Red Sox claim Johnny Damon off waivers

Johnny Damon staying with Tigers

Johnny Damon said before tonight's game against Kansas City that he will stay with the Detroit Tigers for the rest of the regular season.

Click to expand...

Cements him being a hated guy by a lot of Boston fans forever now.

Disco Volante said:

Johnny Damon staying with Tigers



Cements him being a hated guy by a lot of Boston fans forever now.

Click to expand...

Good. **** him and the horse he rode in on.

Not being the highest bidder isn't the same as "lowballing" or making a "crappy" offer.

To scorn a guy this bad for going to your rival, is acting like an insecure ex-girlfriend, which I guess makes sense given Boston's history and experiences pre-2004.

About the low offer. If the Sox wanted to keep Damon, they would have kept him. They were 12 million lower than the best offer, and it's pretty silly to hold it against him for going to New York. It's not like the offers were close at all. The Sox simply didn't step up to keep him.

The same thing happened with Mark Texeira. This management won't often go the extra mile to get a guy, and Lucchino is a master at using public relations and media to always present the owner perspective to spin everything.

Next year or the year after I fully expect the same Sox lemmings to become conditioned to openly hate Papelbon and be happy that he's gone, and boo him when he comes to Fenway.

DropKickFlutie said:

Johnny Damon was offered 12 million more over the same year duration to play elsewhere. Blame the Sox management for not stepping up. Don't blame Damon for taking significantly more money elsewhere. In your current job if another company offered you 50K more, you'd probably take it, even if you loved your current place.

After Damon got the offer from the Yankees, he went back to the Sox, and they LAUGHED at him on the phone. It was on the radio today, and I remember reports about this before. I believe this was when Theo wasn't GM and it was a two-headed GM controlling things.

The Sox pulled the same thing with Jason Bay. They purposely low balled him with a crappy contract offer, then had to scramble when it looked like he was going to actually sign it!

The Sox play this game, over and over, where if they don't want to pay a guy, they'll float rumors of how much the guy turned down, and make sure to character assassinate his way out of town. Damon was one of a long line of casualties in this process. Just a few months ago, Sox nation was brainwashed to want to run David Ortiz out of town.

Click to expand...

I don't care that Bay and Damon took more money - all the power to them. What I really don't care for is Damon doing EXACTLY what he said he wouldn't do: go the Yankees and not take the highest bid. Then he cries foul that the Red Sox didn't show him any respect. All the Sox did is what the Patriots usually do - they assigned a value to a player and didn't go over it. Listening to Johnny Damon and his cries of disrespect, you would think he was offered a 3-year $12M deal. He obviously knew the impact that signing with the Yankees would have on RSN when he made those comments during the 2005 season. He did it anyway.

I just don't understand why the Sox offering a 4-year, $40M deal is disrespectful and the Yankees offering him NOTHING last offseason is ok. It's disingenuous.

Now we'll have to hear every beat writer (Cafardo mainly) defend his decision like there was no choice but to stay in Detroit. And I don't want this to sound like I'm a Sox apologist here. Obviously, Lucchino is a master of deception and knows how to spin a story.

I'm glad he's not coming.

I don't hate the guy ... I just don't see how he would help us at this point.

I don't really think we wanted him ... had to be a block move.

We have players hitting as well as Damon has this year ... and Kalish has a better arm.

DropKickFlutie said:

To scorn a guy this bad for going to your rival, is acting like an insecure ex-girlfriend, which I guess makes sense given Boston's history and experiences pre-2004.

About the low offer. If the Sox wanted to keep Damon, they would have kept him. They were 12 million lower than the best offer, and it's pretty silly to hold it against him for going to New York. It's not like the offers were close at all. The Sox simply didn't step up to keep him.

The same thing happened with Mark Texeira. This management won't often go the extra mile to get a guy, and Lucchino is a master at using public relations and media to always present the owner perspective to spin everything.

Next year or the year after I fully expect the same Sox lemmings to become conditioned to openly hate Papelbon and be happy that he's gone, and boo him when he comes to Fenway.

Click to expand...

I reckon you'd need to investigate the difference between the Johnny Damon contract offer and the Mark Texeira contract offer by the Red Sox.

That'll save you some further embarrassment.

Eugene Chung said:

I don't care that Bay and Damon took more money - all the power to them. What I really don't care for is Damon doing EXACTLY what he said he wouldn't do: go the Yankees and not take the highest bid. Then he cries foul that the Red Sox didn't show him any respect. All the Sox did is what the Patriots usually do - they assigned a value to a player and didn't go over it. Listening to Johnny Damon and his cries of disrespect, you would think he was offered a 3-year $12M deal. He obviously knew the impact that signing with the Yankees would have on RSN when he made those comments during the 2005 season. He did it anyway.

I just don't understand why the Sox offering a 4-year, $40M deal is disrespectful and the Yankees offering him NOTHING last offseason is ok. It's disingenuous.

