According to Joel Sherman of the NY Post, who’s on fire today breaking two trades, the Yankees acquired outfielder Austin Kearns from the Cleveland Indians for a player to be named later.

Kearns fills the roll of an outfielder who can hit lefties. He’s not a lefty masher or anything, but his career 106 OPS+ against them is an upgrade over Colin Curtis . Sherman also reports that part of the reason the Yankees targeted Kearns is because he’s a pretty good outfielder and manager Joe Girardi has lost faith in the defensive abilities of Marcus Thames .

Kearns, 30, is a free agent after this season as he is on a one-year $0.75 million contract. He’s neither a Type-A or B free agent.

Here are his stats:

Year Tm G AB R H 2B HR RBI SB BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+
2002 CIN 107 372 66 117 24 13 56 6 54 81 .315 .407 .500 .907 134
2003 CIN 82 292 39 77 11 15 58 5 41 68 .264 .364 .455 .819 117
2004 CIN 64 217 28 50 10 9 32 2 28 71 .230 .321 .419 .740 92
2005 CIN 112 387 62 93 26 18 67 0 48 107 .240 .333 .452 .785 104
2006 TOT 150 537 86 142 33 24 86 9 76 135 .264 .363 .467 .830 112
2006 CIN 87 325 53 89 21 16 50 7 35 85 .274 .351 .492 .843 110
2006 WSN 63 212 33 53 12 8 36 2 41 50 .250 .381 .429 .810 114
2007 WSN 161 587 84 156 35 16 74 2 71 106 .266 .355 .411 .765 103
2008 WSN 86 313 40 68 10 7 32 2 35 63 .217 .311 .316 .627 67
2009 WSN 80 174 20 34 6 3 17 1 32 51 .195 .336 .305 .641 72
2010 CLE 83 298 42 80 17 8 42 4 34 77 .268 .351 .413 .764 111
9 Seasons 925 3177 467 817 172 113 464 31 419 759 .257 .353 .426 .778 104
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com : View Original Table
Generated 7/30/2010.

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