Archive for Johnny Damon
Where have you gone, Johnny Damon?
Posted by: | CommentsThrough 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.
Johnny, Melky hope September slumps end in October
Posted by: | CommentsThe 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.
Perrotto: Yanks want Damon back for one year
Posted by: | CommentsWhile 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.
How much is that OF/DH in the window?
Posted by: | CommentsFor the Yankees, 2010 is shaping up to be something of a sandwich. Stuck between 2011, ideally the year of the Jesus (and perhaps A-Jax), and 2009, the year of Johnny Damon’s and Hideki Matsui’s impending free agency, the Yankees will see a lot of key spots in limbo next year. They could go to the wall on a few big free agents, they could re-sign those they know or they could ride out the tide.
The first one up to consider is Johnny Damon and the left field spot. On defense, Damon has been dreadful this year. His UZR is currently -7.3 after reaching 6.7 last year. Yet his offense has been tremendous. He has an .882 OPS and should reach a career high in home runs this year. He is also in the final year of a four-year contract paying him $13 million a year.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve examined how the Yankees want to bring Damon back and how Damon wants to return. Today, Jon Heyman adds his take to the Damon mix:
The Yankees intend to try to bring back Johnny Damon, probably for about $6-8 million a year (that’ll be the first offer, anyway), and might be willing to give him a second year. Damon’s been saying in the papers all year that he wants to be back, which is quite a departure from the usual free-agent script and could mean he’s that rare player amenable to a below-market contract. Yankees management loves Damon personally, too, and that doesn’t hurt.
That figure — $6-$8 million a year for two years — is pretty much what I assumed the Yankees would offer. According to Fangraphs, Damon will probably outperform his contract value this year. With a month of the season left, Damon’s value is pegged at $11.9 million. Allowing for age-related declines, I would assume a value of $10 million next year and $8-$9 million the year after. (Value, by the way, is something of an ideal figure. It’s WAR “converted to a dollar scale based on what a player would make in free agency.” That “would” requires perfect information and agreement as to a true value between the team and the player.)
Next up is Hideki Matsui. We know that Matsui likes New York, and in the comments to Joe’s most recent post, we were debating Matsui’s potential value to the 2010 Yankees. While Joe Girardi has talked about using the DH spot as a rotating half-rest spot for his aging veterans, I am of the belief that a premiere bat at DH would better serve the team. The Yankees can ill afford to lose Hideki Matsui and his 15.8 batting runs above average to a lineup that includes Ramiro Pena or Jose Molina every day.
But how much is Hideki Matsui worth? He too is playing out the last year of a four-year $52 million contract, and while Damon has met that value, Fangraphs pegs Matsui’s value as $24.2 million over the four years. Even with a monster September, Matsui won’t be worth much more than half of what he has been paid.
As long as Matsui can stay healthy enough to DH and produce as near his current levels next year, they should be willing to offer him a one-year deal with the idea that some combination of Jorge Posada, Mark Teixeira and Jesus Montero will assume the DH duties in 2011. In 2007, Frank Thomas DH’d for the Blue Jays and put up similar numbers to Matsui’s 2009 campaign. He earned $5.5 million and was worth approximately $9.9 million. If the Yankees and Matsui can agree to a one-year $8 million deal for 2010, I would approve.
The Yanks could look outside of Matsui and Damon, though. They could opt for an outfield of Melky Cabrera, Brett Gardner and Nick Swisher. While the defense would be stellar, the offensive production would suffer immensely. Damon’s WAR outpaces Melky’s by 2 wins and Gardner’s by 0.7 wins, mostly due to Brett’s defense. They could, as Ken Rosenthal speculated today, be in on Matt Holliday and Jason Bay, the top two free agent outfielders.
In the end, though, I’d rather give two 36-year-olds one-to-two year deals than give Jason Bay anything. I could be convinced to look at Holliday in Yankee Stadium for the right price, but with his career resurgence in St. Louis, he will be looking for a big pay day. No matter what, this off-season will be an interesting one as the Yanks look to fill a few short-term gaps and assess their organizational philosophy going forward.
Yanks, Damon heading toward a new deal
Posted by: | CommentsOnce this season wraps up, there are few big-name free agents among the Major League outfielders. Matt Holliday will clearly lead the list with Jason Bay and the oft-injured Vladimir Guerrero behind him. Beyond that, a bunch of mediocre outfielders and aging stars will tempt teams.
One of those aging stars we know quite well. The Yankees’ left fielder Johnny Damon will be a free agent at the end of the season. A year ago, I would never have predicted a Damon return to the Bronx for 2010 and possibly beyond, but Damon has turned in a 2009 to remember. He is hitting .283/.364/.521 with 22 HR. He should top his career high in home runs of 24, and his OPS+ currently stands at 129, also a career high.
