Archive for Johnny Damon

Yesterday afternoon, word got out that Bobby Abreu had agreed to a contract extension with the Angels, signing on for two more years in Anaheim. After having to wait until damn near Spring Training to find a job last year, Abreu jumped all over the $19M the Halos offered him. The deal even includes a vesting option for 2012 worth $9M, when Abreu will be 38. I mentioned this yesterday, but in two years I’m sure we’ll be hearing about ways the Angels can prevent that option from vesting.

Anyway, the entire reason I brought this up is because it indirectly affects the Yankees. Now we have a blueprint for what a new contract for Johnny Damon might look like, something we didn’t have before. The similarities between the two players are obvious: both will be 36 on Opening Day 2010 yet have proven to be extremely durable, both are former All Stars with a strong pedigree within the game, and both are defensively challenged corner outfielders. Their offensive styles are different – Abreu is more of an on-base guy with gap power, Damon offers more over-the-fence power – but in the end they’re both ~.850 OPS and ~2.8 WAR players.

Bobby’s deal will pay him $9M annually, which is about as good of a deal as he could have expected. Despite all the talk about how he “transformed the Angels lineup,” Abreu simply was not going to pull in eight figures annually on the free agent market, and the same holds true for Johnny. It’s almost inconceivable that the Yankees would offer Damon arbitration even though he qualifies as a Type-A free agent, because the risk of him accepting a getting a raise over his current $13M salary is just too great, even if it’s just one year.

It’s no secret that the New Yankee Stadium somewhat helped resurrect Damon’s career in 2009. He set a new career high with a .207 IsoP, tied his career high with 24 homers, and posted the second best slugging percentage (.489) of his career. On the road he was Jorge Cantu (.284-.349-.446), but at home he was Jason Bay (.279-.382-.533). All that makes him more valuable to the Yankees than anyone else.

Timing certainly plays a huge part of it. A few weeks ago, the thought of even re-signing Damon seemed like madness because he was slumping so badly. Now, after some late inning World Series heroics, we wonder how the team could survive without him. But two guaranteed years? I can’t see how you can lock yourself into that kind of commitment. One year plus an option? Absolutely. But you’re asking for trouble, and reducing your flexibility for next year, by bringing him back for two.

As for the money, obviously $9M a year is nothing for the Yankees. It’s overpaying, but not by an absurd amount. If you could talk him down to $7M with some incentives, you’d obviously prefer that. The bottom line is that it would behoove the Yankees not to lock themselves a commitment with Damon as long as the Angels did with Abreu. Just don’t underestimate the power of Scott Boras.

Categories : Hot Stove League
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Via MLBTR, Jon Heyman mentions that the Yankees “were believed willing to go for two years and $16 million” for Johnny Damon, but that was before the postseason. Damon’s recent heroics surely have bumped up his price just a bit. Regardless, two guaranteed years for Damon is nuts because just a week or so ago he looked fried amidst a two-month long slump. The Yanks would be wise to limit their offer to one guaranteed year, with an option, to not only reduce risk but to maintain roster flexibility beyond 2010.

Two years at $8M per for Johnny D? That one doesn’t pass the sniff test.

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Because of the way FOX produces baseball games, when Johnny Damon slid safely into second, popped up and then started heading for third, my heart dropped. “What are you doing?” I thought. How could Damon, already in scoring position for Mark Teixeira, dream of taking third when Pedro Feliz was covering second and had the ball?

It was then that I realized Pedro Feliz, the Phillies’ third baseman, had the ball. If he had the ball, well, then no one was covering third. And why was no one covering third? Because Mark Teixeira was up from the left side, and all year teams have put a drastic shift on for lefty Teixeira.

So when Feliz fielded the ball in front of the base, Damon raced him to third. Says Jayson Stark:

Damon admitted afterward he had never done this before. And, in fact, it wasn’t immediately clear the last time anyone did this. But Damon said he’d been talking about it and thinking about it all year, since it became clear The Shift was going to be a regular feature of Teixeira’s left-handed at-bats.

Damon had to be safe. He had to know he would be safe because with Phil Coke, and not Mariano Rivera, warming up for a tie game, the Yankees couldn’t afford to take chances. After the game, Damon chuckled disbelievingly at the play. “If it was Chone Figgins,” he said, “that might have been tough. I just went off of instinct. And fortunately, it worked out.”

