Yankees Acquire Johnny Damon!

After watching other teams -- most notably the Mets, Red Sox and Blue Jays -- make big splashes this winter, the Yankees finally landed their big fish. The Yankees fired the latest shot in their rivalry with the Red Sox, signing Johnny Damon to a four-year, $52 million contract to become their new center fielder. And being a huge yankees fan myself, I'd think that with Damon donning the pinstripes the Yankees are one of the toughest teams to beat with their ALL-Star line up and are serious title contenders come 2006.

While other teams have been grabbing the headlines with multi-million trades, Yankees have been quietly focussing on strenghtening their bullpen and filling up the gaps in the outfield. After adding Kyle Farnsworth, Mike Myers and Ron Villone to the bullpen, the Yankees came to a one-year, $2 million agreement with Octavio Dotel on Tuesday, finishing up the work on the relief pitching. Then the Yankees came to terms with Damon, stunning the baseball world.

The Yankees now possess, I believe a very strong all-round roster with a healthy bullpen (as opposed to last year) with arguably an enviable, yet slightly over-crowded starting rotation - Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, Chien-Min Wang, Carl Pavano, Shawn Chacon, Aaron Small and Jaret Wright as potential starters, and Rivera, Farnsworth, Dotel, Villone, Myers and Tanyon Sturtze in the bullpen. Al leiter, the LHP, was offered arbritration but refused..I'm hoping that the Yankees will work out a deal with Leiter too.

Just look at this Offensive batting line-up -

Johnny Damon,Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano,Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Hideki Matsui , Jason Giambi, Jorge Posada and possibly Bernie Williams as DH (if he accepts). Wow! Can't wait for the season to begin!

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