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Johnny Damon turned down a contract offer from the Yankees worth $14 million a few weeks ago and everyone figured the guy would be making $2 million this year for some reason. Well the Scott Boras spin machine got to work immediately and suddenly it was said that Detroit was offering the same deal.

Well the two headed monster of Damon and Boras took a week to finally hash out a contract with the Tigers with the left fielder getting $8 million for the 2010 season.

It’s clear to me at-least that Damon didn’t really want to play in Detroit. He said his wife preferred Chicago, he took a week to finally accept $8 million from them then no one else wanted to go above $4.5 million.

All of which may really be because playing in that ballpark will kill Johnny Damon’s numbers. I don’t even have to pull up his splits to tell you Damon was a “masher” at the new Yankee Stadium and was a league average player on the road.

Damon and Boras know as well as anyone that the outfielders numbers are going to slide badly in Detroit.

The worst part of the whole situation is that the Tigers traded Curtis Granderson to the Yankees due to salary concerns and now sign Damon, the lesser of the two players, for $8 million. I guess they don’t call him Dave Dumbroski for nothing.

There however is a silver lining in this story. We don’t have to hear about it anymore. I don’t know why I’ve written about the situation so much other then frankly it’s been pissing me off!

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For those hoping to see a resolution to the Johnny Damon saga that has controlled baseball headlines the last few weeks… I guess we are still waiting.

It’s Friday evening, Damon is on vacation, and Scott Boras has four teams talking to him.

It’s not going away.

Not till next week rolls around at-least and even then it’ll be a dog and pony show.

Currently it’s said that the Tigers are in at two years and $14 million. The Braves have offered a one year deal with up to $5 million in total money, the Rays have a telephone and Kenny Williams of the White Sox is doing his best to remind people that just because he said something two weeks ago it has no bearing on today since other teams are doing the same thing.

Worst of all is Monday is a holiday so… we are probably looking at Tuesday for anything near official.

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Looks like Scott Boras and company have done things perfectly. While the market for the outfielder was once bare there now seems to be at-least three teams who have contacted the agent about Damon’s services in the last day.

It seemed Damon was looking at maybe even a contract as low as $2 million. Of course those were national sport reporters not me. I’ve steadfastly remained confident that Damon would eventually find a deal north of $5 million.

Then yesterday happened. The Tigers and Braves have been interested in Damon, everyone knows it. Then word came that the Braves were willing to offer Damon $2 million for the 2010 with an additional $2 million deferred. Some have said the deal was worth a total of $5 million but either way the wheels were in motion.

Now today the Tigers have apparently made an offer of $14 million over 2 year deals. Then Boras also threw out the White Sox’s name. Wouldn’t doubt that either.

In the matter of two days Boras has convinced three of the second tier spenders to engage in contacts with him about his client. This figures to wrap up quickly because Damon’s value can only go down from here.

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The market for outfielder Johnny Damon was reportedly dead. No one wanted him at his demands of $10 million at three years, the Yankees refused to go any higher then $5 million and when you walk away from their money your wallet can only get smaller.

Since that time it’s been said, reported, quoted, speculated, analyzed, put under a microscope for 4th graders and even written on toilet paper that Johnny Damon likely would get no more then $2-3 million on a one year deal with any club.

Even Kansas City. And the Nationals were out of the question because well Johnny Damon simply wouldn’t entertain the idea of going to an offensive death sentence, and if that’s Washington you can only imagine what Pittsburgh is.

But now we hear different. Everyone is saying it now. Everyone! Maybe it’s all the snow and well people can’t get out and their cars are stuck and they are inhaling dangerous levels of carbon monoxide. Maybe life on Mars has discovered us and decided to play a cruel joke on everyone, making them believe Johnny Damon is again worth $5 million or worse… a two year deal.

Johnny Damon had a great 2009 season, but he was also playing in a sandbox had the best offensive team in the league around him and well let’s face it my lack of depth perception makes me as good of an option to play left field as Damon is.

It’s easy to look at the Braves current roster and see that Damon is an upgrade. Frankly he’s an upgrade over everyone in the outfield. McLouth, Diaz, former Yankee teammates Melky Cabrera and Eric Hinske, Jordan Schafer and well the knees and hips of Garret Anderson which for some reason remain sitting two feet from the warning track.

But at $5 million? Two years?