Once on third base, Damon was firmly inside the heads of Brad Lidge and Carlos Ruiz, the Phillies’ battery. Lidge hit Mark Teixeira with the next pitch and refused to throw Alex Rodriguez a slider for fear that a wild pitch would give the Yanks the lead. A-Rod and Jorge Posada made that slider a moot point, and before the dust had settled, the Yanks were sitting pretty on a 7-4 lead.

While thinking about the play as the post-game show unfolded last night, I remembered 2003 and so did Derek Jeter. On Opening Day, the Yankees were in Toronto, and Jeter had a lead off first base. Jason Giambi hit a bouncer to Roy Halladay, and Doc threw to Carlos Delgado at first. Jeter knew that, with the Giambi shift on, third base was unoccupied, and he didn’t stop. Delgado threw across the diamond as Ken Huckaby, Toronto’s catcher, raced up the line. Huckaby caught the ball and crashed into Jeter. Derek’s shoulder was dislocated, and he would not play again until May 13.

Last night, there was no Ken Huckaby, no Carlos Ruiz, no Brad Lidge awaiting Johnny Damon at third base. The Yanks’ left fielder caught everyone off guard, and as the Yankee bench, millions of fans, and Carlos Ruiz watched the play unfold, Damon beat Feliz in a dash to third. It was a race for ages.

“You know how people always tell you that they’ve been in baseball for 40 years, 50 years, and things happen every game that they never saw?” Yankees bench coach Tony Pena said last night. “Well, I’ve never seen that before. I never saw that before in my life.”

Categories : Playoffs
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That gem of a quote was delivered by none other than Angels’ season ticket holder, and noted player agent, Scott Boras. Who was he talking about? None other than Johnny Damon. Boras, of course, was setting the stage for Damon’s impending free agency, noting that Johnny plays pretty much every day, something you can’t say for most 35-yr olds. He even goes so far to say Damon “has a 30-year-old’s body. He plays much younger.” I can’t say I’d go that for, but Damon did have a big year and set himself up well for the open market.

Categories : Asides
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Through the first five months of the season, Johnny Damon was sitting pretty. Playing out the last year of his Yankee contract, Damon was putting up a career year, and on Sept. 2, he was hitting .293/.373/.524. He had tied his career high in home runs with 24 and seemed destined to reach the quarter century mark.

Since then, though, it’s been one long slump for Johnny Damon. He ended the regular season on a 17-for 79 slide and hit just .215/.319/.278 over his last 92 plate appearances. He struck out 17 times, knocked out just five extra-base hits and never reached 25 home runs.

This poor offensive play has continued into the playoffs. Against the Twins, Johnny Damon seemed lost at the plate. He went 1 for 12 and struck out four times against Carl Pavano and the Twins’ pen last night. By his fourth at-bat, some Yankee fans were wondering if Brett Gardner deserves a start. Of course, Damon has more power potential than Gardner, but during the regular season, Damon’s play would probably earn him a mental health day off.

Generally, I wouldn’t be too worried about a 100-plate appearance slump. Damon is in one now, and it’s probably just a matter of time before he breaks out in a big way. But two aspects to Johnny Damon — his contract status and his willingness to play through injuries — makes me wonder if we should put some more stock into this slump.

As much as it is a cliché, Johnny Damon is a gritty player. He hates to sit, and he doesn’t share injuries with everyone. He’ll play through sore legs, a sore back, sore anything. Usually, we can tell when Damon is hurt because it impacts his performance, and he plays as he has been lately. His swings are late; he flails in the field; his game just isn’t on.

Meanwhile, Damon is also playing for a contract. He turns 36 in a few weeks, and Damon has seen the market for 36-year-old outfielders. He saw Bobby Abreu settle for a deal significantly lower than he expected, and he knows that he’ll be up against Matt Holliday, Jason Bay and Abreu on the free agent market this winter. He needs to play, and he needs to perform to prove his worth.

