So for a player who is young than his peak, such as Guillen and Nick Jonshon, injury history or “proneness” should not be a factor.

Adam, he could be average. BB-ref’s Most Similar Batters shows some All-Stars.

Johnson played 129, 96, then 73 the past three years. He might someday get healthy, but I think it’s foolish to expect him to play more than 3/4 of the season and 100 games is more realistic.

While he’s only 26, his upside seems to be “average” first baseman rather than All-Star, which Guillen was/is.

I think it’s fair to say that the M’s FO knows they have to make a big splash. How they interpret this is one thing, and how they’ll handle it is another. I’m very cautiously optimistic, but certainly not getting my hopes up…

That lineup looks fairly servicable if everything works out (i.e., no injuries). But what is the likelihood of that?

Where are the injury risks in the lineup?
UH… hitters #3-5 and #7. Jacobsen and Glaus have documented histories of serious injuries. Delgado’s health is looking questionable and he is getting old. Boone is old.

Further, where is the future in this lineup? Are Ichiro, Reed, Winn, Lopez, and Olivo really the building blocks we want for the New Mariners? Which of those is the guy that is going to make pitchers sweat?

I would much prefer the M’s stick to Plan A: sign a superstar YOUNG player that has a high probability of being an all star for several years to come, and use our players and acquisitions to build around that person.

Carlos Guillen, Jerry?

At 26 years old, NJ would be a great addition.

Is everyone just blowing this one off saying Gammons has it all wrong?

Jerry:
“The problem is the Mets. I don´t see the Mets getting all that excited about trading Matsui, Stanton, and Floyd for Sosa, Farnsworth, and a prospect. Perhaps they would. But they would be adding one of the worst contracts in baseball in Sosa. They do want to get rid of Floyd, but he comes off the books after 2005 and gets paid over 10 million less than Sosa. Stanton may be signed for two more years, but he was a better reliever than Farnsworth last year. It just doesn´t make much sense for the Met´s unless they really wanted to ditch Matsui. I am not sure that this is the case.”

I floated the idea at on couple of Mets blogs too, and the response was generally quite negative. While they wanted rid of Floyd (whose contract actually runs through 2006 at $6.5m per) and Stanton (who has one year at $4m left on his deal and whose performance in 2004, they claimed, was a lot worse than his ERA suggested), and they were interested in Farnsworth (it’s the stuff really, and the hope that Peterson might be the person to turn him around), they were sceptical when it came to Sosa and his age-induced decline. That said, it would seem that Minaya is far more enthused by him, and if the markets for Floyd and Stanton aren’t big, the proposed trade actually works out well for them financially ($1.3m added in 2005, $3.5m in 2006, $4.5m in 2007), nothing that Sosa wouldn’t re-generate, and Matsui is expendable if Victor Diaz pans out as their second baseman. I think if we sent them that prospect we’d have sent you, Minaya would do the deal, though most Mets fans wouldn’t.