The Nick Johnson question is very close to the Chris Snelling question:
How much do you bet on a guy who is always injured?
There's a difference, though.
Snelling has a career .302/.392/.456/.849 minor league line.
Johnson has a career .273/.402/.449/.849 MAJOR league line.
No matter what happens to Nick, if he's in the lineup he's not gonna Carl Everett you a season. I agree that his OPS+ numbers are inflated as far as his effectiveness, since he was not hitting with power last year, but Edgar and Ole had "over-inflated" OPS+ numbers as well, since they couldn't exactly haul themselves around the bases with speed and precision either. Gar taking a walk instead of a hack with a RISP was frustrating.. but there are worse problems to have.
Still, can you keep Johnson at the plate? His last 3 relatively healthy years were 05, 06 and 09. His OPS+ those years is 137, 149 and 122. Is this 122 indicative of a loss of power (since he wasn't a total slap hitter before...) or just a recovery year? And aren't ALL his years recovery years?
Nick Johnson is an interesting case study. Personally, I'd pay Nick, and then Griffey can play more if/when Nick gets injured. Bring me Johnson and Branyan, for that matter. Odds are one of em makes it out healthy, and we have Carp in AAA as insurance (Carp dreams of being Nick Johnson in the pros, Doc - he's as close as you're going to get to a free Nick Johnson, but it would be the .250/.350/.400/.750 Nick Johnson of Age 23).
But that's just me. I'd rather bet with the pro with the ridiculous OBP, let the kid have another year before throwing him to the wolves (and give us the ability to withstand the potential long-term debuts of Tui and Saunders) and have Nick standing on 1B 40% of the time when Russ Branyan is up. Easier to do more damage with those homers when someone's on base...
~G