Ok call me confused, late for dinner, or whatever. The Braves have not been honest about their payroll for 2010 at all. They said that Damon wasn’t in their budget when it appeared he could and probably would have signed with them at $5 million nearly two plus weeks ago. Now all of a sudden because the Detroit Tigers are interested they suddenly have the money to spend?

Even worse. Agent Scott Boras is angling for a two year deal! While both teams are now said to be checking in at $5 million on one year deals, it’s becoming clear that the team that caves into giving a second guaranteed year or additional money will be the eventual suitor for Damon. Well unless the Yankees get involved again which you never really know.

It’s to the point where it’s annoying hearing anything about the Braves. Everything starts and ends with Johnny Damon and playing left field.

If Johnny Damon really had this type of interest from teams all along it wouldn’t have been a secret. Am I the only one who noticed that Boras never really talked about the teams that he said were “interested” in Damon and now he’s freely flying off at the mouth with the words Tigers and Braves like a dog with rabies?

So what now we are going to give Damon $5 million to act a fool and Melky Cabrera $3.1 million to stare at him? Someone hit me in the head.

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Randy Winn, 35, has signed a contract with the New York Yankees.  The signing of Winn at $2 million could be the biggest sign to date that a reunion of Johnny Damon and the Yankees is not in the cards.

Of course until Damon does sign elsewhere there will always be those rumors.

Winn finished his fifth year in San Fransisco with a .262/.318./353 line with a career low 2 home runs. He is still known as a good defensive outfielder and can offer some team speed with steal totals of 16, 25 and 15 over the last three seasons.

Not known for his power Winn has been able to hit and walk his way on base to be a productive member of a ball club. In 12 big league seasons he has a career .344 OBP including .353 and .363 in 2007 and 2008 while with the Giants.

In New York he figures to share the left field job with Brent Gardner likely seeing the majority of his playing time against right handed pitching.

The combination of Garnder and Winn likely would bat at the bottom of the order.

Brian Cashman and the Yankees held firm with Damon and agent Scott Boras insisting they would only sign the outfielder to a deal worth $2 million.

For what it’s worth the Oakland A’s are still believed to be interested in Damon at a lesser salary. Boras and David O’Brien have done a good job of keeping the option of Atlanta in the press and the Detroit Tigers have reemerged as a possible destination over the last week.

If the Yankees are indeed out of the running for Damon then his anticipated contract for 2010 drops dramatically. The Yankees were the one team that was believed to be able to pay $4-5 million for Damon. It’s possible that Damon may end up signing for the same amount as Winn has. That would have been unbelievable

at the start of this winter.

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We’ve heard many things used as tools to increase or manipulate contracts in professional sports but I’m having a tough time understanding why retirement is among them.

In recent years players have used the threat that they would retire as a reason that teams should pay them more money. Recently it was said that Johnny Damon had told friends he would retire if he couldn’t get an appropriate contract and then yesterday Kurt Warner came out and said that he was thinking of retiring since football was simply not fun anymore.

My thoughts? Fine go away already.

Don’t use the threat of retiring as a negotiating tool. I can’t even understand why threatening to retire has even worked.

Are these athletes foolish enough to think we won’t simply replace them. We can buy other jerseys, hang up new posters and yes we can cheer for a different player occupying your old position.

Don’t tell me how the game isn’t fun and then turn around and sign a huge contract. I suppose it’s not just the players who are at fault here. After all if any of these organizations had the balls to stand up and say here’s the offer take it or retire I seriously doubt we’d be witnessing this still.

If a guy wants to retire then you aren’t bidding against another organization. You’re bidding against his sofa and daytime soaps. Now I know that Hope Brady is still an attractive lady but I don’t think shes got the goods to compete with the desire to still play sports and lets be honest she ain’t going to pay anyone the greenbacks to watch her show.

Instead you are trying to convince the athlete he still wants to pay. So far the only way anyone has been able to do that is with money.

Before I go any further I think we have to understand the difference between using retirement as a tool and saying you are going to retire.

Current Baltimore Raves safety Ed Reed came out and said he was thinking of retiring following the Ravens playoff loss citing nagging injuries. Reed is also not guilty of using retirement as a tool. Reed (like teammate Derrick Mason) has a contract for next season. Reed’s contract actually runs though 2012 with salaries of $6 million, $6.5 million and $7 million. Simply put there is no way Reed would be able to top those numbers with any club even if he was a free agent.

Now for an example of a player trying to milk retirement.

