The New York Mets signed Moises Alou to a one year contract with an option for 2008.

The 40-year-old slugger finalized an $8.5 million, one-year contract on Monday with the NL East champions, who also declined their $14 million option on left-hander Tom Glavine and swapped young pitchers with the Florida Marlins in a four-player trade.

Alou's deal includes a $7.5 million club option for 2008 with $1 million buyout. The six-time All-Star, who gets a $7.5 million salary next season, said he turned down two-year offers from other teams to join the Mets.

"The length of my contract doesn't really matter at this point in my career," Alou said. "I wanted to come here because this year -- I wanted to win this year."

This, of course, puts Lastings Milledge in limbo. Rather than spending a lot of time at AAA, I suspect Milledge will get time in the majors replacing Alou when he's down for a month with injuries. Alou is a good hitter, but at his age he can become a bad hitter pretty quickly. The Mets are filling a hole, they're not paying too much, and there's no long term commitment. If Alou can't play and Milledge matures, New York is out just $8 million or so. It might have been more cost effective to work on Lasting's attitude during the off-season and give him a chance to earn the job in 2007, but if he needs a full season at AAA, I can't really argue with the move.

The trade doesn't look like all that much. The two pitchers the Mets received walk a lot of batters. Florida looks like it's trying to improve its bullpen with more mature pitchers who haven't really broken into the majors yet. Owens struck out a lot of batters in the minor leagues, and at 27 can go straight into an major league pen.