Holliday, Damon, the $100 million club and the bench

And another one bites the dust.

How many realistic suitors now exist for Johnny Damon? The only other team I’ve heard come up in connection to Damon of late is the Braves (I know the Giants are in the mix too, but I haven’t read much if anything about their intentions). I’m admittedly not terribly familiar with the Braves’ current outfield situation, but from what I can tell it looks to be presently constituted of Nate McClouth, Matt Diaz and ?, so Damon may make some sense for the Braves at the right price. However, if the Braves end up offering somewhere in the two-year, $14 million range that the Yankees were considering for Damon, I’d hope that Johnny would be able to swallow his pride and return to the Bronx. Of course, that’s also assuming that hypothetical offer is still on the table–it seems the Yanks truly are loath to spend anything more than $5 million on left field, and perhaps they’ve already relegated themselves to life after Johnny.

The Yankees’ relatively spendthrifty ways this offseason confirm that Brian Cashman was actually being straightforward for once with regards to discussing the Yankees’ intentions toward big-ticket free agents, as they were almost certainly never serious players for Matt Holliday.

As ridiculous as the addition of Holliday’s bat would’ve been to the 2010 Yankee lineup, it appears that even the Yankees have a limit to the number of $100 million men they want on their roster, considering that they already have four — A-Rod, Tex, Jeter and Sabathia — with perhaps a fifth on the way next year in the person of Joe Mauer.

On a minor note, the Yankees lost some pop off the bench as Eric Hinske signed a one-year deal with the Braves. Almost nothing has been made of the Yankee bench thus far this offseason, aside from some Jerry Hairston musings, and hopefully the Yanks will focus on filling the remaining holes, given that the bench presently consists of Francisco Cervelli and Ramiro Pena. Perhaps they’re thinking about giving Juan Miranda a shot in the Hinske role.

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