Johnny Damon signs with Yankees

[Jack of Arcades]

# mgl Membership Posted: December 21, 2005 at 05:25 AM (#1787886)
His UZR are similar to David's numbers. He is still projected as an above-average defender (nout counting his rag arm). He is also sitll an excellent baserunner, and of course, an excellent hitter for a CF'er. Boston does not like his defense as much as the numbers.

Overall, the Yankees paid about twice what he is worth, which is not bad for the Yankees. While I am sure it is worth it for them (they paid like 4 mil per marginal win and a marginal win may be worth close to 10 mil in revenue for them), as usual, they could have gotten more value for that same money in a combination of some other players...

[Myrtle]

DAN SHAUGHNESSY For Sox, a little off the top

By Dan Shaughnessy, Globe Columnist, December 21, 2005

No way around this one. Johnny Damon is a Yankee and it looks like the Red Sox don't know what they are doing. Time for Ben Cherington and Jed Hoyer to say hello to Lou Gorman and Dan Duquette. Looks like John Henry, Tom Werner, and Larry Lucchino finally know what it feels like to be Haywood Sullivan, Buddy LeRoux, and/or John Harrington.

While New England slept last night, Damon got into bed with the enemy. Sox officials smugly believed there was no market for their marquee center fielder and the Yankees took advantage of Boston's big sleep.

Damon agreed to a four-year, $52 million pact with the Yankees sometime yesterday and when Sox CEO Larry Lucchino got home at 11 last night, all he could say was, ''We don't have comments on ongoing negotiations. We have received no such notification [of Damon signing with the Yankees]. We have not been notified of any such deal."

Asked if it would be standard procedure for the Sox to be made aware of their free agent center fielder signing with another team, Lucchino said, ''It's generally customary."
So now your Boston Red Sox have no center fielder, no shortstop, and no first baseman to go along with no Theo Epstein and no clue. It's fair to say this is becoming a winter of discontent in Red Sox Nation. Ben and Jed and Craig and Larry and Tom and John and Crosby, Stills & Nash can spin this anyway they want, but Sox fans can't escape the conclusion that there's chaos at the top. The Josh Beckett trade bought some goodwill and glad tidings, but losing Damon to the Yankees is a devastating blow to the foundation of the Nation.

The Sox won't recover from this one easily. In an already dismal offseason, they've now lost their center fielder and their leadoff hitter. They've also lost a local icon, a rare favorite of teenage girls and fanboy bloggers. Losing Damon hurts them on the field and in the arena of popular opinion. And losing Damon to the Yankees compounds the damage. When Alex Rodriguez got away a couple of years ago, Sox fans were fairly quick to scorn A-Rod and move forward.

Losing Damon won't draw the same reaction. The Idiot center fielder is Johnny Angel with Sox fans and his production in pinstripes will be a personal affront to Red Sox fans around the world.

Damon was quick to say he'll get on board, and cut his hair and shave to conform to Yankee ways. An all-too-modern ballplayer, he switched allegiance from Boston to New York before you could say, ''the New York Times owns 17 percent of the Red Sox."
Here's what Damon told Channel 4: ''They were coming after me aggressively. We know George Steinbrenner's reputation. He always wants to have the best players. He showed that tonight. He and Brian Cashman came after me hard. Now I'm part of the Yankees and that great lineup. We're going to be tough to beat." We? Johnny, how could you? It took only a few minutes and $52 million to make you start calling the Yankees ''we."

Actually, it's pretty easy to understand. For all of his athletic gifts, we always knew Johnny had the depth of your average kiddie pool, and it's therefore entirely believable that he could invoke the royal Yankee ''we" so quickly.

He had no problem hanging the Sox brass out to dry.

''I tried everything in my power to come back," he told Channel 4's Steve Burton. ''I made contact with them [the Sox]. I talked to Tito [Sox manager Terry Francona]. I told them they need to really get going because, if not, I'm going to be on another team. Unfortunately, Boston had their plans. I'm not sure they knew that I meant it. But now I'm a Yankee and hopefully they can go off and go get the other center fielders they've been courting for the past month or so.

''Our policy with the Yankees is to go out and win, and we're going to try to bring another championship to them. They haven't had a championship since Chuck Knoblauch was there when they had a great leadoff hitter so I think the leadoff role has been underappreciated. A good leadoff hitter is tough to find and I think New York just found the best leadoff hitter in the game."

Thanks, Johnny. Very humble of you.

This signing will polarize the Nation. Most fans will paint the current Sox bosses as buffoons and there's good evidence to support the charge. But others will see Damon as a traitor, a mercenary ballplayer no different than Messrs. Clemens or Boggs. Damon went to the Yankees because they offered him $52 million over four years while the Sox offered $40 million over four. We all know simple Johnny loves to be romanced, and the Apple has Regis and Kelly and infinite possibilities for Johnny and Michelle sightings on Page Six. The Sox certainly couldn't compete with that.