Finally, we arrive too at the Yankees’ specific aspect of this story. Although the Yankees’ players are focused on beating the Angels to reach the World Series, the Yankees’ Front Office knows that, shortly after the World Series ends, the free agent frenzy begins. The team will have to decide whether or not to re-sign their own free agents, and the Yankee brass may be gearing up to make a choice between Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui. Do they put stock into Matsui’s late-season surge and Damon’s late-season swoon? Do they look to get younger in left while retaining Matsui as a DH? Do they jettison the creaky-kneed Hideki while keeping Damon, the guy who has expressed a keen desire to stay in the Bronx?

Damon’s poor play of late isn’t making this decision any easier than it was, and it must gnaw at him to know that everyone is watching and evaluating and determining his future for him. For now, I hope last night’s Golden Sombrero is the end of his struggles. The Yankees will need his power at the plate and his speed on the bases for their ALCS match-up against the Angels.

Categories : Musings
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As mentioned before the game, there was a milestone or two at stake in this game. Both Mark Teixeira and the team were tied atop their respective home run leader boards, Teixeira tied with Carlos Pena atop the AL leaders and the team tied with the 2004 squad for most home runs by a Yankees team. While Mark had to settle for a tie, the team accomplished their milestone, and in grand fashion. It also brought along another milestone, one that was unlikely to be reached.

At the beginning, it looked like another lackadaisical game for the Yanks. They collected just three hits through the first five innings, and Derek Jeter, who knows no off switch, had two of them. It’s always tough to tell in that situation whether it’s the pitcher going well or the offense just not producing. Considering the Yankees position, it seemed like the latter. So the Yanks would go out losers of four straight. No big deal.

Apparently, they weren’t having any of that. Johnny Damon, who was 0 for 2 on the day and was slumping badly over the past few weeks, led off with a double. Mark Teixeira walked, and then A-Rod got a hold of one, sending it over the left field fence for home run No. 29 and RBI No. 96 on the season. It was a shame, I’m sure a few of you noted, that Alex would fall short of the 30/100 milestone, especially since he had such a great year. Still, 29 homers and 96 RBI in 124 games is pretty remarkable, especially considering the recovery he made from March hip surgery.

After Freddy Guzman ran for Hideki Matsui a batter later, it was clear the regulars were coming out. There was little chance A-Rod would get another at bat in the game. But then a series of strange events unfolded. After tapping one in front of the plate, Melky Cabrera ran as hard as I’ve ever seen him, just barely beating the throw to first base. Best of all, it didn’t look like he even entertained the idea of sliding. A batter later, Jose Molina tapped one in front of the plate as well, but Andy Sonnanstine couldn’t field it cleanly, allowing Guzman to score.

That’s when Damon struck again. With the bases loaded and two outs he laced one down the right field line, plating Melky and Swisher and putting runners on second and third. The Rays, not wanting to serve up Mark Teixeira’s 40th home run, intentionally walked him to get to A-Rod, which is like a pitcher walking Ortiz to get to Manny back in 2005. The bases were set up for A-Rod.

I don’t know how he did it. I don’t know why Sonnanstine left a pitch where he did, and I don’t know how A-Rod managed to get a hold of it and take it to right center. All I know is that it dropped beyond the fence, and in the span of one inning A-Rod has gotten to his 30 home runs and 100 RBI. With his three hits in the game he raised his average to .286 after being in the .260s in August. It’s been a wild ride for A-Rod, and now he’s facing his biggest challenge: producing in the playoffs.

Burnett’s tune-up wasn’t all bad. He allowed a home run to Evan Longoria in the first, a forgivable solo shot, and then another run scored on a Jose Molina passed ball. While Burnett allowed seven hits and a walk, a few too many baserunners in five innings, he also threw 55 of his 84 pitches for strikes, 65 percent. He came out after the fifth, but because the Yanks batted first in the sixth he picked up his 13th win of the season, lowering his ERA to an acceptable 4.04.

Afer that, the game was a cinch. The bullpen didn’t allow a hit or walk, and all five Yankees relievers recorded a strikeout. The story, of course, was Joba Chamberlain, who looked sharp in his frame, retiring the Rays with just nine pitches, seven of which were strikes. It wasn’t the setup man Joba were were quite used to — his fastball topped out around 95, though again that’s perfectly acceptable. He mixed that with an accurate slider to put down the Rays as fast as they came up. If this was a true audition for a postseason roster spot, he passed without question.

