Cashman: Yanks Not Discussing Damon, “His Abilities Exceed The Money That I Have”
Via Bryan Hoch –
Johnny Damon was hoping to find his team by the end of this week, and it appears that his employer will not be the Yankees.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman all but closed the door on Damon’s four-year tenure in pinstripes on Tuesday, telling MLB.com that the free-agent outfielder remains out of the club’s financial reach.
“I’m not having any discussions on him,” Cashman said in a telephone interview. “His abilities exceed the money that I have.”
Cashman said the Yankees’ main priority for the remainder of the offseason is acquiring a right-handed bat to help their outfield mix, which will likely send Damon in search of a new home.
Looks like Cashman is guarding that 2010 Yankees “budget” like Hassan secured the Sultan’s treasure cave in Ali Baba Bunny.
Open, Sarsaparilla…Open, Saskatchewan…Open, Septuagenarian…Open, Saddle Soap…
Com’on Brian, you do remember how to open up the budget, don’tcha?
It’s “Open Steinbrenner!” (Shoot, that worked when you needed the half-billion last year to sign Burnett, Sabathia and Teixeira.)
Ali Baba Bunny…a classic.
As for Damon…it looks like the Yanks are not bringing him back at any price.
Well, we’ll see. There might be an accommodation yet. But it doesn’t look good.
not overly substantial, but something i have been wondering for a while: with what increment are you working to round $423 million to half a billion? $250 million? not that you have never stretched numbers/reason before in the interest of proving a point, and i know you are just using that phrase generally, but $77 million seems like a fairly large chunk of change to brush aside. especially when the original number is spread out across 3 players for 5-8 years. at some point i’d like to see the yankees commit $501 million in one off-season, just so we could get you telling us how they spent a billion dollars in a single winter a few times per week.
My feelings on Damon and the need for him on this club are well known so I won’t belabor the point…
My question to you, Steve, is this:
When you write “Com’on Brian, you do remember how to open up the budget, don’tcha?”, is that to say you think the Yanks should sign Damon? I always thought that (1) you were against Cashman’s spending and (2) that you thought Gardner was good enough to play every day.
In light of several years worth of columns arguing against Cashman’s spending and at least a handful of columns extolling the virtues of Brett Gardner, I’m surprised you’d be mocking Cashman for deciding not to pursue Damon.
MJ wrote:
MJ…this is a win-win-win for Steve.
Shhh.
Laconic ≠ (not equal to) logically consistent.
At this point, i don’t care where Damon is going. Go to the Yankees or go somewhere else, just get it done so I can stop reading about it.
Damon’s attention is approaching the annoying level of CC’s last year. I’m sick of it.
@ Evan3457:
LOL
@ YankCrank:
A lot of folks feel that way. I guess I’m so bummed that he might be gone that I can’t get enough of this story.
I still find it ridiculous to not spend an extra $2 million on Damon for a year when your payroll is already $200 million – what’s an extra 2? And i guarantee that the return you get on that extra money will be worth it – in other words, Damon is FAR superior offensively to Gardner (yes, i know defensively he is worse, but I still believe his offensive superiority far outweighs that). Now just to be completely crazy, I also won’t be “mad” if Gardner starts in left – I just think it’s the smart move to shell out $2 mill more for Damon.
@ Pat F:
Yup, I rounded the $423.5 million to acquire free agents Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett to be a half-billion. If that makes me an evil person, so be it.
@ jrk:
I’m with you. $2M more to get a very good offensive player and create depth on the roster by making Gardner a 4th outfielder? Sign me up. Beats the alternatives, which currently include Jamie Hoffman and Greg Golson, and, potentially, one of Reed Johnson or Rocco Baldelli. Why bother spending money on crap players? Either don’t spend the money at all or spend it after something good.
MJ wrote:
It’s a matter of shutting the door on Damon for what might be a less than 1% over budget move. Would I sign Damon, given the current market, for 2 years at $13 million per season? No. But, if I could get him for $5 mill for one year, I would not walk away because it’s $3 mill more than I wanted to spend. That’s just stupid.
Yes, I like Gardner. But, if I can have Damon for $5 mill, for one year, I’m doing that, and sitting Brett, for one more year, and I’m not going to cry about the budget as being my excuse.
@ MJ:
I prepared for him to be gone a long time ago, basically all of ’09 I had the feeling it was his last year in the Bronx.
Just adding up who his agent is, how he’s historically held out for the most money and how aging outfielders are treated in the market the last few years, everyone had to know this wasn’t going to go well. None of us should be surprised that it’s almost February and he’s unsigned, and his agent is still singing the “mystery team” tune.
We can be annoyed by it, but we really shouldn’t be surprised.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
For the record, we don’t know this. We have no clue what we can “have” Damon for at this point.
