Well, yesterday he wrote another "gem", this time titled "New York Yankees and free agent Johnny Damon still have time to make a deal."
There is still time for the Yankees to make a deal with Johnny Damon and for Damon to make a deal with them, just because there is no ticking clock here the way there is no real "budget" for the Yankees.If you're thinking "oh no not this crap again", you're not alone, so was I.
Damon? He should make a deal for the best possible reason, because this is the best possible place for him to continue playing baseball. The Yankees make the deal for the only reason that is supposed to matter:Amazingly, I actually agree with that. The Yankees are clearly the best place for Damon, but it probably would have been in his best interest if he had realized that a month or two ago.
They are a better team with him than they are without him and they don't have to lay off members of the grounds crew to get him.
You know how long this would take to work out? One day this week. That's if the Yankees really ever wanted him back in the first place. The idea that this somehow breaks Hal Steinbrenner's piggy bank is sillier than late-night talk shows.Once again, three offers, all rejected, by Damon.
It is good business for both sides to give a little here. But it is better business for the Yankees, because they really can make their team better and their fans happy (does anybody NOT want Damon back?) at the same time.If I had a choice of Johnny Damon this year or Carl Crawford from 2011 to let's say 2015 I'd take Crawford in a heartbeat. What about you? Also, there aren't many intelligent Yankees fans who are ready to throw 2010 away because they don't have Damon. The fact that we know the market only allows us to understand how wrong Johnny Damon and Scott Boras have been throughout this whole winter. Why Lupica can't see this is beyond what my brain can comprehend.
You know Yankee fans know the market, they know about all those Carl Crawfords out there next winter. But they are infinitely more interested in the season their team is about to play, and winning two in a row, and having their team resume its play as the baddest on the planet.
They're not being asked to break the bank here. It's not like the gap between the two sides is as wide as CC Sabathia. But are we really supposed to believe that Hal Steinbrenner found $180 million under the bed for Mark Teixeira last winter and now can't find whatever it will take to bring back a popular, winning ballplayer and stick him back in the No. 2 slot behind Jeter?First of all, 2009 is not 2010. This team is obviously changing their approach a tad as they head into a new season. In 2008 they had just missed the playoffs for the first time since 1994 and had to do what was necessary to put themselves back on top. Now, with those players still locked they're in a great spot to continue winning, with or without Damon.
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Come on. You know how many home runs Nick Johnson, Randy Winn and Brett Gardner hit among them last season? Thirteen.
And about the homers, there is more to baseball than just home runs. Sometimes when I read the ideas that come out of this dude's head I feel like I'm listening to a 7-year-old who just started watching the game. And by the way, if you're going to compare the home run numbers of players brought in compared to Damon, you might want to include the 30 that Curtis Granderson hit last year while playing half of his games in Comerica Park.
If you need to read that again to see how little sense it make, go ahead. Let me get this straight, it's bad for them to try to lower their payroll, unless they lower it significantly? Does Lupica understand that for the Yankees to lower their payroll to level of the Sox and Mets that it's going to have to take time and happen in stages? And what's with his fetish for the idea that the Yanks aren't making money?If the Yankees want to have a budget, tell them to tee it up with the same payroll the Mets have, the Red Sox, the Phillies, the next biggest spenders. Tell them to get themselves under the threshold for the luxury tax in baseball, because they're the only ones over it.
Or tell us that they still can't make money on their baseball operation even winning the World Series. Then everybody in town can get their minds around letting Damon walk away.
Oh, by the way, the only person I know of right now that can't get this Damon situation out of their head is Lupica himself. I'm not bothered by it at all, most other Yankees fans I speak to completely understand the situation and only blame Boras and Damon.
The Yankees found $300 million when they wanted Alex Rodriguez back. They found the money for Teixeira. They can still find the money for Johnny Damon. Can they win without him? Of course they can.Damon has nowhere near the value of Alex Rodriguez or Mark Teixeira. Compared the signings of these three players is utterly ridiculous. Just to put some numbers behind that, Fangraphs has a value stat where they put a dollar value on each player. Last year Mark Teixeira was worth $23.2MM, A-Rod, who missed the first month and was barely healthy for the second, was worth $20MM, Damon was worth $13.6, around $2MM less than Nick Swisher according to Fangraphs.
He goes on to conclude that the Yankees are better with Damon than without him so they should sign him. Thanks genius, but what I'd like to know is how he expects this to get done. The Yankees last offered him a one-year deal worth $6MM -- a very fair deal based on the market and lack of landing spots for Damon -- which he rejected. That was after rejected two other better offers, both two-year deals, both worth more money than he's likely to get from anyone else. So instead of wasting three pages whining about the Yankees suddenly having a budget (again) how about a reasonable suggestion as to how this could actually work? Or would that take too much effort?