That’s it, folks. The regular season is over for the Yankees. Their 103 wins matches 2002’s total, which is the highest since 1998. We’ll go over the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, and the creamy middles between now and Wednesday, when the Yankees are expected to play their first playoff game since 2007. The game will start at 6:07 EDT regardless of whether it’s Wednesday or Thursday.

And with that, it’s time for an open thread. Discuss the game, A-Rod, the Tigers-Twins playoff — which will happen Tuesday — or anything else you want.

Categories : Game Stories
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The calendar has flipped from September to October, and while the playoffs aren’t quite here, everyone can feel it. These last three games won’t mean much, except maybe to CC Sabathia, who tries for his 20th win tonight. The rest is just a tune-up. But for two Yankees, it will be about setting a tone for the new month, the one that, for the Yankees and their championship-focused mentality, is all that matters.

Johnny Damon and Melky Cabrera have been slumping of late. That’s fine. The Yankees had matters pretty well at hand coming into September, so to have two-thirds of their outfield struggling wasn’t the worst thing in the world. As we like to say when players slump, better now than in the playoffs. Players streak and players slump. Neither lasts forever, which is why it’s perfectly fine that both have had their struggles in September.

Of the two, Johnny’s has been worse, if only because he’s a more important piece than Melky. While he’s still getting on base — a .347 OBP on the strength of 14 walks — Damon has seemingly lost the power stroke that made him a Yankee hero earlier this season. He has only four extra base hits in 96 September plate appearances, all doubles. Even worse, he has just 19 hits, making a slash line of .235/.347/.284.

It could be that Damon, who will turn 36 in November, is breaking down in his old age. But given the amount of rest Girardi has provided him, that seems unlikely. Damon has appeared in just 22 September games, starting only 20. He’s had two two-day breaks in the past 11, so there’s no doubt he’s as well rested as he’s been at this point. In that 11 game span, by the way, Damon is hitting .083/.267/.083. From September 1 through 19, he hit .298/.385/.368, so there was only a loss of power. There doesn’t appear to be any reason to think Damon will continue this slide.

Melky’s slump is less pronounced than Damons, but that’s because Melky has a lower baseline. In September he’s hitting .287/.361/.414, which is actually pretty good. In fact, if the Yankees could get Melky to hit that way consistently, he could definitely man center field. The problem, as with Damon, is his play of late.

We last wrote about Melky on September 8. He had just gone 3 for 4 with two RBI in the second game of the Tampa Bay doubleheader, in which he went 4 for 7 with a walk overall. Since our previous criticism, on August 19th, Melky had hit .348/.392/.464. But, just like every other time we criticize Melky, he turned it around. From the 8th through the 30th, Melky’s hitting .214/.302/.321.

Some players are going to slump in October. It’s just part of the game. If Melky continues hitting poorly, well, the Yanks just have to accept that. Thankfully, they can use Brett Gardner and have his speed in the lineup. But the Yankees can ill-afford to have Damon’s woes continue into the cool October nights. Unfortunately, there’s not much Girardi can do, other than to play Damon all three games this weekend and hope he hits a rhythm. He’ll have plenty of time to rest on Monday and Tuesday.

Categories : Offense
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Ben covered this in last night’s game recap, but I think the series of events which gave the Yankees their first lead of the game is worthy of its own post. It involved an odd, for him, but good call by Joe Girardi, a bonehead play by Melky, and culminated with a doubly bizarre play. At the sequence’s end, the Yankees had a 3-2 lead on the Angels, which set them up for a 5-3 victory.

Al Aceves replaced Joba Chamberlain to start the fifth inning, and Erik Aybar opened the frame with a double down the right field line. With the .220 hitting Jeff Mathis up next, a bunt was certain. That put Aybar on third with one out. Just last week Girardi brought in the infield in a similar situation — on the Toronto turf, no less. Perhaps he learned from that, as he played the infield back and allowed Aybar to score on a slow grounder. When your team scores over five runs a game, that’s the right call.

The Yankees were down 2-1, but with five more chances to take the lead. Nick Swisher got things started right away, matching Aybar with a double of his own to lead off the bottom half. After Melky walked, Jeter bunted both runners into scoring position. Having your best hitter give away an out seems like an odd decision, but it’s one we’ve come to expect from Girardi. Still, the Yankees had two chances hit a two-run single and give themselves a lead.

