A passionate and deatiled analysis. Nice work and good writing. I'll let everyone else debate it...

nice job. thought wouldn't the swing be 5.5 games since each win by the Yankees is only a half-game advantage on Boston and a full game only when combined with a Sox loss?

Agreed, except I'd say "dispassionate"....

Your rebuttal to my comment misses the key points.

1. A raw WARP total does not accurately reflect the difference between Damon and his replacements. WARP double counts - it gives credit for value above an RL fielder in addition to value above an RL hitter - this is not real world. Replacement level is really ~17 runs below average; Damon is 6 wins better than a total scrub, but Crosby's defense is on par with Damon's and the offensive difference is closer to 25-35 runs.
2. The Red Sox can get someone with replacement level hitting and average fielding for under a mil, so again we're talking about the offensive difference, so it's hard to say that this is more than a seven-win swing.
3. The Red Sox have a general saber-advantage, and with $12m they're definitely capable of adding 4 or 5 marginal wins. Even if the 11 figure was right, I don't see the point in saying the Yankees picked up an 11 win swing when the money and opportunity cost is left out of the equation.

So if the comparison is between Damon signing in Boston for that price and in NY for that price, the realistic conclusion is the Yanks spent $13m for 2-3 marginal wins.

seamus

No, per Cliff's analysis, the Yankees gain 5.5 WARP, the Sox lose 5.5 by not having Damon and now currently going with a replacement level CF. Hence its an 11-win swing (not taking into account teeth's points of course).

Its nice when I can procastinate from doing math for a living to do simple math online :)

5.5 Yankees Wins + 5.5 Sox losses = 5.5 game difference in standings.

Cliff,

Paraphrasing you, the Red Sox are not spending John Henry's money, they are spending the Red Sox money.

As for the comparison between Bernie and Damon being slipshod at best, you are totally accurate there. Bernie betwen the ages of 28-31 put up approximately a .960 ops, nearly 200 points higher than Damon away from Fenway in the same time period. At the ages where Bernie was putting up a .400 obp, Damon was putting up a .340 when not in Fenway.

nevermind, I just realized that WARP assumes that 5.5 more wins also equals 5.5 more losses. So my math was right but I wasn't accounting for the implied losses for some reason.

And Cliff, while Damon's defense has been incorectly maligned on this website, to call an average RAA of +5 "consistently excellent" is to overstate his decent record as much as to compare him to Bernie 05 is to understate his abilities.

He is quite likely to be a league average fielder at the age of 32 assuming he doesnt' run into something or throw himself at something.

re #9...
Debris, you certainly seem to be singing a different tune about Damon's defensive aptitude than you did eight days ago. How come?

"Damon was a good centerfielder prior to last year, he'd averaged a +5 RAA from 2000-2004. Last year, he was a -5. Certainly, the drop of a point or two had to do with age, but his decline last year was primarily due to his playing banged up much of the year, playing through a shoulder injury the second half of the season that would have shut many lesser players down. I expect that in 2006, he will be a plus centerfielder again. He still has decent speed, has tremendous judgement and a great first step. The arm, while a liability for sure, is no nearly as bad as it was last year with the shoulder injury."

http://bronxbanter.baseballtoaster.com/archives/301623.html

Debris you said this about Damon a week ago:

"If the Sox offer Johnny Damon $50 million for four years and the Yanks offer him $50 million and a dime, Boras will push him to the Yanks. I think he's worth that, barely, to the Sox for the three good years he probably has left and the fourth for career service. I don't think he's worth that to the Yanks. Damon was a good centerfielder prior to last year, he'd averaged a +5 RAA from 2000-2004. Last year, he was a -5. Certainly, the drop of a point or two had to do with age, but his decline last year was primarily due to his playing banged up much of the year, playing through a shoulder injury the second half of the season that would have shut many lesser players down. I expect that in 2006, he will be a plus centerfielder again. He still has decent speed, has tremendous judgement and a great first step. The arm, while a liability for sure, is no nearly as bad as it was last year with the shoulder injury."

That seemed to me to be fair comment at the time. It now seems somewhat prophetic. Have you changed your mind? At least about the first 2 years? You seem to have.

Knuckles and Wsporter: Very Nice Work!!

Two points:

Ticket prices: Prices for upper deck resered seats are unchanged from last year. They have done a good job in holding the line here over the last 5 years or so.

Yankees are losing money: I have to laugh at media accounts of these "losses". George has a good accountant.

Knuckles:

Wow, what the hell is going on? I'm scared.

Great post, Cliff.

Also take into consideration the intangibles - we know Damon can play on the big stage, and he seems like a stand-up guy who will fit right in with the 'Yankee way' - regardless of what Sox-shill Jim Caple thinks...

re 9, 10, 11: I don't see the contradiction. I never called Damon either a defensive liability or a gold glover. I've called him a plus, which he might be, or average. He's been a +5, which is decent but not exceptional, and a -5. I called, as recently as this morning, the -5 an aberration.

