Yesterday, 36 year old Johnny Damon, signed a one year deal with Tigers for 8 million dollars.

And he thought it was not fair.

Here is a guy that is on the downside of his career, throws like a 7 year old school girl and only had a great power hitting year because of the jet stream that was grabbing pop ups to second and sending them over the right field wall. Damon turned down a 2 year 14 million dollar deal (or was it Scott Boras?) last year because he felt that he should not get a pay cut after that solid offensive season.

The economics of baseball, at this time, do not dictate that a player in his twilight get a raise… especially one that appears to be just a hired gun.  He had some good years in Boston, some good years in New York but his defense just isn’t there any longer. His contract with the Yankees was 13 Million per year for four years; a total of 52 million.  He earned that contract based upon him being a center fielder which is a premium position and now there is now way he could cover center field.

At best he is a left fielder and will probably earn his money as a DH most of the time with the Tigers.

Baseball’s economics has changed greatly over the past few years due in part to the economy as well as the statistical analysis and Mr. Damon is just not a hot commodity.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 10:30 am and is filed under Sports Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.