What followed was a mental mistake by Melky Cabrera. Johnny Damon hit a slow grounder, and Melky was headed right toward Chone Figgins. The former didn’t allow the latter a chance to field the ball cleanly, barreling into him. The umpire correctly called Melky out and ordered Swisher back to third. Chants of bullshit emanated from the crowd even though the call was not controversial in the slightest.

Melky’s gaffe illustrated why the bunt was a questionable call with Jeter at the plate. Now the Yankees had runner on first and third with two out and had still failed to plate a run. Mark Teixeira came to the plate in a situation where a single would only tie the game, though with Johnny Damon at first a double likely would have put the Yanks ahead. Still, that’s counting on a double, a dicey proposition even from a hitter like Teixeira.

As we know, Tex came through, but it wasn’t what anyone expected. He laid into a Jeff Weaver offering, sending the ball high and deep. It bounced off the center field wall, out of Torii Hunter’s reach, rolling back towards the infield and allowing Tex to take third base. Yet it could have been even more.

It turns out that Teixeira hit Jeff Mathis’s glove on his swing. So even on a swing where the catcher impeded the power he could generate, Tex still hit one off the wall. As Girardi said, Teixeira probably “would have had a home run if he didn’t have the [catcher's] interference.” It marks the second strange long hit by Teixeira this season. He previously homered on a broken bat.

If it ended there, perhaps it wouldn’t be bizarre enough to warrant a post. As Hunter collided with the wall in a vain attempt to catch Teixeira’s fly, he lost his shoe. No, really. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a big deal. But it was an appropriate cap to a bizarre series of events which started by handing the Angels the lead, and ended with the Yankees retaking it.

The only appropriate thing to say after all this: you can’t predict baseball. You just can’t.

Categories : Game Stories
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Early on, this was the kind of game that made you want to pull your hair out. The Yanks squandered an opportunity in the first inning. Then CC Sabathia came back out for the next inning and surrendered the small lead. The game got further away with an inexcusable play by Damon. The Yanks offense wouldn’t lay sleeping for long, though. They came on late and put the team out in front, avoiding the sweep at the hands of the Orioles.

After a quick, nine-pitch first inning, Sabathia ran into trouble in the second. Nolan Reimold, thorn in the Yanks side all series, led things off with a dribbler to third. He’s a quick kid, and A-Rod really had no chance. CC left one up and over the plate to Ty Wigginton, and he deposited it in shallow right. A four-pitch walk to Matt Wieters loaded the bases with none out.

CC turned it around and held the Orioles to two runs in that inning, both scoring on outs. The problems resurfaced in the third. CC retired the first two hitters, but the second, Nick Markakis, sent one out to the wall at the deepest part of the park. Reimold hit it similarly, but instead of right to center he split Melky and Damon for a double off the wall. After a walk he’d finish off the side without allowing a run to score, but CC still didn’t look sharp.

Then came the fourth, an inning to forget. Justin Turner reached on a slow grounder to third, frustrating as hell because a ball hit that weakly should be an out. But it wasn’t. Chad Moeller followed that with another weak grounder to third, and if it was anyone by Chad Moeller running, it likely would have been another infield hit.

So there was a runner on second with one out. I knew that. You knew that. Eight Yankees in the field knew that. Unfortunately, Jef Fiorentino hit it to the one guy who didn’t. Johnny Damon had a bit of trouble with the fly ball in the sun, and breathed a sigh of relief when it landed in his glove. He turned around to toss it to a fan, not realizing that CC still had an out to record. That bought Turner enough time to round third and give the Orioles a 3-1 lead. It was certainly one of the most embarrassing moments of the season.

That seemingly sparked Sabathia. He got Brian Roberts to pop out on the next pitch, and didn’t allow a hit the rest of the way. He walked two, but erased one on a first-pitch double play. That left him with a line of 7 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 4 BB, 1 K. The game didn’t go far in improving Sabathia’s until-now disgusting K/BB ratio.

