“You’ll get Jeff Gray and like it!”

Johnson has played 6 more games than Rich Harden has pitched in the last two years.

A career 125 OPS+ is worthless if he can’t get out of the trainers room.

But, yeah, that barrier’d have to be overcome.

Nick Johnson, now that’s expensive junk.

First off, an OF with a decent CFer and Holliday in LF can probably bear having a less gifted RFer part of the time in Cust, who has played enough there and acquitted himself well enough at that position for that matter, that the offensive boost to the team might be worth it.

Check out 2007, when Cust played plenty of games in RF, in terms of his defensive stats:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/custja01.shtml

Now, don’t get me wrong- surely the A’s are sacrificing defense to gain offense in this scenario, but it wouldn’t be all 162 games it might be more like half or two-thirds of them… plus, I remember the A’s outfields of the late ‘90s and early part of this decade, and those weren’t defensively gifted outfields for the most part in fact the corner spots were usually played by good offensive contributors who were a bit suspect in the field. And those were pretty good teams.

As for the “only trading Barton to fill an appreciable need” argument, I totally agree with this sentiment and I’m as perplexed/disappointed as anybody that no upgrade has been made to shortstop yet this offseason nor has the team acquired a more proven starter to bolster the pitching rotation. I see those as greater areas of need, too.

And while I can see where Nick Johnson might fit into the scheme of things for the A’s this season, I also question trading Barton for him unless… the A’s get somebody else in the deal that allows them more more trading flexibility in obtaining either a proven starting pitcher or a better option at shortstop.

That’s why I posited the concept of a Barton + RP for Johnson + Milledge, or something like that. I can see where getting Milledge in the deal would allow the A’s more flexibility in potentially trading, say, Buck or Sweeney to obtain another piece they need more going forward. The actual trade idea is just a rough concept, but the underlying idea is that perhaps there’s a second move that could follow a trade involving (but not solely consisting of) Barton and Johnson that would fill a more pressing need for the A’s.

Just thinking out loud, really. Not sure what to make of a rumor involving a Barton for Johnson swap, so I’m trying to find a way it could even make sense (though it probably still doesn’t, and wouldn’t!)

didn’t a lot of AN think that trading for Holliday before it actually happened was a bad idea that made now sense? I really don’t get why the A’s would do this, but I also realize that no GM is 100% predictable. I will say that I would never do this deal, but I will also throw in the caveat that stranger things have probably happened.