Well, for him....
Damon told Tyler Kepner that's he's “In a better position since teams won’t lose draft picks,” Damon said in a text message. “Will now wait and see what develops.”
With teams protected from losing draft picks to the Yankees they may be more open to offering Damon that extra few million dollars or extra year that the Yanks might not be willing to give up.
Kepner figures that the Yankees expect another "severely depressed" free agent market, which is likely why they did not offer Damon arbitration. Kepner also said he "thought it might be worth it for the Yankees to offer Damon arbitration, even if he took it and received, say, $15 million." And while that is likely more than he's worth, he thinks Damon still has "at least one more year in him before age starts to slow him down. He could continue to energize the order while buying another year of development for Austin Jackson."
