Archive for Johnny Damon
Quick updates: Hairston, Damon, Nady
Posted by: | CommentsBuster Olney gives us two interesting nuggets today. First off, he says the Yankees never made an offer to Jerry Hairston Jr., despite their reported interest in bringing the jack-of-all-trades back. Jerry Jr. got his ring last year, so he headed to San Diego over the weekend for a little extra cash and the chance to play with his brother. Can you blame him?
Olney also mentions that the Yanks have had no recent contact with Johnny Damon. Ever since the Nick Johnson signing became official, there’s been basically zero movement on the Damon front. It’s apparent the team has no interest in bringing him back unless it’s on their terms and their terms only. Will Scott Boras crack? I say no.
And finally, Boras indicated that Xavier Nady is on schedule to be ready for Spring Training. “The doctors have his throwing program ahead of schedule,” said the superagent, however we’ve already heard that he’s out of the Yanks’ price range. Given the concern about a second Tommy John surgery, I don’t see why the Yanks should risk a roster spot and anything more than the league minimum on a proven league average commodity with basically zero upside.
Braves still on the Damon trail
Posted by: | CommentsWe’re just 35 days away from pitchers and catchers, and we’ve still yet to hear of another team making Johnny Damon an offer. We’ve heard of teams interested in him, both as rumors from sources and as speculation. But even when someone reported on an actual offer, someone else shot it down. Johnny will certainly receive an offer, maybe a few, in the next few weeks, and one will likely come from the Braves. They remain interested, and figure to be the most logical Damon destination other than the Bronx.
David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the reporter who shot down the rumored Damon offer, says that the two parties remain a match, “and it could happen now that his price has presumably shrunk along with his market.” While the price drop remains a presumption, Damon’s market has certainly shrunk over the past few weeks. His potential suitors, including the Braves, have all added pieces that would make him less of a priority, if not preclude him altogether.
With Juan Uribe, Mark DeRosa, and Aubrey Huff in the fold, the Giants probably don’t have room for Damon. Seattle reportedly expressed interest earlier in the off-season, but have since added Milton Bradley in addition to Ken Griffey Jr. That pretty much fills the LF and DH spots, and the team also has a number of low-cost options, such as Ryan Langerhans and youngster Michael Saunders, so adding Damon seems out of the question. That leaves New York and Atlanta.
Even with those teams, Damon has little leverage. The Yankees have made no secret of their budget and what remains of it. While that could expand under the right circumstances, and while they could attempt to trade Chad Gaudin and his presumed $3 million arbitration figure, both don’t remain likely possibilities right now. While the Braves could use all the outfield help they could get, they do have a few options in 2010. In addition to Nate McLouth, they’ve added Melky Cabrera and Eric Hinske, and have Matt Diaz and top prospect Jason Heyward. Sure, Damon is better than Melky, Hinske, and Diaz, and is a better bet than Heyward. But the Braves do have options.
What has become apparent from Damon’s situation, along with Bobby Abreu’s from last year, is that teams just aren’t that willing to sign veteran corner outfielders to multiyear deals. Because the player seeks a long-term deal at the beginning of the off-season, he loses out and the price for even one year of service dwindles. The Yankees apparently offered two years and $14 million in December. Is there another offer like that out there now? It doesn’t appear so. Damon will probably have to settle for one year at a $6 or $7 million salary. That’s what happens when your options balk at your demands and seek alternatives.
The twists and turns of Johnny Damon’s off-season
Posted by: | CommentsTo kick off the 2009 Winter Meetings, Brian Cashman delivered a quote that we’ve parroted ever since. When describing the team needs, Cashman said he sought “pitching, pitching, pitching — and left field.” Pitching he has since covered, bringing back Andy Pettitte and trading for Javy Vazquez. But what about left field? He addressed center field by acquiring Curtis Granderson, but has done nothing about left field. In fact, he traded his longest tenured outfielder, leaving the position a bit more uncertain. Ever since, we’ve attempted to determine the best candidate for the spot.
