“It’s all about jokes, doing naked pull ups and putting on my shorts in front of the other guys.”

Let’s be clear: I’m not trying to bury Melky Cabrera. I simply think he’s vastly overrated (and, incidentally, think that if any GM overrates him so, we should see what we can get for him). His arm is valuable in center, but as I’ve continually noted, he often takes poor routes to balls, resulting in him making fewer plays than he should given his range. Dave Pinto’s Probabilistic Model of Range agrees with me. It actually rates Melky below Johnny Damon in center.

Now, this clearly isn’t a flawed metric. I think we can all see, on the whole, that Melky is better defensively in center than Damon at this point in his career. However, that’s heavily considering Melky’s arm. When it comes to ability to get to batted balls, they’re on more even ground. If there’s a gap shot to right center, I’d actually feel more comfortable with Damon running it down than Melky (though that’s just one man’s opinion). But on a medium fly ball with a runner on third and less than two outs, you and I would both rather have Melky there.

Anyway, I just wanted to use PMR to illustrate that point. Johnny Damon is by no means a poor center fielder. He just has Berniearm. And yes, in many ways that can hurt us over the course of a season. But if we were to get a quality offer for Melky, I would be totally comfortable with Damon starting the year in center field. Check that: as long as Matsui isn’t in left. I understand how poor that would make our outfield defense.

Much to the chagrin of the woman sitting in front of me at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, I am no fan of Johnny Damon. As the Yanks’ lead-off hitter - and someone tell me why he still leads off - strolled to the plate, my dad and I noted Damon’s decline and his slow bat speed.

While the lady in front of me with her Number 18 t-shirt on kept glaring back at me and loudly commented, “I guess Damon can still play” while shooting me a dirty look a few innings later when he homered, the fact is that Johnny Damon is an albatross around the Yankees’ necked.

In December of 2005, the Yanks signed Damon to a four-year, $52-million deal. While the Red Sox declined to match that deal, the first season of the contract made the Yanks looked great. For $13 million, the Yanks got a centerfielder with a bad arm but good range who could hit for power and average and steal bases.

This year, it all came crashing down. Damon, hot of late, is hitting just .251 but with a respectable .353 OBP. However, he’s slugging just .356, and he has followed up his 2006 extra-base hit total of 64 with just 23 this season. In the field, he’s a disaster. His arm is worse than ever, and he has officially lost the starting centerfield job to Melky Cabrera, a far superior defender.

Now, the Yanks are facing a choice. They have a lot of players playing good baseball. Shelley Duncan is swinging a hot bat; Andy Phillips has been great of late; and Melky Cabrera has emerged as the heart and soul of the young players on the team. With Jason Giambi due for a return, someone’s got to go from the starting lineup.

As Joe Torre, the Yankees manager who seems to have been the victim of a vote of no-confidence from the Front Office, tends to favor his Experienced Veterans, I fear that Melky, much to the detriment of the offense and defense, will be the odd man out. That is, unless the Yanks bench Johnny Damon.

Now, recently a rumor emerged that Damon was on the trading block. As much as the Proctor trade was designed to protect the Yanks from Torre while improving the team, a Damon trade could do the same thing. And obviously, Johnny Damon, who didn’t play yesterday much to the surprise of himself, isn’t too happy about that. He says he wants to play and win in New York. He says he wasn’t sure why he was the odd man out yesterday.

But if I’m the Yankees and some team wants Johnny Damon, I trade him in a heartbeat. There’s no doubt that, with $26 million left on his contract, he’ll clear waivers. With Giambi in the DH slot and Melky firmly entrenched in center, Damon’s spot on this team would be a pinch runner, and $13 million for a pinch runner is a hefty sum.

So two days ago, I (probably misguidedly) advocated trading current centerfielder. Today, I’m advocating for trading the former centerfielder. If the deal arrives, do it.

The Yanks, despite winning Friday’s completion of the suspended game, have lost three in a row, and Johnny Damon is fueling this stretch of bad baseball. He is 2 for his last 14 with a .200 OBP. He’s left 9 runners on base in his 15 plate appearances. With Shelley Duncan lingering on the bench, Damon needs a rest.

As the trade deadline approaches, the rumors ramp up. This one deals with the Yanks’ new aging and over-the-hill outfielder Johnny Damon. Rotoworld links to this article in the Newark Star-Ledger that notes the Yanks have called a few teams about Johnny Damon. While Damon has a limited no-trade clause and makes too much money, the Yanks would like to move him to free up the space so that Melky Cabrera and Jason Giambi can play everyday. I think this one’s wishful thinking on the Yanks’ part though.

