Steinbrenner's Obsession with the CBT is Shooting the Yankees in the Foot By BrahNick on Jul 19, 2021, 3:25pm EDT 3 Between the Bullpen Fiasco of last offseason, and even in the bigger moves the Yankees have made in the past few years- the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) and the geometry that Steinbrenner has insisted upon to work around it has torpedoed the team's hopes of competition and likely closed their window. In the 2020-2021 offseason, General Manager Brian Cashman was very obviously working on a tight budget. The Yankees came off a second consecutive postseason where they were sunk by a lack of starting pitching depth. Instead of an offseason of wondering how the Yankees were going to address this pressing concern, Yankees fans' 2020-2021 offseason was dominated by the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) threshold. Even with GM Brian Cashman choosing two lottery tickets in the way of signing Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon after a second consecutive year where the team’s lack of rotation depth torpedoed them in the postseason, no move made the Yankees’ penny-pinching more apparent than the trading reliever Adam Ottavino to the Boston Red Sox. This was an insult to injury to many Yankees fans who had to watch potential postseason rivals like the Rays, Mets and Dodgers make splashy additions to their rosters (some of which of course were more ill-fated than others) while the promising, yet incomplete Yankees did less than just stand pat.