Cashman recently said that the team “is, for the most part, set.” He went on to say that the team likes Brett Gardner in left field, though we’ve heard similar things from Cashman in the past only to have him change course when the opportunity arises. This happened last winter, when he described the potential acquisitions of both Mark Teixeira and CC Sabathia “fantasy land, not reality land.” The more common reference goes back to Bubba Crosby, the supposed center fielder heading into 2006 — until, of course, the Yankees signed Johnny Damon.
Could Damon end up back with the Yankees under similar circumstances? It doesn’t appear likely, but with Damon’s market practically nonexistent at this point there’s no ruling it out. It would be a wild ride if it happened, given all we’ve heard about the Damon-Yankees relationship this off-season.
Damon got the ball rolling at the World Series parade, expressing his desire to come back but letting everyone know just how highly he thinks of himself.
“I’m going to have a lot of options, so I think what it comes down to is what kind of option the Yankees want to give me or not give me. Why wouldn’t I want to come back? We have the best owners in baseball, we have the best team and we have the most revenue and the biggest payroll. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of the Yankee tradition? I would like to continue mine. I feel like I can come back and do a great job again.”
Predictably, Damon’s market did not develop as he had planned. He never had a lot of options, though that didn’t stop his agent, Scott Boras, from playing his hand as though a dozen teams expressed interest. Word leaked that Boras told the Yankees to not bother marking an offer unless it was at least three years at $13 million. Since no team was going to offer that, the Yankees moved on.
When they started negotiating with Nick Johnson, apparently Damon recognized the urgency of the situation. He reportedly offered to come back for two years and $20 million, but the Yankees, already knee deep in the Johnson negotiations, stuck to their two-year, $14 million offer. Damon understandably rejected that, thinking that perhaps he could catch on with another team in need of a corner outfielder with leadoff hitter skills.
Since the Johnson signing, we’ve heard little of other teams’ interest in Damon. The Yankee talk started up again after the Vazquez trade, since the team sent Melky Cabrera, the presumed left fielder, to Atlanta. But Cashman quickly quelled the chatter. Damon, too, admits that there’s nothing to rumors of a reunion, at least for the moment. “I haven’t had any conversations with them recently. Nothing would surprise me, out there’s nothing there right now.”
The most recent nugget on Damon came on Monday, from Jon Heyman of SI. In the notes portion of his column he said that the “Braves and Giants are believed to have made offers for Damon.” A few hours later, Dave O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweeted that the Braves did not have an offer on the table. And, since the Giants signed Aubrey Huff on Sunday, chances are they don’t have room for Damon either. His off-season saga continues.
With the team all but set, the Damon situation represents our last bit of excitement before actual baseball. The team might add a left fielder or utility player between now and Spring Training, but it’ll be just another transaction. Whether Johnny Damon come back or signs elsewhere affects how we will enjoy the 2010 season. Not that I’ll enjoy it any less without Damon. It’ll just be different.
Report: Huff lands in San Francisco
Posted by: | CommentsAccording to television reports on CBS 5 (KPIX) out of San Francisco, the Giants have signed Aubrey Huff to a one-year deal worth $3MM. He’ll man first base for the Gigantes, pushing Kung Fu Panda to third and Mark DeRosa to left.
Why do you care? Because Huff’s signing presumably eliminates another potential landing spot for Johnny Damon. With the Mets, Cardinals, and now the Giants out of the Damon sweepstakes, the only two realistic suitors left are the Yanks and Braves. I suppose Scott Boras could find another mystery team to show interest in Johnny, though we all know that would be a load of crap. Damon’s options are dwindling, and that could be very good news for the Yanks.
