Not sure if the Yanks did this to prevent the Red Sox from acquiring Hinkse since Lowell is going out to the DL.

I read Hinske can’t hit lefties but he does have decent power and may be able to launch quite a few HRs in the New Stadium.

“Jay, just think if the Mets signed Manny. All hell would have broke loose when he got banned. At least they did that right, even if it was by default.”

You bet, DB. And I suspect that financial constraints was the only thing keeping Omar from signing Manny. I’ll bet he would have LOVED to have signed him. And I’ll bet he would have loved to have signed Hudson and another piece or two, as well.

By the way, the giveaway that Manny was using steroids for years (that I never understood why people didn’t pick up on — aside from the fact that he was a golden haired child as a member of the Red Sox) was his hamstring issues.

Using only Baseball Prospectus stats, Hinske was a pretty decent contributor offensively and not so bad defensively in 2008 and so far in 2009.

Unfortunately, as I posted earlier, his 2006-2008 stats suggest that he tends to fade really badly after the All-Star Break.

But again, I don’t know anything about the players they traded for him. And if the folks who say all they sent off was a bag of balls, who cares.

If he’s added to the roster at the expense of Pena, I would guess that he would hurt more than help performance wise this year — although they probably want Pena playing every day. If he’s added at the expense of Ransom, I would guess that it would probably be a net negative, too — at least in the infield. But given Matsui’s knee(s) and Damon’s propensity for getting injured (not to mention Nady and his situaition) having another outfielder couldn’t hoit.

But again, assuming the prospects aren’t that hot, it doesn’t seem like a big deal (again literally) in any case.