Bottom line: The Yankees just got better and more interesting, and the Red Sox just got worse and more boring. And a Nation is certain to wonder if this would have happened if Theo were still on the job.

[Jack of Arcades]

[censored] CHB, Dan Shaughnessy is a goddamned idiot.

[Jack of Arcades]

oh, and there's NO DOUBT Theo would've let Damon go. seriously.

[Myrtle]

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[censored] CHB, Dan Shaughnessy is a goddamned idiot.

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lol.....

FWIW.....you have a higher opinion of him than I do, and I've 'talked baseball' with him personally a number of times over the past years.

The reason that I posted his article is, whether we like it or not, he does have both an affect & insight (information) that we don't have on the Town Team.

[Jack of Arcades]

It's honestly disgusting what Shaughnessy has done. He's now taking Theo's side after doing the best he could to drive him out of Boston.

[Paluka]

I think the mathematical analysis of this signing for the Yankees doesn't really tell the whole story at all. "Star power" trades at a premium for them because they have an image to uphold with their fans.
I do think that this is a terrible deal for baseball. Nobody wants to see the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry diluted like this. Every baseball fan is going to hate this. To take one of the great personalities of the game (who was part of one of the great stories in baseball history) and have him turn into a hired gun is very sad.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

i just read through this whole thread

i'd just like to start out by saying i never really liked johnny damon to begin with because he didn't do anything for the A's in his year there and then used his hot 5 game playoff series to somehow get a big deal from the red sox.

then he wins a world series with the red sox and a huge rivalry developed between the sox and the yanks and then suddenly he signs with the yankees? totally classless imo.

anyways back to the point of this thread:

sublime is way overreacting to how bad this deal is. and his comments towards anybody who would disagree with him is bad form imo. but whatev.

the most important thing you have to realize about this deal is that the yankees really don't give a damn about money. they don't really give a damn that damon may just be average his third year and completely useless his fourth (which by the way i think comparing/projecting his decline to bernie williams is probably not fair since bernie's decline is rather on the extreme end compared to many other thirty-something players).

all the yankees care about is winning a world series right now and given the available options, having a solid Johnny Damon at CF for the next 2 years will do that. Suppose that the yanks do happen to win a WS in the next two years, how much more value would you give the deal? could you give him a little leeway on the back end of the deal as a bonus for winning? i think that has to count for something when computing values for deals.

also its not as if signing damon will prohibit the yanks from signing other people they need. and even if damon becomes really bad the last year of his deal, who's to say the yanks couldn't just get another CF then? i mean, they offered arbitration to frigging bernie williams so they clearly dont mind paying 10+ million for 4th outfielder/DH platoon types.

obviously if it was the A's who made this deal, it would be truly horrific because they couldn't afford the first year let alone the 4th year, and such a deal would handicap them in signing other players, but we're talking about the must-win-at-all-costs-money-is-like-toilet-paper-to-us yankees here. if they can get 2 solid years out of damon and it gives them a better chance to win a world series, why wouldn't they make this deal? and if by some miracle, he is actually still a decent to good player by the time this deal is over, isn't that just an added bonus?

[kenberman]

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the most important thing you have to realize about this deal is that the yankees really don't give a damn about money. they don't really give a damn that damon may just be average his third year and completely useless his fourth (which by the way i think comparing/projecting his decline to bernie williams is probably not fair since bernie's decline is rather on the extreme end compared to many other thirty-something players).

all the yankees care about is winning a world series right now and given the available options, having a solid Johnny Damon at CF for the next 2 years will do that. Suppose that the yanks do happen to win a WS in the next two years, how much more value would you give the deal? could you give him a little leeway on the back end of the deal as a bonus for winning? i think that has to count for something when computing values for deals.

also its not as if signing damon will prohibit the yanks from signing other people they need. and even if damon becomes really bad the last year of his deal, who's to say the yanks couldn't just get another CF then? i mean, they offered arbitration to frigging bernie williams so they clearly dont mind paying 10+ million for 4th outfielder/DH platoon types.

obviously if it was the A's who made this deal, it would be truly horrific because they couldn't afford the first year let alone the 4th year, and such a deal would handicap them in signing other players, but we're talking about the must-win-at-all-costs-money-is-like-toilet-paper-to-us yankees here. if they can get 2 solid years out of damon and it gives them a better chance to win a world series, why wouldn't they make this deal? and if by some miracle, he is actually still a decent to good player by the time this deal is over, isn't that just an added bonus?

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I agree with all of this. this is a good deal for the Yankees; would have beena bad deal for anyone else. who knows if the Red Sox messed up by letting it get this far...