Damon hasn’t closed the door on a return
Posted by: | CommentsWhile the Yankees continue to wait and wait and wait for the market for second and third tier free agent outfielders to develop, Johnny Damon toils in limbo, and he indicated to Nick Cafardo that he’s hasn’t completely closed the door on a return to the Bronx. “I knew I’d probably have to take a pay cut, just based on the way the economy is in this country and baseball,” said Damon. “But I thought I had a productive season and I think I showed people I can play and still do something at a high level.’’
Cafardo says Scott Boras came to the Yanks and proposed a $10M salary, however the Yanks are thinking more along the lines of $6-7M, a paycut Damon isn’t willing to take. He did say he’d be more than willing to play for Atlanta, who has a little bit of money to spend and a perpetual need for offense. Buster Olney says that executives from other clubs are convinced that he’ll end up back in New York.
It’s looking more and more like Johnny Damon is the Bobby Abreu of this offseason. In fact, we can say with certainty that he is. Abreu ended up taking close to a 70% paycut when he finally signed in mid-February, and while I’m not sure Johnny will have to take that big of a cut, it’s not going to be pretty.
Cashman: ‘Our team is, for the most part, set’
Posted by: | CommentsThe headline is what Brian Cashman said to The Record’s Pete Caldera. But Cashman didn’t leave it at that. He got a bit more specific about the teams plans.
On left field: “We have a left fielder. We do like Brett Gardner.”
On any further acquisitions: “We’re just playing with the bench right now.”
Though there’s no quote for it, Caldera notes that the team is not quite done: “Cashman acknowledged that he’s searching for a right-handed hitter.” That would seemingly take Johnny Damon out of play, but I’ll drop the never say never cliche with that. It seems more and more likely that the Yankees will sign, or attempt to sign, Reed Johnson.
How many homers would Johnny Damon hit in other ballparks?
Posted by: | CommentsOne line we’ve parroted this off-season is that Johnny Damon is more valuable to the Yankees than any other team because his plate skills align well with Yankee Stadium. With the shorter porch in right, Damon can turn what would be fly balls in other parks into home runs. Yet it’s tough to determine just how many of his home runs would have stayed in other parks. That is, until the Ballpark Overlay Tool. Using this and Hit Tracker, we can see how the same hits would have landed in other home ballparks.
The tool is quite basic. It’s a 1.2MB Photoshop file consisting of 31 layers. The first 30 represent the dimensions of each major league ballpark. The last is for our manipulation. By going to a player’s home run chart on Hit Tracker, we can paste the image onto that 31st layer, unhide the layer of the appropriate ballpark, and make our observations. So let’s look at Damon’s 2009 home runs from the perspective of Turner Field and AT&T Park, homes of the Braves and Giants, two potential Damon suitors.
Damon at Turner Field:
Damon at AT&T Park:
It looks like at least seven of Damon’s Yankee Stadium home runs would have stayed in the park at Turner, and six would have stayed in at AT&T — though there are four home runs on the borderline. So, while Damon still would have hit a healthy number of home runs at AT&T Park and Turner field, there would certainly be a drop-off, especially on the home runs towards right-center. That’s where he took the greatest advantage of Yankee Stadium.
Of course, things change from year to year, and in Damon’s case, so would the pitchers. This in no way means that Johnny will hit six or seven fewer home runs at home if he signs with the Braves or Giants. Bill Baer of Crashburn Alley explains in the comments on Capitol Avenue Club:
I think it should be noted, however (NERD ALERT!), that in using this for analysis one can’t just say, “X amount of Player’s homers in Old Ballpark would not have been homers in New Ballpark, so he should be expected to hit X less home runs.”
Albert Pujols, one of the most consistent power hitters in the game, has a standard deviation of 6 HR per season with an average of 41. That means that roughly 68% of the time, we expect Pujols to hit between 35-47 HR, and 29-53 HR 95% of the time. So, if he was moving to Seattle, we could point out that X amount of his HR wouldn’t have cleared the fence at Safeco, but he would have to have hit a lot of cheapies for it to affect our analysis of his power output.
