Is Johnny Damon following Hideki Matsui out of The Bronx?
With very little contact between the Yankees and the free-agent left fielder, Damon is ready to explore other options.
“I am going to start looking around. Teams are getting better and there are teams interested,” Damon told The Post yesterday. “I can’t wait forever and I am sure [the Yankees] are trying to figure things out. I have to be ready.”
At the crux of the situation is that the Yankees aren’t interested in giving the 36-year-old Damon more than two years for about $20 million. Agent Scott Boras says Damon deserves a three- to four-year pact and industry sources believe Damon doesn’t want to take a cut from the $13 million he made last season.
Therefore, with nothing to talk about, there hasn’t been much talk.
“No,” GM Brian Cashman said yesterday when asked if there was anything new regarding Damon.
Damon is playing close attention to Matt Holliday and Jason Bay, the premier outfield free agents, land. Holliday isn’t on the Yankees’ radar; there is a little interest in Bay.
“Matt Holliday, the stuff on him is starting to pick up,” Damon said of the fellow Boras client. “And wherever Bay doesn’t end up will open a door for me.”
Could that be the Mets? They have made a four-year offer worth $60 million-$65 million to the right-handed hitting left fielder. Should Bay reject the Mets, they might have an interest in Damon to play left, add power to an anemic lineup and provide a strong clubhouse presence.
Cashman’s focus is on adding a pitcher — starter or reliever — and addressing the left field vacancy.
With John Lackey in Boston and Roy Halladay in Philadelphia, the secondary starters market is led by Joel Pineiro and Staten Island’s Jason Marquis. Ben Sheets, Justin Duchscherer and Erik Bedard are in the mix, but each dealt with health issues a year ago. Sheets’ agent, Casey Close, said the former Brewers ace, who missed all of last year due to flexor tendon surgery, will be ready for the start of spring training.
As far as the DH void created by Matsui leaving for the Angels, something Damon can help fill, Cashman said he wouldn’t be against trying lefty-swinging Juan Miranda, who played last year at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and hit .290 with 19 homers and 82 RBIs. The Yankees would also like to get Jorge Posada at-bats at DH and use the spot for resting Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher.
Without Damon to play left and hit second, the Yankees could field an outfield of Melky Cabrera in left, Curtis Granderson in center and Swisher in right. On the surface that appears a bit light offensively, but Granderson, a left-handed batter, hit 30 homers to Damon’s 24 last year and figures to benefit from Yankee Stadium’s short right-field porch. Damon hit .282 to Granderson’s .249.
The Yankees were among roughly 15 clubs watching Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman work out in Houston yesterday. The 21-year-old lefty long-tossed and participated in two five-minute mound sessions in which his fastball, once clocked at 100 mph, was caught at 96 mph.
“He has an athletic body and a big arm,” Astros GM Ed Wade told The Post after witnessing the workout.
“Anybody would like to have him. For one side session he was what people said. We will see where it goes from here.”
Talent evaluators believe if Chapman was draft eligible — he isn’t — he could command the $15.1 million Stephen Strasburg, the No. 1 pick, did this summer from the Nationals. As a free agent able to deal with more than one club, that could increase, but to say Chapman will get the four-year deal worth $32 million the Yankees gave Jose Contreras prior to the 2003 season would be a stretch.
george.king@nypost.com