Again, I don't think Damon 06 or 07 are a problem, though he's certainly not a star. It's the length of the deal that will hurt the team in the long run.

Here are two quotes from Joe Sheehan today. Joe, of course is a BP writer and a Yankee fan.:

"Despite all the attention paid to him, however, Damon is not a superstar, or arguably even a star. He was a consistent five-to-six win player in his four years with the Red Sox, a period that covered his age-28 through age-31 seasons. Durability and consistency were his strong suits, rather than any particular element of his game, and he does have fairly good speed...Damon, like Nomar Garciaparra, got a big boost from Fenway Park, on the order of 50 points of batting average and OBP the last three seasons. The Yankees aren't really getting a .310/.370/.450 guy so much as they're getting a .285/.345/.425 guy. It's the difference between a star and a solution, or millions of dollars and a couple of wins a year." He's a good ballplayer, but he's probably the second most overpaid signing this winter after Burnett.

Sheehan's next quote: "The Red Sox could actually end up huge winners here. There's a rumor making the rounds that they're trying to deal Matt Clement to the Mariners for Jeremy Reed. If they can do that, they will have replaced Damon with, essentially, a Damon Starter Kit, complete with functional arm and 25-year-old legs, and saved $20 million a year in the process. The Sox may feel they don't have the rotation depth to make a deal like this, but the available pool of pitchers is deeper than the available pool of center fielders, and the cost savings could go a long way come midseason. If they get Reed, they'll never miss Damon."

Oh, by the way. The one piece where I don't agree with Sheehan is on the Sox saving $20 M. I don't see the Mariners taking Clement without $2-3 M coming along for the ride, reducing the Sox savings to $18 M per year.

Another benefit of the signing: Let the Curse of the Caveman begin!

A couple of points:

1) I think it is a mistake to use BP's defensive stats, as Rate judged Bernie to be about average last year, and we all know ho wrong that is. Gassko's RAA is a much better system, IMO, and he put Damon at +15 last year.

2) You say Cano's discipline is worse than Soriano's, but you're basing this solely on BB-rate and not on K/BB ratio, which is far more important in predicitng future performance. Cano may have walked less than Soriano in his rookie season, but he struck out half as many times.

Good job getting this back on track Cliff. I agree w/pistol, Damon has proven he can get the job done under the microscope and that's something that hasn't been talked about enough. Plus, he a team guy. He'll do what it takes to win. At first I wasn't as happy about this signing, but after hearing the pure disgust from the mouths of Redsox fans on XM I like it even more. They can't seem to decide if he's a bum (in which case they should be happy the Yanks overpaid for him) or if he's a sellout. I see Bowa needing rotator cuff surgery after a season of waving Damon/Jeter/A-Rod in. He'll get on base, he'll cause concern, he'll give the top of the order better pitches to hit.

Oh yeah, Espnews reported that they signed Bernie for $1.5mil.

Cliff, good point on the money issue, I know I was guilty of using that, my main point having been, as you do, to debunk the economics issue. As debris, what Cliff is getting at with Henry's deep pockets, is that he is willing to spend the money, whoever's it is...

As for all of the arguments over how good Damon is or isn't, and according to whom this is a good trade or not, the simple fact of the matter is that the Yankees got what they needed for the next 3 years, which is a reliable, tough, everyday centerfielder who is a huge upgrade over anything else available, without having to trade anyone away. For the Yankees, it was the best option in the end, and for about 7 million more, I'll take it. The difference between 40-45 million and 52 million is hardly record breaking money, so its not like they are killing themselves.

But as Cliff mentioned, for the Red Sox, they now have some major decisions. if they trade Clement to the Mariners, which I agree doesn't seem likely without them picking up some of the contract, that leaves them with a very questionable rotation. AND they still have no SS. The Sox have now lost Mueller, Damon, Myers, Graffanino, Renteria, Millar, Mirabelli, and a bunch of other bums like Bradford, and replaced them with: Loretta, Lowell, Mota, Beckett, Seanez, and Schoppach (I assume). I am probably missing a few people here and there. The Sox currently have no 1b, ss, and cf. You can move Lowell to 1st and play the kid they got for Renteria, but I suspect he will be traded for a SS or CF. Should be interesting to see what happens

I have totally lost track of any of my points by now, sigh...

Debris,

You make many intelligent points. But for the record, anything the Sox have done this off-season that you don't like?

This acquisition like all others will be best judged after the fact. I preach restraint prior to judgement. I will say this, it surprised me.

If the Red Sox had re-signed Damon, we have heard what a great asset he was from Red Sox fans. Now he has signed with the Yankees, he is the worse EVAH. It is all so predictable.

I have to say that I had a good chuckle over the sad sack look on Peter Gammons' face on ESPNews earlier.

It'll be a warm New England winter evening tonight in Boston as they erect that huge bonfire of burning Johnny Damon posters. Of course, they are well practiced in these bonfires: Boggs, Clemens, Vaughn, Nomar, Pedro, Epstein, and now Damon. Can Schilling be far behind?

