Johnny Damon Signs with Yankees

But I sure hope he declines real fast

Weather this is true or not, it is time for Jeremy Reed.  Once I heard the Jeremy Reed rumors, I was all for saying screw Damon and trading for Reed as soon as possible.  Reed will certainly put up, if not out perform Damon over the next 4 years.  We will also have Reed for a fraction of the price that the Yanks will be paying Damon.  So Johnny, it's been good.  But you're a sellout, now your wife can make all the decisions in New York.  Let the Jeremy Reed era begin ..

I'm not the biggest Damon fan in the world. He's not really worth the money and he's an idiot. But this really pisses me off. The guy talked about nothing other than how much he loved Boston. How the hell can you just turn around and sign with the team's biggest rival? The money isn't -that- much more than what the Sox were reportedly offering him.

Now that is a guy who deserves absolutely no respect.

Winston Salem (CarL) 222 AB 333/431/477
Birmingham (SouL) 242 AB 409/474/591

But his 2004 wasn't nearly as bad as you are reporting. In fact, it was pretty good.

Charlotee (IL) 276 AB 275/357/420
Tacoma(PCL) 233 AB 305/366/455
Seattle (AL) 58 AB 397/470/466

And 2002 was pretty good too

Kannapolis (SAL) 210 AB 319/377/448

The scouts also love him. His defense is very good, at least as good as Johnny. He was a 2nd round draft pick in 2002 out of Long Beach State.

Anytime the scouts and the statheads both rave about a prospect, he has a pretty good chance to be very good. Although  2005 was his age 24 season, if he was 16 days younger, it would have counted as his age 23 season, so he is on the very young side of the age 24.

While his numbers were definitely down last year, also remember that Safeco field depresses offense signficantly (and Fenway enhances it), so even last year was not the huge gulf between Damon and Reed that it looks superficially.

He will definitely be better than Kotsay or Payton and this team has enough volatility without Bradley being added to the mix.

My $52 million worth of comments:

It's all about the money for these guys and has become nothing more than a business for both sides, while you and I sit on the sidelines rooting these teams on.

I hate to say this, but when will we learn. When will WE stop paying these over priced babies salaries? When will WE realize we're the ones being screwed. It doesn't matter anymore about farm systems or loyality. It all goes to waste as soon as a team wants to BUY a team. And we "The Red Sox Nation Faithful" blindly follow.

JD is good, is he worth $52 million? Hell no. He'll "do" for them for this season and maybe next, but they'll be looking to replace him within three years.

I classify his contract as you would classify a president who gets re-elected: Lame Duck. He's done after this contract, you know it and I know it. He'll be what, 38? No one's going to want him. So he can play with the inconsistencies as he wishes.

Can I ask one favor from the Red Sox Nation? Don't boo him when he comes back to Boston. We created this business, and he is only a participant.

Damon didn't get his 7-year deal, he got a 4-year deal -- so instead of being 38 at the end of the deal, he'll only be 35.  He signed a deal that wasn't outrageous by current baseball standards (I believe Furcal, another top lead-off man, signed at 13m per year as well).  The Sox have the money, so why didn't they pony up?  

At the moment I don't like this decision, in part because we lose an important part of our team, and in part because we lost him to our strongest intradivisional rival.  I'll be curious to see what the Sox do to replace him, whether it's Reed or someone else.  Right now, however, the team has a gaping hole in centerfield.

So,

Does this mean that the Dave Roberts, Coco Crisp, and Jeremy Reed rumors are back in high gear? Probably. Wells to SD for Roberts and a prospect? Boston could probably put together a package for Crisp...though it'd be expensive. Reed? Hmmmm.

I think this one's a lot like the Pedro situation last year. Blame it on Boston, etc,  but its really all about the money. Sure, he'll be great next year, and maybe even into 2007. But after that? That's when risk comes into play. I'm glad we won't be paying him 13 million next year.

One thing's for sure...I really think Boston is going to make a splash to make up for this thing.

I think this is much more to Boston's advantage than the Pedro non-signing. Johnny was a good ball player and is (or will soon be) down to just an average starting player. Pedro is one of the top 10 pitchers of all time. Pedro was clearly worth his money he got for the first year and probably the second. Damon is not even worth the money he will get in the first year of the contract. According to ESPN's salary numbers, $13M (Andruw Jones) was the highest CF salary for anyone in the majors last year. He was the 7th best hitting CF last year and no better than average defensively. Even with no decline, his comparable value is less than $10M. The CF making more than $10M last year were Jones, Edmonds, Griffey, Beltran and Williams. Of those only Bernie Williams is clearly worse and Jones, Edmonds and Griffey are clearly better. His current contract at $8M+ was about right for this year and should be declining over the next several years.

With NY's offense, like with ours, he will score a ton of runs. But the Yankees will rue this signing in 2008 at the latest.

