What, you thought you were going to get something not suitable for work?
Now that the Nats have signed Adam Dunn, first baseman Nick Johnson is likely to be traded. Brian Sabean has said he doesn't want to trade for one-year rentals, and Johnson becomes a free agent after 2009, but there are extenuating circumstances:
* Dunn must play 1B for the Nats, unless they refuse to believe that he gives back with his outfield defense much of the goodness he brings on offense. If Dunn plays first, Johnson will have nowhere to go. He will not sit on the bench.
* He's making $5.5 M in 2009. Even these days, that's chump change for a premium hitter, which Johnson is, except...
* Johnson single-handedly has raised the MLB players' collective insurance premium 457% since he began his career. He gets injured a lot. He missed all of 2007 with a broken leg that wouldn't heal then most of 2008 with a wrist problem. Wrist problems + hitters = not a good sign.
It all adds up to someone the Nats want to move now, quickly, before his trade value trips and falls and is sent to the emergency room.
So why the hell would the Giants want a 30-year-old first baseman who can't stay healthy? Two words for you: Up. Side. When he's on the field, Johnson is a special hitter. Even when he's bad, he's good. In his limited 2008 at-bats he hit .220. But his OBP was .415 and SLG .431. In his last full season, 2006, he hit .290 / .428 / .520 in 500 at bats. Don't tell me you don't want some of that. He's left-handed, so Mays Field would turn some of his hits into outs, but he's also a line-drive hitter who truly sprays the ball around. This is just a guess, but what he loses in fly outs to deep right-center he would gain back in liners that roll to the faraway walls or bounce crazily off the bricks.
Normally a guy who hits like that would require a bootyload to acquire. But if Washington really wants his $5.5 M salary off its books, perhaps they would take players not named Jonathan Sanchez -- because as Hank Schulman reported yesterday, you'll have to pry a bigger, stronger, dirtier Sanchez out of Brian Sabean's cold dead hands. (Sabean also said Sanchez is the incumbent fifth starter and Noah Lowry will have to unseat him for a rotation slot.)
The trade market for Johnson, who has an estimated 73% chance of severe ouch, might be soft enough to let the Giants assemble a bunch of non-blue chip prospects for him. In other words, what size package for Johnson? I'll stop there before I'm arrested.
