Angels Now Ready to Trade Snow for Met Starter Young : Baseball: Team gets assurance that pitcher has recovered from pulled groin muscle.

The Angels informed the New York Mets on Thursday night that they will trade first baseman J.T. Snow for starter Anthony Young and are expected to complete the trade today.

“Things have crystallized,” Angel General Manager Bill Bavasi said.

The Angels, whose trade talks with the Mets stalled a week ago when Young sustained a pulled groin muscle, are now satisfied that he is healthy. Young pitched two shutout innings Thursday against the Montreal Expos, and scouts Matt Keough and Moose Stubing turned in rave reviews.

Bavasi relayed the information to Manager Buck Rodgers and the coaching staff after the Angels’ 8-5 loss to the San Francisco Giants. Bavasi received overwhelming support that the trade should be made.

The Angels, desperate to find another starter for a pitching staff that is yielding a major-league high 8.16 ERA, made Young their top priority nearly two weeks ago. They wavered when Young injured his groin, but all of their medical reports indicate that he is healthy.

“Anyone interested in Anthony Young knows he’s not hurt,” Rodgers said. “Obviously nothing is wrong with him, or everything that was wrong is healthy, or nothing was wrong in the first place.

“I didn’t want to accuse anybody of anything, but after the (Kelly) Gruber fiasco, I don’t trust anybody.”

Gruber, whom the Angels acquired a year ago from the Toronto Blue Jays for infielder Luis Sojo, arrived with a torn rotator cuff and played only 18 games last season.

Young, pitching for the first time since March 13, yielded only one hit in his two-inning stint. He threw 28 pitches, 21 for strikes, and induced five ground balls from the eight batters he faced. His biggest difficulty was the command of his curveball, throwing only one of six for strikes.

“It felt OK,” Young said, “but it’s still not 100%. I had no problem pushing off, but I was a little lazy on my back foot with my breaking ball. For not throwing in 10 days, and coming back with two solid innings, I was happy.”

The only unfortunate aspect of his outing, Young realized, is that he pitched well enough to be traded. He wanted to stay in New York, but it now appears that he has pitched his last game in a Met uniform.

“I’m not preparing myself,” Young said, “but if it happens, I can’t stop it. I’ve been here seven, eight years, and I have a lot of friends here. It would be like leaving home, and that’s always going to be sad.”

Young, thrust in the limelight last season with a major-league-record 27-game losing streak, is 1-0 this spring with a 1.64 ERA. He has yielded 10 hits, four runs (two earned) and three walks in 11 innings while striking out four.

Snow, who batted .241 last season with 16 homers and 57 RBIs, was one of three players acquired last winter from the New York Yankees for starter Jim Abbott. He has struggled this spring, batting .160 with two RBIs, and was given no assurances that he would be the Angels’ everyday first baseman. The Mets, however, say he can be the cornerstone of their infield.

“That’s the way it was when we got Keith (Hernandez),” former Met third baseman Hubie Brooks said recently. “He was security. He made it easier for all of us to make throws to first base.”

The trade enables the Angels to move Eduardo Perez to first base. Dwight Smith and Bo Jackson will platoon in left field, and Jim Edmonds will be kept as an extra outfielder.

The arrival of Young, who has a career 5-35 record and 3.82 ERA, will shove Russ Springer out of contention for a starting spot. Springer and reliever Jerry Nielsen, the two pitchers acquired in the Abbott trade, are expected to start the season at triple-A Vancouver.