Steve, you know Cashman wanted to sign Damon before he went to Boston, right? And someone above him decided Rondell White (!) was a better choice. I’m just saying But it does illustrate the point that yes, Cashman did spend a lot of money this offseason, but he spent it on the right guys, if we can judge the deals by the first year.

Nice flashback to the old Damon post by the way. Classic.

It was a good move to sign Damon. I thought Beltran would’ve been better, but the Boss decided that money would go to Randy Johnson.

Now, comes the hard part: on the heels of his solid play helping them to a title, do they sign him for what he’ll want, or do they let him go to the highest bidder. It won’t likely be the Sox, but it could be the…Mets…possibly.

Steve Lombardi wrote:

Re: the Yanks signing Damon back then, one of my all-time personal fav WW entries:
http://waswatching.com/2005/12/21/rsn-reaction-to-johnny-damon-signing/

Pretty funny, let’s say, hypothetically, Damon signs with the Sox this offseason. I bet that you would see pretty much verbatim of many of those posts from Yankees blogs, replacing the term Yankees with Red Sox in the posts.

Re: the Yanks signing Damon back then, one of my all-time personal fav WW entries:

http://waswatching.com/2005/12/21/rsn-reaction-to-johnny-damon-signing/

@ YankCrank:
There’s no doubt that he had a great year, and there’s no doubt that the 2 bag SB was an all-time World Series play….I just get a nauseating feeling everytime I see him.

Things like him almost throwing the ball into LF stands with 2 outs, letting a run score. Things like him saying he can’t go anymore during game 6 of the world series because he couldn’t run comfortably, then an inning or 2 later hes literally running on the field when the final out was recorded, grimace free. Things like him playing through injury when it clearly is affecting his performance negatively. Add all this to the fact that his outfield defense is starting to become as bad as Abreu was (albeit without the fear of the wall), I say “See YA!” to him right now. Re-sign Matsui, let him be in the DH/PH rotation, and let him become the new Ruben Sierra.

Corey wrote:

Caveman Damon is a dirty Red Sock, and will be forever. I really hope they do not re-sign that neanderthal.

I know you dislike Johnny, but you can’t appreciate him after his huge year and highly-productive World Series? The man was a beast this year, until the final month, and had the biggest at bat and biggest play of the series in what we now know was the swing game.

2004 is long in the past, this man was a damn productive Yankee.

Awesome work Steve, I really like the comparison. I remember when we signed Damon, all my friends who are Sox fans said, “You’ll get one good year out of him, maybe two, but the last two years of that contract will be a disaster.” They were clearly wrong.

He put up very similar numbers but I feel he’ll be remembered more for the Red Sox, and how he had a very important role in turning the fortunes of that long-suffering franchise completely around. I loved him as a Yankee though, and wanted the Yanks to sign him in 2002, not Giambi.

A word of caution for next year though. Look how Damon’s UZR/150 has dropped an average of over 20 points/year in left field from ‘07 to ‘09:

2007: 37.4
2008: 11.6 (25.8 drop)
2009: -12.1 (23.7 drop)

I know he hits and is a good clubhouse guy, but if this continues can we handle having a 36-year-old left fielder who plays to a -35 UZR/150?

Caveman Damon is a dirty Red Sock, and will be forever. I really hope they do not re-sign that neanderthal.

Check out Damon’s UZR/150 rates in CF:

http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=185&position=OF#fielding

He was better in CF in Boston than in NY – but, he was far from being a plus defender in CF while in Boston. Perhaps, if not for Manny, and a replacement for CF, Damon (because of his arm) should have moved to LF while he was in Boston.

this analysis fails to account that JD was a CF for his tenure in boston while mostly a LF for the Yanks. Given that his offensive numbers are so similar, he was a much more valuable player for the sox than the Yanks…

but i still credit Cash with a good move on JD.