Flexibility on Yankees payroll

Someone wrote that the Yankees are stuck with high salary players. Especially with Alex Rodriguez coming back, in addition to Teixeira, Sabathia, Tanaka, and many more, it sounded awfully true. I was curious how badly true that is.

With some help from Cot's Baseball Contracts site, here is what I found.

Teams	2014 Opening Day Payroll ($1000)	2015 Obligations	2016 Obligations	$2015/$2014
Yankees	197230	168768	168768	0.856
Brewers	103398	91400	48350	0.884
Dodgers	229336	197469	170368	0.861
Giants	149089	127278	87661	0.854
Angels	154547	128558	128183	0.832
Rangers	133526	107850	89600	0.808
Cardinals	111250	85325	72700	0.767
Rays	76872	57808	41483	0.752
Mariners	90240	67557	49857	0.749
Blue Jays	137178	102200	27600	0.745
Phillies	177730	132167	76167	0.744
Red Sox	156350	114796	42641	0.734
Braves	112009	79677	56769	0.711
Reds	114170	80506	67256	0.705
Indians	84446	58725	54275	0.695
Twins	85465	59150	55300	0.692
Nationals	136857	93921	48420	0.686
Rockies	93581	63429	56929	0.678
Tigers	163636	105000	93800	0.642
Mets	84951	54050	45050	0.636
Diamondbacks	112316	68650	38650	0.611
Royals	92186	50750	24450	0.551
White Sox	90063	45917	41367	0.51
Orioles	107467	52053	44458	0.484
Padres	90637	40725	22100	0.449
Athletics	82321	33030	12830	0.401
Cubs	92677	35510	31510	0.383
Astros	50486	17688	13938	0.35
Marlins	45825	15600	8000	0.34
Pirates	71929	23708	29208	0.33

1. This data probably does not tell you much. Teams with some room on their payrolls in a year or two might have lots of positions must be filled, which makes their payrolls not flexible at all. Some teams might increase their payrolls, or decrease them. It just vaguely depicts things like 'if a GM wants to draw a completely new picture, how easy would that be?'

2. The Yankees indeed are obligated with most of the players, at least until 2016. They are placed in a close 3rd if we take a look at the dollar amount obligated in 2015 compared to their 2014 opening day payroll (and it gets worse in 2016.) Thankfully, even though I really like them, Teixeira, Beltran, Sabathia ($5M buyout) will be most likely done after 2016, so the Yankees can spend some money then.

3. The Dodgers, Giants, Angels, and Rangers were as expected, and the Cardinals aren't that surprising. However, the Brewers were a bit surprising for me. I used to think otherwise, but now I'm not sure if the Giants want to give Sandoval a long term deal.

4. The Padres, A's, Cubs, Astros, Marlins were as expected, but I thought the Pirates did not have much money left to spend. Maybe they can re-sign Martin and/or Liriano, but those two may be too expensive. The Cubs will probably go after Lester, and the Marlins would (and should) lock up Stanton.