Fridays news-flash: New York Yankees, first baseman Nick Johnson near agreement

New York

Nick Johnson and the New York Yankees are set to reunite.

And that likely means a separation with outfielder Johnny Damon.

Johnson and his original team are wrapping up discussions for a one-year contract for $5.5 million, a person familiar with the situation told Newsday on Thursday night. The agreement is pending a physical examination.

Johnson's signing would fill the Yankees' need for a designated hitter, doing so within the budget general manager Brian Cashman repeated Thursday that he planned to stay tethered to.

The arrival of Johnson, 31, makes it extremely likely that the Yankees will move on without Damon.

"It's part of baseball," Damon told the New York Times on Thursday night. "Teams try to make moves in hopes to improve their club. I wish them all the best."

Johnson, a first baseman by trade, will serve as the Yankees' primary designated hitter. With Johnson and outfielder Curtis Granderson, officially introduced at a news conference at Yankee Stadium, New York believes it has replaced the left-handed bats of Damon and Hideki Matsui, who signed with the Los Angeles Angels for one year and $6 million on Wednesday.

The Yankees' first choice was to re-sign Damon, but the two sides were far apart in negotiations, with the Yankees discussing a two-year deal for $20 million and Damon looking for three or four years at the same $13 million annual salary he earned the past four seasons.

For Johnson,

he will be coming full circle. The Yankees selected him in the third round of the 1996 amateur draft. He went from the Yankees to Montreal as part of the package for Javier Vazquez in December 2003. He's been injury-prone, but when healthy, he gives the Yankees a bona fide No. 2 hitter against both righties and lefties.

Among current free agents, Johnson had the highest on-base percentage in 2009, at .426 with Washington and Florida. In 133 games with the Nationals and Marlins, he hit .291 with eight homers and 62 RBI.

• Third baseman Alex Rodriguez found out his surgically repaired right hip is holding up fine. "Great news," said Rodriguez, who had surgery in March for torn cartilage and missed the first month of the season. At the time, Dr. Marc Philippon thought Rodriguez would need a more extensive procedure in the offseason. But Philippon recently examined Rodriguez, and an MRI showed the three-time AL MVP's hip had properly healed.

Dodgers: Reliever Justin Miller agreed to a minor league contract with Los Angeles. Miller went 3-3 with a 3.18 ERA in 44 games for the Giants in 2009. Also, Los Angeles reached preliminary agreement with former Cleveland utility player Jamey Carroll on a $3.85 million, two-year deal.

Mets: New York and Japanese reliever Ryota Igarashi, 30, agreed to a $3 million, two-year deal. The right-hander became the first major addition this offseason for the Mets. He went 3-2 with a 3.19 ERA and three saves in 56 games last season for the Yakult Swallows. New York also has a bid between $60 million and $65 million over four years for free-agent outfielder Jason Bay.

Orioles: Third baseman Garrett Atkins and reliever Mike Gonzalez reached preliminary agreements with Baltimore, sources told the Associated Press. Gonzalez gets a $12 million, two-year deal, and Atkins receives a one-year contract with an option for 2011 that guarantees him $4.5 million. The deals are pending physicals, according to the sources. Atkins, 29, hit .226 with nine homers and 48 RBI last season for Colorado. He had a career-high 29 homers and 120 RBI in 2006, when he was fourth in the NL with a .329 average. Gonzalez, 31, was 5-4 with a 2.42 ERA and 10 saves last season for Atlanta.

Etc.: Former major league infielder Gookie Dawkins, 30, was given a 50-game suspension for a second positive test for drugs in the minors. He finished last season with Florida's Triple-A team in New Orleans.

New York Daily News: New York Yankees finalize one-year deal with Nick Johnson to replace Johnny Damon

New York

BY Bill Madden

DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Friday, December 18th 2009, 4:28 PM

Damon's Farewell

Are you happy that Nick Johnson is returning to the Yankees?

The Yankees finalized a one-year deal, $5.5 million deal with first baseman/DH Nick Johnson Friday, effectively ending Johnny Damon's tenure in pinstripes.

The deal will not be officially announced until sometime next week after Johnson completes a physical.

According to baseball sources, the 31-year old Johnson had more lucrative offers from a couple of other teams but wanted to return to the Yankees for whom he began his career in 2001.

He was one of many options GM Brian Cashman spelled out to the Yankee high command in organization meetings two weeks ago in the event Damon stuck to his demands of a three-year contract at the same $13 million he earned last year. In the end, Damon, according to sources, came down to two years, but still at $13 million per season and by then the Yankees were too far down the road with Johnson.