So the Yanks have started the second half going 6-2, and I would be lying if I said I was okay with Thursday’s lost. Up 2-0 after the first inning and facing a crappy pitcher, the Yanks’ bats were silenced for 8 innings. Chien-Ming Wang had one stretch of ineffectiveness, and that was all.

So while the Red Sox lost again, the Yanks couldn’t quite close the gap to six. Heading into another four-game weekend series against the Devil Rays, the Yanks still sit seven out in the division.

Looking back at today’s game, it’s tough to really blame anyone for the loss. The Yanks, with Wil Nieves in the lineup (a prospect akin to pitchers hitting in the NL), simply could not muster much offense. They hit into some bad double plays. I do however wonder about the 9th inning strategy.

Alex Rodriguez singles to lead off the inning, and two days after the Yanks tied the game in the 9th on aggressive baserunning, A-Rod stayed put at first. Maybe a steal was in order. Maybe Torre should have managed for the tie instead of a win. But no matter. If the Yanks play .750 ball for a few more weeks, we’ll have a pennant race yet.

More alarming to me is the black hole of suck coming out of the DH space in the Yanks’ lineup. Johnny Damon, no longer the team’s center fielder, is hitting .158/.338/.175 in July after hitting .226/.286/.333 in June. He’s managed three extra-base hits since June 6th, his last coming on July 1st. He’s also 0 for his last 17.

Down on the farm, Shelley Duncan went 2-for-3 with his 25th home run. His total is second highest only to A-Rod in the Yankee organization, and I have to wonder how much longer the Yanks can stick with Damon in the lineup. He’s just not a viable lead-off hitter right now and has lost his outfield job. The Yanks need production from the DH spot if they’re going to make a run for October. With Giambi out indefinitely, Damon has to step up or sit down.

For the rest of your Yankee farm system needs, check out the Yankees Prospect daily report. It’ll have Thursday’s numbers up for a bit, and again, feel free to produce your own version of DotF in the comments. (In fact, if any of you would be interested in taking on this feature on a daily basis while Mike is away, e-mail me at ben at riveraveblues dot com.)

Update by Mike: Hola all - just wanted to mention that with that homer, Shelley is now the single season homerun record holder for the SWB franchise, and that includes all those years they were affiliated with the Phils. Shelley has 44 games left in the season to add to that total. Redonkulous.

Back in 2004, Donald Rumsfeld, the then-Secretary of Defense, uttered his now-infamous words about the U.S. Army in Iraq. “As you know,” he said, “you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want.” While I’m loathe to ever think about Rumsfeld these days, as I ponder the Yankees and their nine-game winning streak that has rejuvenated a season many had written off, his words ring true with the Yankees.

Take Johnny Damon, the Yankees’ once and former centerfielder. When the Yankees signed Damon in December of 2005, we knew we were getting an aging, banged-up player who could still hit and cover ground in the outfield but could never really throw. The Yanks were okay with that. Fast-forward to 2007, and Johnny Damon has, in effect, turned into Bernie Williams. I don’t mean that in a good way.

Heading into today’s game, Damon has been a non-factor on this team. He’s dealt with a variety of aches and pains this season, and his defense and throwing arm have gotten so shoddy that he has, in effect, lost his starting job to Melky Cabrera, a far superior defensive outfielder. When (if?) Jason Giambi returns from the DL, Torre will have to sacrifice outfield defense if he wants Damon’s bat in the lineup. And that’s probably turning into a big “if” these days.

As Bobby Abreu, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui have, with help from Melky and Robinson Cano, carried the Yankees for the month of June, Johnny Damon hasn’t done much of anything. Damon this month is hitting .220/.291/.280, and he has just one home run since May 13. Johnny Damon 2007 is, so far, a far cry from the 24-HR Johnny Damon 2006.

Looking ahead to the next two seasons, the Yanks and Damon are wedded to each other no matter what. Much like the Bernie Williams situation, the Yanks have a banged up outfielder well on the wrong side of 30 showing drastic signs of decline in the field and at the plate. But it didn’t have to be this way.

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Jim Baumbach brings us good news from the clubhouse on Johnny Damon. The Yanks’ injured centerfielder is feeling better and no longer seems destined for the DL. Who knows if this is Damon’s playing through an injury or real news? Either way, good for the Yanks.

We must be the last Yankee outlet to mention this, but yeah, Johnny Damon’s reported cramps from Monday are, uh, it’s a bit worse. Word now is a strain. Damon’s scheduled downgrade to “slight tear” is sometime around noon tomorrow.

Also mentioned in the article is the return of Ron Villone. He inked a minor league deal today, leaving us fans to wonder if we’re ever going to get rid of this guy.