Buster Olney has an interesting account of the Johnny Damon negotiations that I am inclined to believe. He suggests that Damon was the Yankees’ Plan A in left and at the 2 slot in the lineup, but simply kept rejecting offers that were commensurate to his value at the time. There are a few relevant excerpts here, but I would like to include the caveat that Damon’s camp would likely dispute some of the details, and suggest the Yankees never actually made an offer. Keeping that in mind, here is Buster’s account of the talks:
Well, in the hours after the Granderson trade was completed, they moved to seriously engage Damon in talks, and — as reported on ESPN.com at the time — they were told over and over: If you’re going to offer a contract that represents a decrease in salary, don’t bother to make an offer. Damon, himself, told the Yankees that directly. If you want to cut my salary, talk to the hand….
They believed that Damon didn’t have offers along that the lines that Boras was talking about, but they didn’t know for sure — the Red Sox can speak to that experience, having lost out on Mark Teixeira — and the Yankees’ offer to make offers wasn’t even being entertained.
So they moved on, pursuing Nick Johnson, who had the highest on-base percentage of any free agent — and they had to move fast, because Johnson was deep into negotiations with the Giants. Johnson was the Yankees’ Plan B to Damon, and given that their Plan A wasn’t even willing to talk, they reached an agreement on a one-year, $5.5 million deal with Johnson.
It wasn’t until after word of Johnson’s impending deal broke that Damon’s side indicated a willingness to barter, and the Yankees did talk about a two-year concept — which was immediately rejected. But at that point, having reached a verbal agreement with Johnson, the team’s priorities had shifted…
Last week, Damon reached out to the Yankees, wanting to talk, and so the Yankees again re-engaged the left fielder, offering the money they had left they had under the budget that was set before the winter meetings. Even then, however, they were told that Damon had other options, including multi-year offers. They were told he wanted more than the $6 million package in salary and incentives that the Yankees were willing to pay.
This account of events sounds authentic to me, if only because it fits what we have heard about Boras and his method of negotiation. He likes to set a high bar to open negotiations, threatening to not even come to the table unless certain demands are met. In this case, that gambit likely cost his client a 2 year deal, as the Yankees decided to move on to Plan B so they could focus on adding a starting pitcher. Then, after Boras read the market again and realized he had overplayed his hand, Damon came back to the Yankees offering to take a much smaller deal than the one the Yankees had considered offering him previously. Yet instead of returning with a conciliatory attitude, Boras continued to play his “mystery team” games, and once again the Yankees moved on.
It will be interesting to see how much Damon gets from whoever signs him for 2010. It seems that Scott Boras plays a very dangerous game, making outrageous claims and spreading rumors of nonexistent offers so as to scare teams into caving on demands from a player they covet. Often, this results in his player getting an above market deal from a club that had no real competition for a player’s services (see Holliday, Matt). However, on occasion, the target club will see through Boras’ machinations and will simply refuse to budge on their offer or will move on to their next option. This leaves the client without a deal from the club that he wanted to play for, as is likely the situation in the case of Johnny Damon. Such is the risk of signing on with Scott Boras.
Late last week, I brought up Buster Olney’s article on A-Rod’s struggles and the possible link to steroids. In the comments, I noted the following:
There is no reason to assume Alex just went off steroids. Either he went off in 2003, or he is still on some undetectable stuff. Why not treat a slump like a slump? They had no such questions when he started off with three hot weeks. Did he go off steroids 3 weeks ago?
In his chat earlier today, Buster was called out on his story and tried to defend himself:
Alfredo (New York City): You wrote a recent article citing scouts that claimed A-Rod was declining rapidly. Shortly afterward, he got two days of rest and has been on a tear ever since. Perhaps reports of his long-term decline are premature?
Buster Olney: Alfredo: I did not write that he was declining rapidly. What I wrote was that as A-Rod struggled, a question that was being asked increasingly was whether he is going to be a lesser player since he presumably doesn’t use steroids any more. As I wrote in the piece, his struggles might have been based on his hip surgery, or it might be a combination of all of the above; nobody can know the answer to that. He has looked much better over the last five days, no question about it — but that doesn’t change the fact that the question of how much steroids aided him as a player is not going to go away during the last 8 1/2 years of his contract.
All I wanted to note here is the classic media deflection technique that Buster uses. Instead of asking the question himself, he pushes these doubts and thoughts onto nameless scouts and sources, so as not to besmirch his own reputation should his story prove groundless. Writers do this all the time, so as to maintain distance from any sort of critical opinion. They do so because they need deniability when the player accuses them of a hatchet job and is loathe to work with them on a subsequent story. A perfect example was the Raul Ibanez situation that blew up a few weeks ago. A blogger mentioned that you cannot rule out steroids as the source of a surge in performance in this era. A newspaper writer picked up on the story, and used the blogger’s words to bring the issue into the limelight. Predictably, the blogger received the brunt of the criticism while the writer escaped with only minimal damage. The writer was able to bring up steroids regarding Ibanez without actually voicing that opinion, leaving his relationship with Raul intact. It is a dirty trick, and hopefully most readers can see right through it.
Another interesting issue brought up in Buster’s chat:
Anthony (NYC): Larry Lucchino at a apperance in a baseball musuem commented that all the yankee gear on display was from so long ago obviously taking a shot at the yanks not winning it all since 2000 and couple that with John Henry twitter updates taking shot at tex and co are the red sox getting a little too confident in your opinion? i guess they have confidence now that Big Stein is out of commision.