The signing of the lefty-hitting Johnson, who had a .426 on-base percentage to Damon's .365, solidifies the No. 2 hole in the Yankee lineup, albeit minus the speed Damon provided. It also ends the Yankees' interest in ex-Bergen Catholic product Mark DeRosa, another option Cashman had offered for consideration.

It would appear the Yankee payroll is going to come in at under $200 million for the first time since 2007, although Cashman said Friday he's still on the hunt for more pitching. As of now, the plan is for Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Alfredo Aceves and Sergio Mitre to compete for the fourth and fifth spots in the starting rotation, in which case there may well be a need for another righthanded set-up reliever.

"Right now, there's nothing on the front burner," Cashman said, "but if I can do something between now and Christmas I'm certainly going to try."

Get the facts on the painful subject of New York in this article - NY unemployment rate drops to 8.4 percent for November

New York

New York's unemployment rate dropped for November to 8.4 percent, the state Labor Department reported Thursday.

The jobless rate also fell in Chemung and Steuben counties from October to November but grew in Schuyler County.

Chemung County gained 200 jobs in November in trade, transportation and utilities, according to the Labor Department.

Chemung County's unemployment rate in November was 8.5 percent, compared to the 8.7 percent in October. In November 2008, the county's unemployment rate was 6.4 percent.

Schuyler County reported a jobless rate for November of 8.1 percent, compared to the October rate of 7.6 percent and the November 2008 rate of 6.5 percent. Jobs were lost in the service, leisure and hospitality sectors.

In Steuben County, November's unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent from 9.6 percent in October. The jobless rate was 6.9 percent in November 2008.

Jobs were reported lost in a variety of areas from mining and construction to manufacturing and leisure and hospitality.

In Tioga County, N.Y., unemployment was at 8.4 percent in November, up from 8.0 percent in October. Tompkins County's November jobless rate was at 5.3 percent -- the lowest in the state.

State unemployment drops from 9 to 8.6% in November (Why am I not shocked)

New York City

TROY — New York’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 9 percent in October to 8.6 percent in November.

At 6.3 percent, Saratoga County ranked second in the top 10 of the state’s counties with the lowest unemployment rates in November, according to figures given Thursday.

In the not seasonally-adjusted numbers, the state’s Labor Department said that, out of 62 counties, Albany ranked fourth with 6.4 percent, Schenectady was 15th with 7.3 percent and Rensselaer was 10th with 7 percent.

Against historical figures, state statistics this year showed a drop in the season-adjusted numbers from October to November. Usually, according to past data, the unemployment rate increases from October to November, said Kevin Jack, state labor market analyst.

This usual increase has occurred with the Capital

District’s unemployment numbers for the past nine years.

 “This is a welcomed relief this year, but I think we need to see several more months of improved numbers like this before we can say we are in an economic recovery. This is a breather before the unemployment rates increase again,” said Jack.

He noted that unemployment rates tend to be lower in upstate and higher near New York City.

Despite the improvement from last month, the announced figures were still higher than last year: In November 2008, the city of Troy’s rate was 6.6 percent; Rensselaer County’s was 5.5 percent; Albany County’s was 5.2 percent; Schenectady County’s was 5.4 percent; and Saratoga County’s was 5 percent.

The seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate for the Capital District in November 2009 was 6.9 percent, the second lowest rate for a region in the state after Long Island.

The number of unemployed state residents decreased from 871,000 to 833,900. Private sector jobs in the state also decreased by 2,500, or less than 0.1 percent, to 7,052,200.

Since the New York State economy went into recession in August 2008, the state’s private sector job count has declined in 14 of the past 15 months, officials said.

“New York State’s unemployment rate at 8.6 percent remained well below the nation’s rate of 10 percent in November 2009. Moreover, employers in the state cut jobs over the past year at a more modest pace than those in the nation as a whole,” said Peter A. Neenan, director of the Division of Research and Statistics. “While the latest data suggest improvement, it is too early to establish a clear trend.”

In the city of Troy, the unemployment rate reached a 16-year high in September at 9.8 percent. It has since dropped to 8.5 percent as of November’s figures.

The last time the Collar City’s unemployment rate was that high was in 1992, when the rate was 10.5 percent in January. Going back to 1990, the lowest unemployment rate the city had was in April and May of 2001 at 3.7 percent, according to the state Labor Department.

 

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