This from Joel Sherman’s twitter:
Yankees Sign Randy Winn, Likely Ending Johnny Damon’s Tenure In NY
#Yankees have reached 1-yr agreement with Randy Winn pending physical
The deal will pay Winn about $2 million, according to Buster Olney.
The Yankees now have Winn, Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher, Brett Gardner and Rule 5 draftee Jamie Hoffmann to fill the outfield, meaning any remaining rumors of Johnny Damon ending up in New York should now be squashed.
So where will Damon end up? Maybe he’ll return to Oakland, though the A’s recent signing of Ben Sheets makes that less economically feasible for the A’s.
Another report has Damon's agent Scott Boras trying to get the Cincinnati Reds interested in his 36-year-old client. It is hard to believe a National League team would be interested in Damon, whose defense has drastically declined in recent years and whose throwing arm is a wet noodle, aptly described here by Ben Reiter:
If we were to create a "no-tool player" -- a Frankenstein's monster crudely stitched together using only the worst individual skills possessed by active major leaguers -- we might give him the foot speed of one of the senior Molina brothers. We might give him the glove of Adam Dunn. We might give him the power of Luis Castillo, and the ability to hit for average of Jack Cust. (We could name this dreadful player, my colleague Joe Posnanski would probably tell you, "Yuniesky Betancourt.")
Of this, though, there is little doubt: We would bestow upon this unfortunate creature the throwing arm of Johnny Damon.
Only time will tell where Damon will end up, but two things seem to be certain: He won’t be back in New York, and he won’t get the $13 million a year he was reportedly asking the Yankees for earlier in the off season.
Read more at our Yankees blog Pinstripe Alley.
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