The Pittsburgh Pirates had a rotating door of bench utility men from the mid-to-late 2000’s. Brandon Moss, Steve Pearce, Ronny Cedeno were all those kinds of players. But one of the more forgotten ones was corner infielder/outfielder Eric Hinske.
Hinske looked to be on the path of a successful career back at the turn of the millennium. During his 2002 rookie campaign, the Blue Jays’ slugger hit .279/.363/.481 with a 119 OPS+ and 121 wRC+ in 650 plate appearances. He showed he could hit for power with a .201 isolated slugging, 21 home runs and 38 doubles, and even though he didn’t look like the most athletic third baseman in the league, he still showed some good base running prowess with 13 steals in 14 attempts, and being worth 5.