1. For today’s Post, I wrote this column about the secret, last-ditch effort to forge an agreement between the Yankees and Johnny Damon, and the recriminations that ensued yesterday when it became indisputable that Damon would not be back.
Ultimately, I think both sides share the blame for the failure and, I believe, both sides will regret not finding a way to reunite. The Yankees have insisted they wanted Damon. But when the Yankees really want someone they move heaven, earth and payroll to get them. When the Yankees wanted CC Sabathia, for example, Brian Cashman literally left the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas, got on a plane, flew to Northern California and upped the team’s record bid for a pitcher by a year.
Damon fell more under the category of the Yanks would take him back if his price fell to an acceptable level. On one hand good for the Yanks for at least trying to have a budget. But my problem with this budget is that it is temporary. They will come in at a tad under $200 million (before the insurance package applied to all teams swells it to about $210 million). But the obsession to sneak under $200 million on April 1 will last until their first huge need arrives, at which time they will not risk missing the playoffs and will do what they must. And my gut is that they will end up needing a left fielder or DH who profiles a lot like Damon. Just at that time it is not only going to cost the money, but prospects, as well.
The Damon camp believes that matters are more nefarious than this: That essentially the Yanks never really wanted to re-sign Damon. On its side of the he-said, he-said, the Damon camp says the Yankees told Scott Boras that Andy Pettitte was the offseason priority, but that about 10 days went by after Pettitte was signed and that Boras still had not heard from the Yankees. By the time Boras initiated contact on Dec. 17, he was informed that there already was an offer out to Nick Johnson.
The sides agree that the initial request by the Damon side was two years at $26 million. The Yanks countered with a concept of two years at $14 million. Boras said he would get back to the Yanks, but the Yanks said that if Johnson said yes first he would get the deal. Boras came back in under an hour with a two-year at $20 million bid, and by the next day the Yanks had signed Johnson.
The Yankees side of this is that they were informed second-hand that Damon wanted four years or more at no less than $13 million a year early in the offseason, and that when they did engage that $13 million annually was too much and so was $10 million a year. They insist Damon definitely could have taken the two-year at $14 million concept, but that Damon was slow to accept that the Yankees were serious about their budget and that the financial landscape for older, offense-mainly players had fallen from the past throughout baseball.
And I do think Damon has blame here. It is easy to demonize Boras. But Damon was involved in these negotiations. At any point, he could have told Boras essentially, “hey, the market is not what we imagined so let’s get it done with the Yankees.” I am a player’s guy. I think if you want to chase the last dollar that is totally fine. However, Damon just might chase the last dollar into a dead-end, though as I reported yesterday the Rays might give him a lifeline to a contender that plays not far from his Orlando home.
However, the Rays are unlikely to offer much more than $5 million or $6 million with a ton of deferments. It is possible that Damon might have been able to squeeze that out of the Yankees even at the 11th hour. But the Yankees had their budgetary line in the sand and Damon apparently is still not mentally adapted to the idea that he has to take a huge paycut from the $13 million he made in 2009. It probably is a tough sell. Damon was a darn good player last year.
In the end, no matter how they decide to spin it now, the Yankees and Damon decided independently that they could live without each other; both sides failed to take a couple of huge steps toward each other to make a deal possible. Can they live without each other? Maybe. I do think the Yanks are going to miss Damon’s offense and unflappable nature in the hottest cauldrons. I think Damon, who has spent the past eight years as either a Red Sox or Yankee, is going to miss the juice and attention that comes in playing in a baseball-mad city. They needed each other, but both were too inflexible and prideful to move toward each other.
2. I reported two days ago that the Boras/Xavier Nady camp never brought their $3.3 million with $2 million in incentives back to the Yankees after it was offered by the Cubs. That was confirmed by the Boras/Nady camp.
The Boras/Nady camp had been informed that there was no more than $2 million left for that job so many times that it did not see the value in going back to the Yankees with a deal that could become worth $5.3 million. In other words, they knew the answer without having to get an answer. And the signing of Randy Winn for exactly $2 million is yet more proof that the Yanks were inflexible on this issue.
And it seems the Yanks had enough physical questions about Nady that they might not have even done the $2 million deal. Nady had a second Tommy John surgery early last July and, generally, it takes 10 months for a position player to get back in major league action. So the Yanks were not sure if Nady would be available before May and did not know if the timetable would be altered because this was Nady’s second significant procedure on his right elbow.
Boras, though, said Nady already is in a throwing program and is “way ahead of schedule” in the rehab.
3. The Yanks continue to be serious about defense. Many teams consider the UZR/150 stat available at Fangraph among the best reads of a player’s defensive abilities. And among right fielders with at least 700 innings, Winn ranked with the best UZR/150 score. Among left fielders with at least 300 innings, he had the third-best UZR/150 score. He was 51st among those with at least 100 innings in center field, producing a negative result.
But Winn is not expected to play much center field with Curtis Granderson and Brett Gardner available.
I think it is possible that Joe Girardi, who was willing to move Derek Jeter out of the No. 2 hole in the lineup last year, will be bold enough to have a flexible outfield in 2010. I can imagine him playing Granderson in both center and left. I can imagine Winn playing both corners, and coming in late defensively for a righty-hitting outfielder the Yanks have not yet signed to a minor league deal (think Rocco Baldelli, Jonny Gomes or Marcus Thames). And don’t forget the Yanks went to the trouble of obtaining the No. 1 pick in the Rule 5 draft for righty-swinging Jamie Hoffman, who they view as a top-flight defender, as well.