Damon can't go to the Yankees, Mr. Steinbrenner would destroy his whole image. What with the lon ghair and the beard and all.

3/84

I'd like the Cubs to go after Damon if he were willing to go 3 years, but 7 is ridiculous.

With JP offering Brian Giles a deal until he's 39, Scott Boras probably just leapt 10 feet in the air thinking about what that means for Damon.

(Much like JP's offer to B.J. Ryan probably had Bean Stringfellow dancing a happy dance)

Seven years? That's all sorts of goofy .

Isn't it pretty damned ironic for the Yankees to be the one team that's refusing to pay ridiculous premiums for the few quality FAs available in a down year? I'd have loved Giles, but 5/$55M? And if that offer from Toronto is real, Damon probably will get 7 years from somebody. Unbe-freakin-lievable.

As much as I love Johnny, he is NOWHERE NEAR the hitter Brian Giles is.

Why should Damon get more years than Giles? Different folks are in the market for a CF than are in the market for a corner OF. Damon isn't worth 3/25 to the Cardinals, for example.

Who is going to give him 7 years? Not the Yankees. Not the Red Sox. I don't believe it'll happen.

7!?!

Haha.

Sure, Omar would listen if Johnny called and said he was Latino and willing to play right field.

Damon could say his name was Jesus (Hee-soos).

Ther's no way Detroit is interested in Johnny Damon. They already have a leadoff hitter and a CF. Dombrowski's focus is pitching this offseason.

Boras can always dump one of his clients on Detroit.

Is Kenny Rogers a Boras client? God, I hope not.

Yes, he is. Rogers and Millwood are both Boras clients. A couple of other SPs too.

If the Orioles miss out on Konerko, I could see them backing up a truckload of money to Boras' house for Damon - they could use a CF, and they seem desperate to spend money this winter.

If the Cubs hadn't just spent a billion dollars on middle relievers, I'd list them as strong candidates to go nuts for Damon, as well.

If the Orioles miss out on Konerko, I could see them backing up a truckload of money to Boras' house for Damon - they could use a CF, and they seem desperate to spend money this winter.

Yeah, I'd assume Damon goes to whomever doesn't sign Konerko.

At the start of the winter, I thought that Damon and Millwood might both wind up on the outside looking in when Spring Training rolled around. With the way the market's gone, I think someone will sign Millwood to a success-cycle killing contract, but Damon might still end up taking his three-year deal in late February or later. That's especially likely given that the Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs, the three teams with the biggest impetus to sign him, have budgets such that they can suddenly add $10 million to the payroll at any time. The other clubs that might sign him for 3/$30m or 3/$35m would have to have that budgeted much earlier in the off-season, when Damon is still insisting on his mega-deal.

The Red Sox may well have followed this reasoning and be pretty confident that they can get him at the end of the winter for no more than 3/$36m or so once all the bids are in. Signing him at all is a pretty bad idea, though. I don't know what UZR says about him, but watching him for the past two years, he's a terrible CF. Almost as many balls go over his head as go over Bernie Williams's.