I'm starting to get aggravated. Does anyone have any idea what the heck is wrong with Eric Hinske? This has been bothering me for a while now but I can't take it any more. There is just no way this guy should be hitting as poorly as he has. There has to be some kind of injury or personal problem going on because he's just not the player he should be. Before I rant to much though, lets back up a couple years shall we.

It's now November of 2002 and Eric Hinske has just put his hands on the AL Rookie of the Year trophy. He had a line of .279/.365/.481, hit 24 HR's, 38 2B's, walked 77 times and even stole 13 bases. He seemed to pretty much do it all. Though, he did struggle at 3B. No big deal though, everyone would be OK with that if he continued hitting like he did. To most, it looked like Eric Hinske was going to be a long term solution at 3rd. A solution the Jays haven't had since Kelly Gruber (still one of the better mullets ever).

It's now the spring of 2003 and Eric Hinske is hitting just .232 with very little power to start the season. Turns out he has a broken bone in his hand and he hits the DL on May 24th. Hinske returns to the Jays about a month later and finishes the season with a line of .243/.329/.437. All of his numbers are down across the board. His walk rate goes from 1 every 7.35 AB's to 1 every 7.61 AB's. His K rate increases from 4.10 to 4.32. But, there is one very positive stat. Hinske hit 45 2B's that year?! That was good for 13th in baseball, just 6 behind Albert Pujols. In about 150 fewer AB's!! Armed with this knowledge, one could figure the HR numbers would come back this year as the broken hand probably just hampered his swing. Or, was the decrease in walk rate and the increase in SO rate a signal for struggles to come? We'll have to wait and see. But, an increase in HR's and a decrease in 2B's is what I expected for 2004.

2004. First the positives. Hinske has been healthy all year, when just about every other Jay regular has been hurt. He has also been more "solid" at 3B as he's only committed 4 errors vs the 22 he committed last year. Now the negative. Both his zone rating (20th out of 20) and range factor (18th out of 20) have stayed at the same extremely low levels of 2002 and 2003. Through 113 games and 426 AB's, Hinske is hitting .251/.314/.373 with only 10 HR's. Now it gets troubling. Like I said above, Hinske hit 45 2B's in 449 AB's in 2003. Well, in 2004 he's hit 18! 18 in 426 AB's! He's got 9 hits this month and they're all singles! Not good. Want more you say? His walk rate has gone from 7.61 to an alarming 11.03. So not only is he showing less power but he's also not walking. Whhhhyyyyy????!!!! (said in my best Nancy Kerrigan voice) Stictly from a fans point of view, I've seen him take a lot, I mean, a lot of "weak hack's" this year. It doesn't look like he's trying to drive the ball. He's more waiving at it than anything else. Is this an injury? Lack of confidence? Or, is he just not as good as we thought? Though it bothers me to say this, I'm starting to think he may not be as good as we may have thought.

2005. Well, we'll just have to see. 2004 has been terribly disappointing. Hinske's salary is going to start increasing over the next couple of years based on the 5-year contract he signed and if he doesn't start to hit he could find himself elsewhere. Ricciardi soured on Josh Phelps pretty quickly and if Hinske doesn't watch it, the same may happen to him. Third base is a position of power, and right now, Eric Hinske is hitting like a middle infielder from the 80's.