This overlay analysis requires one to effectively chop the available sample size in half, which certainly raises the uncertainty level, especially with younger players.
The post’s author goes on to note other factors which would affect a player’s home run totals in other ballparks, including wind and fence height. There’s also the issue of long fly balls that stay inside larger ballparks but would fly out of others. I’m not so sure that makes a big difference in Damon’s case. I don’t remember him smashing balls the opposite way very often, and it’s in left-center that Yankee Stadium is at its most spacious.
Still, it’s an interesting tool that can help us better understand how a ballpark factors into a player’s performance. It leaves many questions unanswered — in addition to those above, the question of whether Damon shoots for the fence at YS remains a mystery — but I think it makes pretty clear that Damon’s power at other home ballparks just wouldn’t be the same as in Yankee Stadium. That factor, perhaps, is the leading reason for Damon’s return to the Bronx.
Glove slap to Tango for the link.
If you want to play with the tool, you’ll need either Adobe Photoshop or GIMP. You can then download the Ballpark Overlay Tool. Once you open it up, head to Hit Tracker and find a player. Right click on his home run chart and select Copy Image. Paste that into the Player layer and unhide the ballpark you want to examine. It’s a damn entertaining tool, I must say.
Update: Commenter JGS asked that I overlay Damon’s home runs over Yankee Stadium, and I’m glad he did.
Hmm…I guess there’s a reason that the Ballpark Overlay Tool is still in beta testing.
Link Roundup: Former Yankees in the news
Posted by: | CommentsDamon a fit in Atlanta?
Want to read 1000 words on how and why Johnny Damon would be a great fit for the Braves’ lineup? Well, then point your browsers to this David O’Brien blog post and prepare for a lengthy analysis. O’Brien says Atlanta has around $7-$8 million per season for two years to offer to Damon, and since Scott Boras has yet to field a better offer, Damon just might accept.
Now, if that salary figure sounds familiar, that’s because it is reportedly what the Yankees were willing to pay Damon for at least 2010 and maybe 2011. Would Damon then accept a lesser salary with another team than he would with his former employers? Joe tackled just that question in his closing arguments, and it’s worth noting that some people are more comfortable taking lesser money from a new team than they are with taking a paycut to stick with their old one. In the end, Damon will produce no matter the salary, but he could have a better early-season outlook in Atlanta than with the Yankees.
If the Braves opt against pursuing Damon, I’m not sure where or for how much Damon ends up. The Braves — and of course the Yankees — are simply the two best and last real remaining options for Johnny. Unless the Cardinals lose out on Matt Holliday, Damon will have few choices for a player coming off a great year. He really is this year’s Bobby Abreu.
Yanks, 14 others ask about Wang
Yesterday, we learned that Chien-Ming Wang would throw off a mound in mid-to-late Feburary. Today, we hear of interest in the rehabbing right-hander. Alan Nero, Wang’s agent, told Andrew Marchand that 15 teams have inquired into the status of the former 19-game winner and erstwhile ace. The Yankees, but not the Mets, were among those teams, and I still would not be surprised if Wang returned to the Bronx on an incentive-laden deal this year.
Matsui: I want to play the outfield
Hideki Matsui’s insistence that he will play some games in the outfield in Anaheim continues to amuse me. Last week, the World Series MVP returned home to Japan and held a press conference at which he reiterated his belief that he will see some time in left field in 2010. “I’d like to prove I can play defense at spring training,” Matsui said during a news conference. “It will be difficult to play defense every day like in the past, but I’d like to reach the point where I’m able to play defense once every few games.”
Matsui, never a great defender, last played the field on June 15, 2008 — coincidentally the same day Chien-Ming Wang suffered his career-derailing Lisfranc injury. Since then, he has undergone at least one knee surgery and a few procedures to drain fluids from his knees, but if the Angels want to risk, so be it.