As the season has unfolded, Johnny Damon has continually stressed his desire to remain in the Bronx, and the Yankees have noticed both this enthusiasm and his production. According to Tyler Kepner, the Yankees and Johnny Damon may be picking each other as Damon hits free agency. The Times scribe writes:
Before the season, there was a sense that the Yankees would allow Damon to move on and turn over his left-field spot to a prospect like Austin Jackson or a younger free agent like Matt Holliday. But Yankees officials seem to understand Damon’s value on the field and in the clubhouse, and now they would like him to return. When the Yankees want to keep a player and the player wants to stay, that is usually what happens.
“I don’t know where else I would want to go to,” Damon said. “Obviously, that’s not the right thing to say when you’re about ready to approach free agency, but I’m very happy with playing in New York, and my family’s happy I play for New York. There’s no bigger place to go. If you play well here, you’re going to get paid. New York has the resources. But we also have the chance to win every year. I don’t want to attempt to go make more money elsewhere, for more years, with a chance to be out of the race by the first of June.
…Damon’s agent is Scott Boras, who is never shy about seeking the highest bidder. But Damon said that during his last free agency, he instructed Boras not to bother gathering offers from West Coast teams. He said Boras would listen to his wishes. “Scott knows,” Damon said. “Even if I did sign another two- or three-year deal to come back to New York, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll be retired after that. There could be a time where I go somewhere and pinch-hit for a year or whatever.”
Damon, according to Kepner, recognizes that he’ll have to take a pay cut. After all, no team will pay an outfielder of his age more than the $13 million a year Johnny currently makes.
Now, we’ve recently saluted Johnny Damon. Not only is having one helluva season, but his career ranks him up there. His hits, runs and stolen base totals are among the leaders of this generation of baseball players, and he has been remarkably durable — or at least willing to play through injuries — since 1996.
Yet, I’m not sure how much I would give Johnny Damon. Two years seems reasonable, but should the Yanks be depending upon a 37-year-old Damon in 2011? If he isn’t blocking any younger — and potentially better — players, then so be it. As long as the Yanks do not handicap themselves with a sentimental deal, bring back Damon, but I’m rather wary of giving 36-year-old outfielders with decreasing range too many years or too much money.
The underappreciated Johnny Damon
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Every fan of every team believes there are certain players that don’t get the credit they deserve, but only a handful of players actually fall into that category. Current Yankee leftfielder Johnny Damon is one of those players. Thanks to last night’s 2-for-4 game, Johnny became the first player in more than 50 years (and the third overall) to rack up 600 or more hits with three different teams, which is pretty amazing when you think about it.
Since Johnny’s first career game on August 12th, 1995 (when he went 3-for-5 with a triple), exactly two players have more than his 2,389 hits, and they’re his teammates: Derek Jeter (2,672) and Alex Rodriguez (2,440). Damon’s also scored the third-most runs (1,459) in that time, again trailing Jetes & A-Rod. Stolen bases? He’s fourth (370) behind Juan Pierre, Kenny Lofton, and Eric Young.
Counting stats are nice, but Damon also ranks amongst the elite in wins over replacement, or WAR. With 42.2 WAR to his credit coming into the season, he has already placed above Hall of Famers Jim Rice (41.5) and Lou Brock (39.1), among others, on the Top 500 WAR list. And don’t forget that he’s still going, with more Cooperstowners like Kirby Puckett (45.0) and Ralph Kiner (45.8) within shouting distance.
Amazingly, Damon is currently enjoying the best season of his career at age 35. He’s two shy of tying his career high of 24 homers, which he set in his first year in pinstripes. His .532 SLG and .240 IsoP are far and away career highs, ditto his .894 OPS and 11.1% walk rate. Oh sure, Damon’s getting a ton of help from the New Yankee Stadium this year (.979 OPS at homer vs .803 on the road), but HitTracker says that every one of his homers would have been gone out in at least one other park, and 15 of his 22 homers would have left the yard in at least 20 big league ballparks. Even if you want to discount the 57 home games he’s played this year from his career production, it’s like taking a cup of water from the ocean.
Yet despite all of the numbers Damon’s racked up, he’s never been considered one of the elite players of the generation. He’s always been in that “very good” category, especially since he signed with the Yankees. Is he a Hall of Famer? I don’t think so, but you can make a case he should be. I do know this though: Johnny’s been one of the best and most consistently productive players in the game since the day he set foot in the big leagues. I tip my cap to him.
Photo Credit: Uli Seit, NYT





