’ agent. “The Yankees showed today why they are one of the best organizations in professional sports.”

No longer are they the most fresh-faced. Free agent signings with bearded pasts — from Cole to Stanton to left-hander Carlos Rodon to first baseman Paul Goldschmidt to reliever Tim Hill — are free to return to their hirsute ways. Homegrown players can celebrate no-shave November eight months early. And Boone — once himself a cleanly shaven Yankees player — summed up the mood in the clubhouse for everyone.

Said Boone: “It was time for this.”