The story behind Fred McGriff and Tom Emanski
How, you may ask, does Fred McGriff end up on a link dump of news concerning former Yankees? Well, New York drafted McGriff in the ninth round of the 1981 amateur draft, and then the team traded him with Dave Collins and Mike Morgan on December 9, 1982 to the Blue Jays for Tom Dodd and Dale Murray. It wasn’t a good trade. Anyway, while McGriff made a name for himself with the bat, he is in one of the longest running baseball video commercials of all time, and today, Tyler Kepner gets the story behind the Emanski endorsement. His teams did win back to back to back A.A.U. National Championships, after all.
Randy Johnson will announce his retirement tomorrow
The Big Unit spent two productive years in pinstripes, and his Hall of Fame career appears to have ended: Bob Nightengale says RJ will announce his retirement tomorrow morning. He went 34-19 with a 4.37 ERA in pinstripes, though he really made his mark with the Diamondbacks. When Arizona signed Johnson to a four year, $53M contract in 1999, they were rewarded with four Cy Youngs and a 2.52 FIP with 1,417 strikeouts in 1030 innings. Wow.
Left field closing arguments: Johnny Damon
Posted by: | CommentsEach player in our left field closing arguments series has potential upside with considerable downside. Today’s player offers upside with little downside. I think Damon remains the preference of nearly everyone out there, but just in case…
For the past four years, Johnny Damon has been awesome. When the Yankees signed him to a four-year, $52 million contract in the winter of 2005, they were widely praised, though with the caution that they might regret it in the last year or two. Then, when he started off slow in 2007, people wondered if the Yankees would get just one good year out of Damon. Alas, he recovered in 2008 and posted two of the best seasons of his career to finish the contract. Now a free agent without a home, we’re all wondering if Damon will swallow some pride and return to the Yankees.
Issues of money and contract length separate the two sides. Scott Boras originally sought a multiyear contract at $13 million per annum, Damon’s salary through his last contract, but no team came close to biting. While Damon can still produce, he’s just not the same player that signed the contract in 2005. The Yankees acquired him to play center field, but by the end of his contract he was stuck in left field and not playing well even there. His hitting ended up better than expected — his OPS+ was actually higher with New York than with Boston, where he played during his prime years.
How far will Damon’s salary fall? The Yankees, reportedly, offered him a two-year, $20 million contract, but Damon wouldn’t take. Then, when the reports surfaced that the Yankees were talking to Nick Johnson, Damon acquiesced, only to find that he was too late. The Yankees were already too far in the Johnson negotiations, and didn’t want to pay Damon his 2/20 along with Johnson’s salary. We haven’t seen anything linking the two parties — and even saw explicit denials of interest after the Yankees traded Melky Cabrera to the Braves. But this is all part of a larger game. The Yankees and Damon still match up, and we could certainly see them strike a deal.
There’s no questioning Damon’s ability to hit, especially at Yankee Stadium. During his four years in New York he posted a .285/.363/.458 line, dragged down by a poor 2007 in which he hit. 270/.351/.396, mostly due to a terrible start. In the second half of that year he hit .296/.364/.450, much closer to his Yankees career than his terrible first half. He’s even better at home, a big attraction to the Yankees. In the inaugural season of the New Yankee Stadium, he hit .279/.382/.533 in 318 PA. His road numbers, .284/.349/.446, weren’t quite as good, but still very good considering what he does at home.
Damon does show a platoon split, but it’s not an enormous cause for alarm. In 2009 he had a .889 OPS against righties and a .776 OPS against lefties. In 2008 the split was .889/.710, a bit more drastic but still not horrible, especially because of his .342 OBP against lefties that year. No, it’s not an ideal platoon scenario, but the Yankees have help if they want to sit Damon against tough lefties. That’s one advantage of having the lefty-mashing Jamie Hoffman on the roster. But even if Damon plays against tough lefties, he’s not useless. He can handle himself, and perhaps handle himself better at his home ballpark.