Now we'll have to hear every beat writer (Cafardo mainly) defend his decision like there was no choice but to stay in Detroit. And I don't want this to sound like I'm a Sox apologist here. Obviously, Lucchino is a master of deception and knows how to spin a story.

Click to expand...

Good post.

A decent point is that Damon said at the start of the season he wouldn't sign with NY, and then he did.
Big whoop. People change their minds all the time, plus I'm sure at the time Damon had no idea the Sox were going to offer 12million less than New York would.
I guess I can get over something like this much more than others. I still maintain that holding a crazy grudge like that is more indicative of a jilted insecure psycho ex-girlfriend, than say someone with a healthy dose of self esteem in the first place, or a franchise with a championship pedigree.

The comparisons with the Patriots negotiating style don't work because the NFL is a capped league where every dollar you give out means you can't give it to someone else. It's totally different in baseball.

I never said the contract was disrespectful, I said it was deliberately made so he wouldn't come back (just as they did with other Sox players). The Sox like to tell fans they tried and then pin the blame on the player, instead of just being straight about it. My view isn't disingenuous, and it's not disingenuous that the Yankees didn't offer Damon a contract back. It's more disingenuous to pretend like you wanted a guy back and then completely roast him with your fans when he did what you basically encouraged him to do.

Bottom line: The Sox didn't want Damon back or else they would have tried to match some of the 12M more the Yankees offered, and Lucchino is a genius at spin and PR to manipulate the masses to always let ownership off the hook, as evidenced in this thread itself.

DropKickFlutie said:

You're taking Damon-to-NY a bit too personally.

Damon was offered 12Million more by the Yankees than what Boston was offering for the same duration, why didn't Boston step up?

Why didn't Boston step up to get Mark Texeira?

I'm with the players on this, and amazed that the media machine can be so effective to demonize players when Boston clearly lowballs their own guys.

Logan Mankins and Tom Brady apply too. I'm completely with Mankins and Brady in their negotiations. The media tries to smear Mankins saying he was offered top 3 guard money, but when you look at it, 35M over 5 with the 1 year RFA means he makes about 6.1M over 6 years, which is more like #10th best guard money, which is pretty ridiculous. Similar thing with Wilfork last year, leaking vague details early to seem like he turned down good money.

Boston needs to stop lowballing its own guys, especially in baseball where there isn't a salary cap.

Click to expand...

please it wouldn't have mattered what the sox offered damon or mark t the yankees would have offered more and scott borrus would have made sure of it. all the yankees had to do is tell borrus to tell them what the sox top offer was and they come in at the last second and top it. and thats exactly what happened. why didn't the sox step up? give me a break.

How much is the Red Sox payroll this year? Last year?

Some fans are just never happy...

chicowalker said:

How much is the Red Sox payroll this year? Last year?

Some fans are just never happy...

Click to expand...

Perhaps you can elaborate. Where are you going with this? What exactly does that have to do with Johnny Damon?

captain insano said:

all the yankees had to do is tell borrus to tell them what the sox top offer was and they come in at the last second and top it. and thats exactly what happened.

Click to expand...

Actually, it isn't how it happened.

After Damon received his offer from the Yankees he went back to the Sox for them to respond or match, and they laughed at him on the phone.

I_Bleed_Blue said:

I feel EXACTLY the same as you. A friend of mine, in Texas, asked me last night if the Sox would pick up Damon. I said, No way" as he is hated by most Sox fans. I was really surprised when they did. Hoepfully he will be treated by the fans at Fenway the same way he treated them when he left...... POS that he is.

Click to expand...

It wouldn't surprise me just the same though if Damon had marched out there in a Sox uniform tonight, fans would have cheered him like a conquering hero or something.

KontradictioN said:

Perhaps you can elaborate. Where are you going with this? What exactly does that have to do with Johnny Damon?

Click to expand...

sorry -- was referring to the comments of the Sox f.o. not going far enough and outbidding the Yankees

DropKickFlutie said:

Actually, it isn't how it happened.

After Damon received his offer from the Yankees he went back to the Sox for them to respond or match, and they laughed at him on the phone.

Click to expand...

you dont have a clue on what happened on any phone call lol.

insano what is funny is how personally upset you are that a player chose to go to another team that offered 12 MILLION MORE than your own home team was willing to offer to keep him, and you blame the player not the ownership on that one.

DropKickFlutie said:

insano what is funny is how personally upset you are that a player chose to go to another team that offered 12 MILLION MORE than your own home team was willing to offer to keep him, and you blame the player not the ownership on that one.

Click to expand...

I'm not upset about anything nor do i blame anybody. your the one assigning blame not me. what are you a mind reader? your original post is moronic. the only problem i have with damon is his stupid comments after he left. the only thing funny is you thinking you know what happened in a phone call between damon and the sox. lmao