So lets look at the Red Sox right around the horn right now:
1B: Nobody
2B: We have 3 second basemen
SS: Nobody
3B: We have three guys
RF: Nixon
LF: Manny, but he wants to be traded
CF: Nobody
C: Tek
Pitchers: We have 6 starting pitchers.
Bullpen: We have a bunch of righties, and 1 lefty, who could tank.
Yeah, so we have 6 players for 2 positions and no players for 3 positions. I mean, Damon is going to go down hill, fast, and I think that him going to the yankees is fine. BUT COME ON!!! WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?! Other than two positions we are have question marks all over the place. I want Coco, now.

Alright, some of the people need to just simmah down a bit.  Losing Johnny Damon is not the end of the world.  Stop reading into the media blowing up the situation, calling Damon the "face of the franchise" and a "leader."  Let's face it, he has only been here 4 years, and to some people (including me) he is a Hollywood Prima Donna, who was destined for New York as soon as he was a free agent.

I am a firm believer in Reed replacing Damon.  Like I said, in the short term it is highly likely Damon will outperform Reed offensively.  However, by year 3 and 4, who is going to be putting up the better stats?  Reed or Damon?  My money would be on Reed.  Therefore, we'd be getting a great return on a cheap investment.  As a footnote, it should be known Reed is much better than Johnny on defense right now, so getting Reed would not be a complete loss.

Also, are you serious about trading Papelbon or Lester for Lopez?  That is crazy talk.  Paps and Lester are 2 of our top 3 or 4 prospects, who project as frontline starters in the bigs.  If they traded either one of these guys for Lopez, I would become an Orioles fan.  

We just have to calm down and realize we're not going to be fielding a line-up like the Yanks this year.  Our OF will not be worth 39 million, and it does not need to be.  The Yanks will drive in mad runs, but their pitching, quite frankly, is old and over-rated.  The Sox have much better pitching, with a better bullpen at this point.  The Yanks are just a loaded line-up and a closer right now.  I think if the Sox make the right moves (i.e. adding Reed and possibly Alex Gonzalez to play SS, oh yeah .. and Roger Clemens?), they will be a more complete team and be able to topple the Yanks.

I'm not completely convinced that this is as huge a signing for the Yankees as its being made out to be. Yes, Damon is good. He's very good. Here are a few numbers that make you think though.....

Damon, career, at Fenway

.311, .821 OPS

at YS

.252, .647 OPS.

It's only one facet of the signing. I think he'll hit more homeruns next year, but his average will go down and the strikeouts will go up.

Torre will probably let him run more with Jeter hitting behind him, so that stat will go up. His zone rating last year was 8th in the AL, so I wonder how he'll do out there.

I don't think anyone doubted that Damon would be solid in 06, or 07. Time will tell if this is a good move for NY. Right now, short term, it sure looks like it.

We have exactly zero chance, because all division races are decided in December.  Come on now, the offense is going to be upgraded and it will be without trading our top prospects.  I think you seriously over-estimating the value of Felipe Lopez.  Granted, he had a good year last year.  But it was his first year as a starter.  You can't just go around throwing away top prospects for guys who have 1 big year.  

Pitching trumps offense, always.  The Sox are not even in that rough of shape with their offense.  We still got 2 guys named Manny and Ortiz in the middle of that line-up.  Also got 3 former all-stars (Lowell, Loretta and Varitek).  Like I said, we are not going to have the line-up the Yanks have (nor is anyone) but we have better pitching and better defense, which will offset the loss of any offense we'd have by losing Damon.

"(Loretta and Lowell) are aging and are coming off terrible seasons that cannot be attributed to their ballparks.......Your pitching and defense won't be good enough to make up for the difference between the offenses."

Every ballplayer has a bad year sometime in their career, sometimes more than one. This is the case with Lowell. He fooled too much with his mechanics early on, lost confidence, and wasn't productive for most of the year. He did hit .322 in July, but every other month was pretty much terrible. Loretta, however, was injured for a portion of the year, and I'm inclined to belive that played into his production. Even so, he's going to be solid next year.

If you look at last year's infield production (Bellhorn, Millar, Mueller, Graffy, Cora) you get this.

32 homers, 186 RBI, Billy Mueller had the highest average in the infield with .295. Adding Damon to that tally and you get 42 homers, 261 RBI.

Doing some 3rd grade math, you can figure that you need to divvy up that production amongst 4 players. You get roughly 11 homeruns, 65 RBI for each player. Loretta won't get to 11 homeruns (even though he did have 16 two years ago, that was his best year by far.), but he should be good for 7-10, and at least 65 RBI. Youkilis should be able to meet those numbers provided he gets the playing time, and Lowell averages 20+ homers and 95+ RBI over his career even with last year's numbers averaged in. He's really the key to this. Let's project Lowell to hit 15 homers and drive in 80 RBI, not impossile with our lineup. That means that our new CF must hit 9 homeruns, drive in 55+ runs, and hit for an average over .295. This is also assuming that our new SS can be as good or better than Renteria next year.

It's going to be tough to find someone who's a lock for that production, but I think that the offense can swallow the loss of Damon's numbers given the offensive upgrades at the other postions. Trot Nixon must be healthy, Manny must stay, and the rest of the infield must be healthy. I guess that's asking a lot, but what else can you do?