The last time Kurt Warner wanted a contract he wanted two years instead of the one Arizona was offering. Warner, who has blinded people into thinking he doesn’t care about money, threatened to retire leaving Arizona with Matt Leinhart as their starter. In essence Warner was gloating to them ‘pay me or play the reason you brought me here in the first place.’ The result of course was Arizona giving him two years on his deal and now he’ll go out and do the same thing to them this season.

There’s been conflicting reports whether Johnny Damon would actually retire. Not long after it was first reported everyone was pretty much trying to prove otherwise and other acquaintances of Damon have even squashed the rumor. I for one don’t doubt that Damon said it. After all Damon hasn’t found any teams interested in taking him for the $10 million he asked for at the beginning of the winter meetings. He’s still asking for that amount as recently as last week.

Sure there have been others as well.

Maybe they all have learned from Roger Clemens who retired as a member of the  New York Yankees in 2003 only to sign with the Houston Astros in January of 2004. Sure that first year he got only $5 million but the $18 million he got in 2005 after threatening to retire was eye popping. Actually Clemens asked for $22 million (as he said to match his uniform number) while the Astros were going to offer $13.5 million in their case for arbitration.

Clemens again said he was retiring following the 2005 season, and surprise surprise he didn’t. After months of everyone expecting him to come back it was announced on May 31 that he was coming back. Clemens’ contract worth $22,000,022 would be prorated netting him $12.25 million for 19 big league starts.

Next year same thing. This time to the Yankees. The deal with the Yankees would be prorated from a total of $28,000,022. Clemens made $18.7 million that season in total despite not pitching in the big leagues until June 9. Clemens finished the year 6-6 with a 4.18 ERA costing the Yankees just over $3.1 million per victory.

It figures to only get worse.

I’ve never known a person outside of sports with the ability to make their employer pay them more with this threat. Actually I’m willing to bet most employers would see this as a easy way to avoid paying you severance and to discontinue your benefits. So why is this option now on the table in the lucrative market of professional sports?

These professional clubs need to put a stop to it. They are the only ones who can.

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On and off again this winter we have heard that Johnny Damon and the New York Yankees haven’t been talking about bringing the outfielder back. Damon had been wanting a three year deal from the Yankees worth in excess of $10 million annually.

The 36-year-old had a tremendous 2009 season, finishing with a .282/.365/.489 batting line, 24 home runs, 82 RBI and 107 runs scored in 550 at-bats.

With Hideki Matsui signed by the Angels and Melky Cabrera traded to the Braves the Yankees currently have Brent Garnder listed atop the depth chart in left field. Gardner finished last year hitting .270/.345/.379 with 3 homers, 23 RBI, and 48 runs scored while stealing 26 bases last year.

That alone has many believing that despite Damon, his agent Scott Boras and the Yankees not talking that something will eventually get done to bring him back to the Bronx.

Brian Cashman and the Yankees front office either have little interest in bringing back Damon or they have played their cards excellently to avoid paying him a huge contract. With the number of teams interested in Damon dwindling his value has also went down. Leaving some to suspect that the Yankees will now swoop in and sign him.

It’s been back and forth between Mark Bowman of MLB.com and David O’Brien of the AJC to whether the Braves are seriously looking at Damon. Damon to Atlanta would be great for the Braves as it would allow them to put him in left field which would allow Jason Heyward to stay in the minors and get needed at-bats he’s missed since his latest string of injuries.

Last winter Bobby Abreu signed a $5 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels. It may take that to happen for the Braves to have a real shot at him. Though some believe the Braves may only be able to sign Damon should he fall in the range of $1-2 million, a number no one can truly see him falling to. For example Colby Lewis recently got $5 million over 2 years and he spent the last two years in Japan after no success in the majors. There’s simply no way Damon gets paid less then Colby Lewis.

The Detroit Tigers were linked to Damon in the last few days but management denied they were even considering him. Considering the Tigers are financially stressed and have been looking for at-bats for Ryan Raburn it’s easy to see why these two aren’t a pair.

There’s always the chance he could join the New York Mets but Boras and the Mets are at odds over Carlos Beltran’s recent surgery.

One thing is for sure. We haven’t heard the end of this one.

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If the report of Ken Davidoff of Newsday is to be believed then the Bronx Bombers are in the mist of finalizing a one year deal worth $5.5 million with former first-baseman Nick Johnson.

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