Reloading The Chamber | Gets_By_Buckner_86's Blog

As we Mets fans enter this Fall of mourning, I'm trying to come up with ideas on who can fill the open positions of the players that we trade/dump.

Today, I'm trying to figure out what viable options we have at 1B after we dump Delgado (and, believe me, we need to). My recommendation is Nick Johnson. The kid is 29 years old, has a gold glove caliber defense (although he had a hiccup in '06), can steal a base or two, and can hit for average with decent pop, kind of a younger version of Sean Casey. His first two full seasons playing 1B were excellent (especially with a very low-scoring Washington Nationals team):

2005 - .289, 15 HR, 75 RBI, 3 SB
2006 - .290, 23 HR, 77 RBI, 10 SB

He's already familiar with the NL East and, with bona fide protection in the lineup and runners on base in front of him, he's likely to drive in closer to 85-90 runs. He'd probably bat sixth behind Alou or whomever (maybe we can get Nady back or, better, steal Matt Holliday - a guy can dream!).

We can probably pry him off the Nationals' hands since they got production out of 1B with Dmitri Young this year and will probably bring him back, especially after winning the NL Comeback Player of the Year award. Plus, if we play our cards right, we can use a jedi mind trick on the Nats since they haven't seen Johnson play in a year and might be gun shy because of his broken leg (which, ironically, happened at Shea). Plus, he'd free up some money for us to use on pitching ($5.5 million versus $14.5 million currently wasted on Delgado).

Other options on the market are either virtually untouchable (e.g., James Loney; Joey Votto; Mike Jacobs; Adrian Gonzalez; Ryan Howard; Prince Fielder) or too old and/or costly (e.g., Todd Helton; Lance Berkman; Adam LaRoche).

Mark Teahen or Nick Swisher might be available for a reasonable cost, but neither can put up the numbers that Johnson can (although that Swisher guy can sure cut a mean HR celebration dance).

This is the way for the Mets to go at 1B. Delgado OUT; Johnson IN.

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