Did some of you catch Adam Rubin’s column this morning in the Daily News?

Well I did, and it made me feel quite woozy afterward. Adam revealed a potential Mets backup option if they were to fail to get either Matt Holliday or Jason Bay.

Meet Plan C?

That’s Jose Guillen, currently of the Kansas City Royals. The same Jose Guillen who has worn out his welcome with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Rays, Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Cincinnati Reds, Oakland A’s, Los Angeles Angels, Washington Nationals, Seattle Mariners and now it looks like the Royals will be the tenth team in thirteen seasons to bid him good riddance.

Guillen has a resume packed with some bizarre stunts and outrageous behavior. In 2008, Guillen confronted a fan and gave him the finger and cursed him out and had to be restrained from going into the stands because the fan heckled him after he failed to run to first and was called out. The fan was reseated for his own safety. I’ll leave all the steroids and HGH problems out of this post, but suffice it to say there are plenty including a suspension for that.

Adam Rubin writes,

The Royals, who are looking to deal outfielder Jose Guillen, identified the Mets as a potential trading partner, although there was no deal considered close, sources said. Guillen, 33, was limited to 81 games last season with Kansas City because of right leg injuries, including with a ligament tear in the knee and hamstring discomfort. He hit .242 with nine homers and 40 RBI in 281 at-bats.

The Royals want to acquire an inexpensive outfielder in return for Guillen, and are impressed with Angel Pagan despite his shortcomings. They’d be willing to eat money in a swap: Guillen is owed $12 million in 2010, the final season of a three-year, $36 million deal.

Angel Pagan? For a washed up, good for nothing player, who doesn’t even provide the power we desperately need out of leftfield?

Obviously (or should I say luckily?), just because the Royals want to dump Guillen and are enamored with Angel Pagan, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the Mets would do the deal. However, it does raise the specter of that “what if” scenario we have alluded to quite often on this site; What if the Mets fail to sign Bay or Holliday?

Jose Guillen is just the kind of player the Mets would be looking at as a “Plan C”. And if they could find a trading partner like the Royals who would be willing to kick in the cash to make it work, well that would play right into the Mets hands.

What makes this particular proposal so bad, isn’t just the player we would be getting, but more so the player who we are giving up.

Sure, Pagan isn’t the perfect leftfielder, but he is certainly better than Guillen and has far more upside, power and speed at this stage of their careers. And let’s not forget the superior defensive player Pagan is as compared to the leagues worst defensive outfielder in Guillen. Pagan, 28, batted .306 with 6 homeruns, 11 triples, 22 doubles, 32 RBI, 14 stolen bases and 54 runs scored in 343 at-bats last season.

I’m certainly not building a case for Angel Pagan as the Mets everyday leftfielder. At this point I see him as a superb fourth outfielder or part of a productive platoon. But if the choice is between him and any player like Jose Guillen, I’d rather keep and play Pagan in left.