Levine: Cano needs to be "more realistic" in contract talks

Ask and you shall receive -- expect in the case of Robinson Cano and the Yankees. Team president Randy Levine said Tuesday that the Yankees have no interest in meeting the demands of Cano, who is still sticking to his 10-year, $310 million asking price, as reported by ESPN New York.

"As Hal [Steinbrenner] said, we have no interest in doing a 10-year deal, and we have no interest in paying any player over $300 million," Levine said before a breakfast forum in lower Manhattan about the impact of sports on New York's economy.

 The Yankees have offered him about $170 million over seven years, and Levine said that unless Cano "gets more serious, we have nothing to talk about."

"We hope he comes back to us. We want him." said Levine. "But there's really no reason to have any discussions at this point until we get a little closer."

While Cano is an important asset to the Yankees' plans to make it back to the playoffs in 2014, they don't want to re-sign him at a price that would affect them being able to sign other free-agents and make it hard to get payroll under $189 million by 2014.

"Let me say two things to make it very clear," Levine said. "Hal has said and I've said that 189 is the goal, as long as it's consistent with fielding a championship team. We think that's very possible and doable, and we're not waiting around for anybody.

"We have a list of five or six major free agents and we're engaged with all of them and we're not waiting around. The first guys who come off the board, those are the guys we're going to sign."

Levine also said that he's skeptical of any team even coming close to paying the $300 million that Cano is looking for. When asked whether he could envision the Mets prying Cano away from the Yankees, Levine laughed and said, "For 300 million, yes."

"I think Robbie Cano is a great player," he said. "We would very much like to bring him back. I think we've made a very competitive offer and we're just waiting for him to come back."

Not only are the Yankees waiting on Cano to make a move, it's likely they also won't know whether or not Alex Rodriguez will be with the team in 2014, as he continues his appeal of the 211-game suspension handed down by MLB. Whenever the outcome, whatever it may be, the Yanks will find out if they do or don't have an extra $26 million to spend this winter.

"We budgeted A-Rod as playing, that he's here," Levine said. "The way we look at A-Rod, we assume for budget [purposes] he is playing and his money is in the budget."

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