Johnny Damon: Where Might He Play?

Yes, another Johnny Damon post.

I’m beginning to resent him for so much of the attention he is taking up this off-season. But it’s February 12 and he still hasn’t signed a contract. (For the record, Bobby Abreu signed on February 14 last off-season.)

So where might Johnny Damon end up? Well it looks like Detroit. Or Atlanta. Or possibly Chicago with the White Sox.

Right now it is most likely that he ends up with the Tigers. According to Jon Heyman, they are offering him slightly more than $14 million over two years. That’s the two-year deal that Damon has been looking for, so he’ll probably take that in the next couple of days. Heyman said that he may prefer Chicago or Atlanta over that, but that’s just Scott Boras speaking through Heyman trying to get those teams to up their offers.

In reality the next highest offer is a $4 million one-year deal from the Braves, according to Mark Bowman of MLB.com . That offer was nearly double what the Braves rumored limit was, so you have to think they stop there. Heyman thinks they could go to $6 million, but that’s just him/Boras speculating right now.

The White Sox have also been sticking their noses into this mix, but there have been no reports of a real offer, just that they were doing their “due diligence ” in checking in on what he might accept so late in the game.

So after a long off-season for Damon, he finally has a couple of non-Yankee offers—the Braves at one-year $4 million or the Tigers at two-years, $14 million. Will he take one of those? Or could he possibly hold out until spring training starts hoping that the Tigers bid against themselves?

Buster Olney thinks he’s going to Detroit, what about you?

Related Stories

• February 10, 2010 -- Johnny Damon Rumors (0)
• February 6, 2010 -- BBD Readers Confident In Gardner/Winn…Sort of (3)
• February 5, 2010 -- AL Exec: Damon Deserves 1-Year $3 Million (5)
• January 31, 2010 -- Olney: Yankees Are Not to Blame for Loss of Damon (6)