Buster Olney: Anthony — personally, I think all that stuff was cheesy and classless. I thought it was when Steinbrenner was doing it, and I think it is now when the Red Sox are doing it.
I totally agree. I wonder what the reaction would be like if Hank did the kind of stuff Henry has been doing lately?
I had Buster Olney’s A-Rod article open on my browser for the last few days, planning on pounding out an article on it this afternoon. Alas, the best laid plans often fall by the wayside, as Ben over at RAB essentially wrote the article I was planning to put forth. Here is only a small portion of Olney’s larger point:
The Yankees will keep playing him and ignore the question that hovers over Rodriguez and every other aging player who has been linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. They have to hope that what they’re seeing is someone simply struggling to recover from hip surgery, someone who is prone to doubts, anyway. They have to hope that he will start to hit eventually. They have to hope that he isn’t overcome by frustration with his performance and simply decides to pack it in and have the more extensive hip surgery that he already knows he needs.
The Yankees might be asking themselves the same question that rival talent evaluators are asking, about whether A-Rod without steroids is, in his mid-30s, destined to be a shell of what he was in his mid-20s, when he says he was young and stupid and juicing. But there really isn’t much point in the Yankees’ dwelling on any of that, because they cannot change the terms of his contract, they cannot ever know how much of A-Rod’s success was built on his talent and how much was predicated on his PED use.
And here is the portion of Ben’s take that echoes my thinking on the matter:
In reality, A-Rod’s slump was just that. He had a bad stretch brought about by fatigue in his hip. Yet, despite that reality, despite the surgery, we’re going to get eight years of badly written columns about A-Rod’s decline, A-Rod’s being a shell of his former self, A-Rod’s no longer steroid-filled physique. Forget the natural decline brought about by age. Forget talent. That’s the baseball world in which we live. Olney, though, should know better.
Every time Alex has a poor stretch, we are going to have a deluge of similar columns, questioning the cause of his struggles and inevitably linking them to steroids. Are you ready for eight years of questions?
Buster Olney recently handicapped the Matt Holliday sweepstakes that are sure to ensue the second free agency opens following the 2009 season. He mentions the Angels and Red Sox as the top two suitors, being that both could use a middle of the order type bat, and has the Yankees in third:
3. YANKEES: The contracts of Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui will expire after this season, so the Yankees will be in a position to take a run at Holliday — and if the team doesn’t make the playoffs again, the Yankees will be under enormous pressure to sign the slugger. If you think the right-handed hitting Holliday wouldn’t be a good fit in Yankee Stadium, well, there are long-term scouts who would vehemently disagree with you.
“You know how [Derek] Jeter flips his home runs over the right-field wall?” asked one scout. “That’s exactly how Holliday would hit in Yankee Stadium, except in much greater volume. His swing is perfect for Yankee Stadium.”
Jeter might be the X factor. At some point over the next 18 months, the Yankees may well approach him about shifting away from shortstop. He cannot move to third base, because of Alex Rodriguez, and Teixeira is locked in as the first baseman for the next eight years. It’s unlikely the Yankees would consider moving Jeter to second base, because the questions about whether he would have suitable range to play the middle infield will still stand.
So if Jeter is to continue playing with the Yankees, it would probably have to be in left or right field, given that he will turn 36 in June 2010. That looming issue shouldn’t be a consideration as the Yankees think of ways to improve for next season, but the reality is that political concerns were at the root of the club’s decisions to essentially overpay Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and A-Rod in the winter of 2007-08.
No matter how well Holliday’s swing may fit in Yankee Stadium, I think there are a variety of factors that should keep the Yankees away from him. Firstly, the Jeter issue does suggest that locking a left fielder up with a long term contract may not be the most prudent move for a team that may need to find a position for their captain within the not so distant future. Furthermore, the availability of Jason Bay and Manny Ramirez gives the Yankees cheaper and shorter-term options, especially if the market for outfielders remains depressed. The Yankees already have two legitimate middle of the order hitters, and would be fine if they supplemented those players with a hitter such as Bay. While Holliday is a significantly better defensive player than both Ramirez and Bay, the added flexibility that the Yankees would be gaining by eschewing another long term deal makes that sacrifice worth it. Holliday is much more valuable to the Angels and Red Sox, two teams with aging middle of the order hitters who can use a player of Matt’s caliber. For once, the Yankees should pass.
In Buster Olney’s latest (ESPN), Olney notes that Bobby Abreu will likely have to reduce his demands if he actually wants to play this season. Our buddy Bobby was looking for $16 million per year, a price that the Yanks simply weren’t interested in paying. Now, in this market, he’ll be lucky to get Raul Ibanez money. In fact, a 1-year deal is probably all he’ll get and Olney believes that Abreu is now willing to accept that outcome, as it will help him find a home for 2009.
Furthermore, Olney had the following to say about Adam Dunn:
Dunn might draw interest from the Yankees, a team for which he is perfectly suited, if they could shed the contracts of two of Xavier Nady, Hideki Matsui and Nick Swisher
They’d have to lose Matsui and Nady in order to pick up Dunn. With Swisher in right, Dunn could easily slot into the DH role. However, Matsui is the biggest “problem” in acquiring Dunn, as he has a no-trade clause and costs $13 million, a figure that would be hard to move in the current market (unless you eat about $5-6 million of the salary). It’s possible, but highly unlikely. If you’re Dunn, you know the Yankees will likely call you for next year, so why not take a 1-year deal and wait for November.
