It’s looking like a really just horribly sad offseason adventure in free agency for The Shaved Emasculated Shell Of Johnny Damon.  Damon made $13 million last year in the final year of the four-year deal he got for switching from the Red Sox to the Yankees.  Damon and his agent Scott Boras wanted another similar deal despite the fact that Damon is 36 and is a noodle-armed defensive liability.   Now with less than a month till spring training, it looks like TSESOJD will be lucky to get $2 million from anywhere and he’s reportedly even talking about retiring.

Tyler Kepner of The New York Times Bats Blog thinks the Yankees aren’t likely to offer much more than a one-year deal for a couple million and incentives, and also says Damon will most likely be too proud to take a big paycut to stay in The Bronx.  His only option might then be to sign for peanuts with a non-contender and hope to get dealt at the trading deadline.

It’s really just a crying shame that such a nice guy like Johnny Damon is in this situation just because he’s stupid.  You’d think he would realize that a lot of that $13 million he got last year was more to get him at age 33 and 34, and that he might have benefited ever so slightly from batting between Jeter and Texeira in New Coors Field.  (But you’d also think he might have learned from supporting Giuliani’s presidential campaign.)

Personally, I’m torn between hoping he retires or maybe gets exiled to Japan.  Nothing’s too good for everyone’s favorite soulless self-denying traitor.