If the Sox trade Clement for Reed, they might pick up a nice, young centerfielder, but aren't they giving up the best pitcher they had for the better part of last season? I know Sox fans are down on the way he ended the season, but the guy was money during the first half. As a Yanks fan, I'd love to see them pull off that trade.

Plus, if they trade Clement, aren't they admitting they made a mistake signing him, just like they admitted making a mistake with Renteria? If so, is their 04-05 off-season just as bad as the Yankees' in the same period? They make three huge signings (those two and Varitek), two of which look terrible, and the third about to rear its ugly head.

Personally, I've grown to love the deal. As much as it helps NY (and no matter how you cut it, it helps NY), it hurts Boston. And spin the potential Reed deal if it even happens however you want, but you aren't going to replace Damon. They now have a hole at the top of the order and in CF and that's huge.

And the thing that I find sort of ridiculous is the notion that because Damon hit .250 or .260 or whatever it was on the road (and so much better in Fenway)that he's going to do that in NY. How stupid is that? Now he has 81 games in the Bronx...where he can get comfortable hit 5 more homeruns and bat .320, steal 20 bases, and track down a bunch of fly-balls. Damon is a GREAT signing now and three years from now. Stop getting hung up on his lollipop arm. So guys will go from first to third on him. Big Freaking Deal. They did that last year, and at least this year they'll be a dozen more chances that these guys don't have because he'll be getting to balls Bernie didn't.

Color me stoked.

Now that Damon is signed, the Yanks would have been better off without Bernie, in my opinion. In 2005, Bernie didn't hit well enough to be a DH; he'll likely be worse this year. He's not a pinch runner. He's not a defensive replacement. He doesn't even play all 3 OF positions.

Also, I wonder how he'll be able to avoid being a morale problem. Not many of us could gracefully accept so large a demotion while staying with the same organization. Going from team star to part time DH is a heck of a drop.

Also, Bernie's signing discourages the Yankees from signing some DH who would be an above average hitter.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/columns/story?columnist=crasnick_jerry&id=2267762

I also don't feel so bad when I look at the options we had as alternatives to Damon or Bubba/Bernie. Crasnick takes a cursory look at 12 of them at the link. Boston may be in worse shape then we were, at least we had Bubba/Bernie, well Bubba anyway.

Accounting principles permit rather elastic techniques to determine the make up of a balance sheet. Just because the Yankees claim to be in the "red," it doesn't mean they are.

cliff,

thanks for trying. ; )

How good a year will Damon have in 2006?

Newly acquired players have tended to do worse their first year as a Yankee. E.g., pitchers Vasquez, Clemens, Wright, Pavano. Hitters Womack, Lawton, Raul Mondesi, Todd Zeile, Rondell White. Even players like Giambi and Sheffield who had very good first years with the Yanks didn't match their prior season. If Damon follows this pattern, he'll be an upgrade over Bubba, but not a star.

Paul in Boston,

I think the Sox have only done one thing this offseason that I don't like and that's dealing Renteria before establishing his replacement. They also attempted to sign Farnsworth. I wouldn't have wasted that effort.

Most of the players gone had to go. I'm happy with all the other trades. Loretta is a fine pickup for almost nothing. The farm system was more than deep enough to deal Ramirez and Sanchez for Lowell and Beckett. The Seanez signing is incentive laden and cheap.

There are other things I'm not happy about. I think they should have given Roberto Petagine a chance to show what he can do. I think they should show more faith in Youkilis. He should be given a chance to play everyday.

Here's what I think they will do that I won't like. I think Youkilis should play everyday with Lowell playing third against lefties, Petagine first against righties.

#29 — Bernie, a "morale problem"? Maybe you're on to something here. Come to think of it, if a mid-June fist fight broke out in the clubhouse involving, say, Jeter — the first guy I would think would be trying to bang 'Cap out would be, of course, Bernie Williams.

It just makes sense. The man is due to erupt. He's carried himself with quiet dignity for 14 years and counting. Maybe this is why Cash didn't go after Milton Bradley. He knew we already had one in waiting — and for a lot less dough.

Yeeesh!

I don't think I was "pining" for Byrnes, at least that's not what I meant. I am growing to like the Damon signing, though I doubt I'll ever be crazy about it. Of course, if he sucks, everyone is going to quickly change their tune on the deal.

Paul in Boston,

After some thought, here's a more complete response to your question. Two things.

1. The whole Manny thing, which I suspect and hope might just be a farce. The guy signed a contract, they should force him to honor it. If he doesn't want to play, let him tear up his contract.

2. While I'm quite happy with most of the individual moves, most of the players gone needed to go and I like all of the additions, I wonder if they're not playing rotisserie baseball. They now have a collection of good players, certainly with some holes to fill, but is this a team or a collection of players. With all the turnover, will they be able to gel as a team and how long will this take?

I'm not happy to see Mike Myers gone. I'm not happy to see Damon gone, though I see him as a short term fix