Over the next week or so, we’ll be analyzing and posing questions about the Steinbrenner Budget Cut, which aims to reduce the Yankees payroll to $189 million by the beginning of the 2014 season.

Of the recent comments Brian Cashman made about the budget situation, this is the one that stood out the most to us (from Lohud):

The only thing is, how does this landscape affect us with our current commitments? Decisions we made from the past will affect decisions in the short term going forward, until some of those contracts expire, or you move them at some point. A lot of those contracts, not that you want to trade them, either have full no-trades or 10-5 rights, so some of those circumstances you just have to hope they stay healthy and productive and they are finishing your career type contracts with the Yankees and you hope that you can maximize your potential with them all, but it will limit your array of choices on those contracts term years because those are legitimate commitments that affect the bottom line.

Read between the lines. “Decisions we made from the past?”/”Finishing your career-type contracts?” It’s clear that in order for the Yankees to cut payroll and for baseball product not to be sacrificed, then there’s one particular person that needs to be kept on a leash.