[Myrtle]

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sublime,

In this thread you have repeatedly stated or given evidence that this is a bad deal for the Yankees in terms of value per dollar. This you have done well, however you have yet to discuss why that matters.

George clearly doesn't care about value per dollar. He's getting another high profile guy that will bring in more publicity and merchandise money. Furthermore, he's getting the best available guy on the free-agent market (correct me if I'm wrong here as I could be). He's clearly more than happy to pay through the nose in luxury tax. Will this signing prevent the Yankees from getting players they need in the future? If so I could see your point but I'm not sure that's the case.

If George doesn't care about value, and the Yankees won't be prevented from getting players they need down the road then it's still a good deal even if it is atrocious in terms of value.

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i agree with everything you said, and i think my stance on these 'deal breakdowns' gets lost in translation. i love baseball, i love watching baseball, listening to baseball, and reading about baseball. however, the on the field game doesn't interest me as much as the business behind the game. when i see a deal get signed, i immediately want to see what the potential EV is on the field, and if the team made a wise investment. i do it for every player, from johnny damon to rudy seanez. this differentiates me from most *cough* fans, as they go by their perceptions of players and what they 'think' they are worth, while i try to apply math to the situation.

so when i say, johnny damon isn't worth 13m a year compared to his counterparts some people interpret that as a bashing of the player. its not.

as for the yankees, i was convinced they were finally taking a hard stance and were going to rebuld on the fly. deals like this prevent that from happening. while some can say only the yankees can afford to do deals like this, one could also counter that they are a team that CANT afford to do a deal like this. sooner or later the piper will need to be paid. you cant continue to field teams with high priced free agents and not having any homegrown/cheap talent to replace them.

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BINGO!!!!!.......(or close to it)

What we have here is differing sets of priorities at different levels and from different points of view.

Damon – Hey, what the hell, it looks like the best I’m gonna get is 4 years, so let me go with the guys who give me the most $$. Guess what? That turns out to be the Yankees, and that also fits in nicely with my (and my wife’s) personal, celebrity lifestyle. NYC is the biggest media outlet....Michelle already has a TV show in Boston, and is looking to grow/upgrade. My (Damon’s) ‘personality’ value is at an all time high, AND the Red Sox appear to be crumbling from the top down (No more Theo, and they’re breaking up the team, piece-by-piece). Time for me to take the money and run......$3M more/yr??.....It’s a no-brainer for me & Michelle. So long Sox fans......I’ll miss ya, but y’know....life goes on.

Yankees – Geezez!! We can’t believe the Sox would actually let us sneak in and do it, but they did! We’ve got more money than God, and between the PR coupe (screw the Mets) AND the actual value on the field, this was one of the easiest decisions we’ve ever had to make. Damon is clearly a significant upgrade over what we had (Bubba Crosby??!!). Yes, we probably have overpaid for him in ‘absolute baseball terms’ when looking at the total contract life, but......you’ve gotta be kidding me! We upgraded our team, AND downgraded our chief rivals at the same time.....a very SWEET 2-fer for us, tyvm. Let us get out our calculator and see how much we will have to raise our cable rates to pay for Johnny Boy....hmmm......no problem, the fans will pay......they always do!

Red Sox – We will NOT be fiscally irresponsible and mortgage our future.....period! We have calculated what we consider the ‘fair market value’ of all of our players, and we will stick to our guns. We did last year with Pedro, and let’s see how that works out in the long run for all sides involved. We (Lucchino, Henry, et al) cannot afford the negative PR of locking ourselves into another ‘bad’ long term contract (Manny??) We have a wealth of talent down on the farm, and we will NOT trade it away (ala NY) foolishly. We will miss Damon on the field, but we are confident that we can find an adequate replacement. Good luck to Johnny in the future.

I know that any of the above ‘positions’ can be argued either way, and I don’t mean to represent them to be ‘cast-in-stone’; merely general in nature.

FWIW.....This is not new. My first Fenway game attended was in 1953. I’ve been a night game season ticket holder since 1987. I’ve watched our seat prices (loge boxes) go from $7 each to (this year) $85 each.

The “Golden Rule” has always been in effect surrounding the Yankees. For many years the KC Athletics were nothing more than a ‘farm team’ for the Yanks.......check it out.

Sure, it’s disconcerting as a Sox fan to have to attempt to compete against such a cash rich club as the Yankees, but, keerist, at least we have a shot......what about most of the other AL teams? It ain’t ‘fair’...but it is what it is.

I would submit that the biggest move (or non-move) of this past season in the continuing Sox-Yankees passion play was.......both Brian Cashman and Theo Epstein were essentially ‘free agent’ general managers. Who signed and who didn’t, and more importantly.....WHY?