On the negative side there are three areas of concern. First, Damon’s age. He’ll play his age 36 season in 2010, an age where many players see their numbers decline. On a multiyear deal that might be cause for larger concern, but on a one-year deal, especially one for seven figures (rather than eight), the Yankees can mitigate that risk. The major risk, really, is that he falls off a cliff, but while that’s possible, I don’t think it’s probable. Again, Damon is coming off perhaps the best season of his career, and if he re-signs with the Yankees will have the same ballpark benefits.
Second, his late-season slump. Damon posted excellent numbers in almost every month of the 2009 season, his best coming in August when he hit .327/.371/.622 and helped the Yankees run away with the division. But he fell flat in September, hitting just .247/.350/.315. Could that have been a sign of decline? Perhaps. He did continue the futility in the first round of the playoffs, going 1 for 12 with a walk in the ALDS. But then he bounced back to have a good ALCS and excellent World Series. It looks like Damon’s slump was just that. Plus, if there really is tiring with age, the Yankees can sit him more in favor of Brett Gardner. In fact, that might be the ideal scenario for Gardner heading into the 2010 season: 4th outfielder who regularly spells Damon in left.
Third, his defense. It was pretty bad in 2009, both by scouting and by statistical standards. I tried to find a glimmer of hope, but was unsuccessful (Keith Law even added a negative scouting report to supplement the numbers). The good news is that, just like players can have bad offensive seasons, so they can on defense. Maybe Damon’s poor 2009 in left was just a blip. Maybe he really did, as he claims, get better as the season moved along. There’s no guarantee, of course, that Damon bounces back. But his bad 2009 doesn’t mean he can’t. He certainly can, and if he does he’ll be of even more value — and perhaps compensate for any decline he sees on offense.
Of all the options we’ve so far explored in this series, Damon makes the most sense. He’s familiar with New York and has thrived in the spotlight. He’s also a much better bet with the bat than any of the other suitors, and though he had a bad 2009 on defense he could rebound in 2010. Money separates the two sides now, but as we get closer to pitchers and catchers reporting, maybe Damon will realize that the market isn’t quite what he had imagined. It might hurt his pride to take a one-year deal with a massive pay cut, but it’s also in his best interests as a player. If the Braves and the Yankees offer the same deal, why would he go to Atlanta? They don’t offer the opportunity and familiarity of New York.
We each have our own reasons for the decisions we make. Maybe Damon wouldn’t be comfortable returning at a greatly reduced salary. Maybe he’s insulted that the richest franchise in the game won’t overpay for him. But if he wants the best chance to win, it’s with the Yankees. At the right price, I’m sure they’d like to have him back.
So now, whenever a rumor surfaces involving Damon and the Yankees, we can refer back to this post and its comments. Have your final say now.
Photo credit: Eric Gay/AP
Summarizing the Damon situation
Posted by: | CommentsWe’re very familiar with the breakdown in negotiations between Johnny Damon and the Yankees. We know what the Yanks were willing to pay and how Damon and Scott Boras have seemingly overvalued the left fielder. Today, at The Hardball Times, Chuck Brownson summarizes the Damon situation and walks away with a conclusion that Damon’s fielding averages out to average over the last three years and he can still hit. “Damon’s value, therefore,” writes Brownson, “should have him worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 to $12 million per year for two years. Even at the discounted market rate this offseason, he’s easily worth $16 million over two years and yet, there’s seemingly very little interest in his services.
The problem though is one of decline. Damon’s defense has seen a decline over the last three years, and he is at an age when one year can be the difference between a 4.5-5 win player and a disaster in left field. He’s 36 now and playing in an era when teams are loath to dole out big money to older outfielders. Eventually, he’ll sign somewhere — perhaps with the Yanks — for few dollars, but it’s not a surprise that no team has come close to meeting his demands.
