[sublime]

for those that want to predict how much offense damon will lose due to his age/decline rate, here are some examples.

one poster compared him to tim raines, while i choose bernie williams. for those that dont want to check, raines declined slowly in his 30's while williams took a nose dive. lets check why that happened and see who damon projects to be more like.

tim raines was on base 3983 times in his career. 1378 of those came as the result of a walk or HBP. 34% of his offnesive worht was tied up in walks, and as a result he was an effective player until the age of 38 and had a slow decline rate.

bernie williams has been on base 3291 times in his carrer. 1073 of those came as the result of walks, or 32%. he was effective until last year, or until he was 35.

basically, history shows us that damon will decline faster than these guys. of course, the opposite could hold true, but that is a very expensive gamble.

you gusy can check out otehr CF's with damons pedigree, i am sure you will see the same patterns.