Long time friend, Johnny Damon, has offered his services to the Yankees in order to replace the injuried Curtis Granderson. He claims it would be a perfect fit, like every other year since he left New York. At the moment Brian Cashman has no interest, like every other year since he left New York. This time, however, is different. This time it sounds like a perfect fit, almost too good to be true.
Curtis Granderson will be out of action for 10 weeks, which will end up being somewhere in early May. Damon is offering to replace Granderson on the roster for the six weeks of the regular season that he'll be gone and then the Yankees can just get rid of him. He's even offering to accept league minimum to do it.
Is this offer too good to be true, or is there something that needs to be considered first? Johnny Damon is 39 years old and he's been in decline since he left the Yankees. For the last three seasons he's seen a decrease in time in the outfield and has been more of a DH. He managed to play in only 64 games and 224 plate appearances with the Indians last year before they gave up on him and in that time Damon had a 71 wRC+ along with a .281 OBP, the worst of his career.
Spending time with the Tigers, Rays and Indians exposed him to some of the unfriendlier ballparks to left handed slap hitters. Damon knows that Yankee Stadium's short porch is the perfect place to highlight his still existent abilities and while it may sound like he's doing the Yanks a favor, he's actually banking on the Stadium's dimensions upping his game enough to hook onto some poor unsuspecting team who thinks he's for real. Johnny Damon is an illusion. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Thankfully, there's still no itch