For the offense, the early game was defined by a lack of hits with runners in scoring position. A-Rod came through with a double to score Jeter in the first, but the next two batters couldn’t plate the runners on second and third. They squandered Derek Jeter’s leadoff double in the third, mustering only a walk off Jeremy Guthrie.

In the fourth that changed, as the Yanks loaded up the bases with three straight singles, capped by a fourth by Melky Cabrera, plating two runs and tying the game. But the Yanks couldn’t plate another run in that inning, even after Johnny Damon walked to load the bases. The frame ended on an Alex Rodriguez strikeout looking. The pitch was clearly outside, but Marty Foster called it a strike anyway.

That led to a curious situation. After the Yankees took the field, apparently someone had a closer look at it. Alex said something and got tossed. Then Girardi blew up and got himself tossed. I’ll leave the umpire rant for another day. Yeah, the pitch was close, but it wasn’t a strike. If the ball doesn’t catch the corner, it should not be called a strike, and I don’t care if the ump is “consistently” calling them out there.

Matsui broke the RISP woes in the sixth, singling with the bases loaded and plating two runs. That would be all the Yanks would need, but they didn’t let it end there. In the bottom of the eight they poured it on, decimating the Baltimore bullpen and continuing their tradition of putting up enormous numbers in the final three frames. Matsui picked up a three run homer, which iced the victory. The homer didn’t kill the rally, though, and the Yanks put up five more runs and loaded up the bases before the O’s bullpen finally got out of it.

Instead of the scheduled off-day tomorrow, the Yanks will host Anaheim in a makeup of a rainout from earlier this year. The Yanks had won the first two games of that series, losing the third with Sabathia on the hill. Joba Chamberlain will go, and strangely I think he was the scheduled starter for the regularly scheduled game (but I could be wrong). The Yanks magic number is now down to an A-Rodian 13. It could get down to 12, depending on the Sox-Rays game this evening.

Categories : Game Stories
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While we still have a month left of regular season baseball and, hopefully, a few weeks of October play in the Bronx, nothing dominates the conversation quite like the Hot Stove League does. In his latest weekend roundup, John Perrotto drops in a bit about the Yankees and Johnny Damon:

The Yankees would prefer to re-sign Johnny Damon to a one-year contract for 2010 and allow outfield prospect Austin Jackson a second year to develop at Triple-A, meanwhile pursuing such big-name free-agent outfielders as Matt Holliday and Jason Bay in the offseason.

This is not, of course, the first time we’ve heard the rumblings about Damon and the Yanks. We looked at some early Damon rumors on the 18th and the potential costs of a deal on the 25th. One way or another, Damon and the Yankees will exchange ample conversations about 2010 once November rolls around.

What strikes me about Perrotto’s report are the two other pieces. The first part involves Austin Jackson. As a 22-year-old at AAA, Jackson’s numbers are far from terrible. He is hitting .294/.352/.401 and has stolen 22 out of 26 bases. That’s the good of it.

The bad of it is rather extensive. He has hit just four home runs all season; he has struck out 118; and his BABIP is an unsustainable .386. Plugging his numbers into the Minor League Equivalences tool gives us a line of .255/.301/.340. He makes Melky look like an All Star, and it is clear that Jackson needs a least part of another season at AAA.

Next up are the dueling Jason Bay/Matt Holliday rumors that Perrotto drops. For the most part this year, we’ve heard about varying degrees of interest the Yanks may have in these two players. Some sources say the Yankees will kick the tires on Bay — to force the Red Sox to pay more — and Holliday because he’d be a great fit for Yankee Stadium. Other sources say the Yankees are loath to dole out more multi-year contracts for aging outfielders and may not be in a position to do so financially after landing Mark Teixeira last winter.

Between Bay and Holliday, though, my choice would be Holliday. The current Cardinals outfielder is 21 months younger than Bay and has proven that he can hit outside of Coors Field this year. The idea of giving four or five years to either of these players though isn’t one I can readily embrace.

As the calendar marches on, we’ll hear a lot about Damon and the Yanks’ outfield plans for next year. They have a left field vacancy to consider and a center field spot that could use an upgrade. With Jackson potentially waiting in the wings but still some time away, the Yanks have some tough developmental choices to make this winter. How it plays out will be interesting indeed. It always is.

Addendum: Another reason the Yanks might be interested in retaining Damon.

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