Cashman keeps saying he only has $2 million, but it can also be a bargaining ploy/way to call Boras’ bluff. How many times has Cash said something and done something else?
Either way, we can keep arguing this Damon situation but we really have no clue about the details of what’s going on. What we can have Damon for is a figure we don’t really know. What we do know is that whatever is going on behind closed doors is annoying the crap of out Cashman, judging by his comments through the press, and it just doesn’t seem like a Damon/Yanks marriage is likely at this point.
But do we even know that?
Steve Lombardi wrote:
that’s not what i asked you. all you did was merely restate the uber-obvious – that you have decided to round 423.5 million to a half-billion. that much i know. what i’m interested in is what number you are grounding your rounding in, so i know what is acceptable for future rounding purposes as i try to navigate the amorphous and ever-changing playing field for logic and argumentation at waswatching.com. so far it is clear that i can at least round 423.5 to 500 or 348, but not 347. so if someone has an obp of .423 and i like the player i can say his obp is actually .500. conversely if someone has a .423 obp and i want to make an argument against the player i can round to .348. but it is possible that the number (maybe $250 million, giving us the options of either $0 or $500) you are using to round 423.5 gives me even broader authority to round here, and i’m looking to lock in on that while i have a chance. because if we are going to toss away $77 million, which is almost the total value of one of the three players that is signed within that unthinkable number of $423.5 million, i don’t see why we should stop there. thanks in advance.
Pat F wrote:
A very credible argument. I’ve never understood why baseball arguments are so precise when it comes to stats but so imprecise when it comes to contracts.
$423.M is not equal to $500M in the same way that a .423 OBP is not a .500 OBP. An excellent point, Pat.
@ MJ:
@ Pat F:
If someone asked you “Would you be willing to allow me to video tape you eating whipped cream out of Janet Reno’s whispering-eye if I paid you $423.5 million?” and you said “yes”…down the road, when one of your buddies found out about it, and saw the tape, and asked you “Dude, what were you thinking! Were you out of your mind?”…I would bet that you’d be more likely to answer “Hey, for nearly a HALF-BILLION dollars, you would have grabbed a spoon and joined me!” than you would be to say “Well, I was paid precisely $423.5 million…”
That’s all this is…just rounding the number to the nearest half-billion…to make a point at how MUCH money it was…
Geez. If you want to make a Federal Case out of that…have a party.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
lol
Steve Lombardi wrote:
This isn’t a good argument for what you mean, cause they could then take this logic and say any amount of money < $250mm doesn't cost anything.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Hilarious! I’ve never heard it called that.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
I, for one, am not making a federal case about it. It’s just important to be precise, especially when you argue so fervently against Cashman. If you want credibility for your anti-Cashman rants, you have to be pin-drop accurate or make your use of hyperbole so obvious such that it can never be confused for the main thrust of what you’re arguing against.
some good lines steve, and i figured you would respond that way because i knew that’s how you meant it. but to corey’s point above, it doesn’t totally solve the issue as anything less than $250 could be seen as not a lot of money (which makes no sense). you’re being very general (i mean, 76.5 million is a long way away from half a billion) to further a point you’re pushing. if it was in your argument’s best interest to be specific, you would be. i know this isn’t the exact type of situation he talks about when he says this, but it sort of speaks to the moving target argument that seems to develop here that mj talks about from time to time, and i agree with. the rules change depending upon how they need to fit into the argument you’re pushing. this is not an overly important example, but it is a good one.
MJ wrote:
Before this week, neither had I. Steve was the second time I had heard it, go figure!
Corey wrote:
When it rains, it pours.
@ MJ:
@ Corey:
I prefer Glory Hole personally..and Brown Eye for the opposite end
@ Corey: I guess your other friend watched ROLE MODELS on HBO this Saturday too.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
lol YES! That was it!
Sherman tweeting we’re about to sign Randy Winn to 1 year
clintfsu813 wrote:
ugh, why bother
@ Corey:
Yea..not understanding the thought behind this one
@ clintfsu813:
Better Randy Winn than Reed Johnson or Rocco Baldelli. I had actually picked Winn as the best candidate to replace Damon.
I’ve got no problem with Winn, even though I think the Yanks are absolutely moronic for not signing Damon.
MJ wrote:
Why do you think this way? This seems like Cashman’s getting right handed hitting outfielder just cause he said he would. Which makes little sense, but whatever. He’ll hopefully be the 4th outfielder.
Because Baldelli and Johnson aren’t adequate insurance policies to an untested player like Gardner. You don’t want guys that spend their entire careers on the DL like Baldelli/Johnson do. In a vacuum, yes, both Baldelli and Johnson have better stats and higher upsides than Winn. But we’re not talking about them backing up an entrenched OF’er, as they did last year in Boston and Chicago, respectively. We’re talking about them backing up a guy that may well not be suited for the everyday job.