Quick(ish) hit today:

Hideki Matsui, unwanted in New York, signs a one-year, $6 million contract to be the Angels' DH.

To replace him, apparently, the Yankees have brought Nick Johnson back on a one-year, $5.5 million contract to be their DH.

I imagine a lot of Yankee fans are, much like Rich at Empire Sports Now, displeased with this development.

Well, I'd be a little upset too. If I were an Angel fan.

In 3116 PA since 2001, Johnson has hit .273/.402/.447. He has a 125 OPS+, a .371 wOBA, and a 130 wRC+ (a brand new formulation based on wOBA on the same skill as OPS+; so by that evidently more accurate measure, he's been 30% above average rather than 25%).

In 3816 PA since 2003, Matsui has hit .292/.370/.482. He has a 124 OPS+, a .367 wOBA, and a 127 wRC+.

If you stop there (and we're going to skip WAR for once, since Johnson's sizeable advantage comes mostly from being a better fielder six or seven years ago, and neither of these guys should even own a baseball glove at this point), it's already pretty clear that, at the very least, Johnson is just as good a hitter as Matsui.

Then consider that Johnson is more than four years younger than Matsui. At 36, Matsui could just fall apart. He probably won't, in a one year deal, but he could. At 31, Johnson is in the prime of his career.

What else is there? As I said, neither is likely to play a game in the field. They've both missed significant time to injury in the last several years. Matsui has done it despite being a primary DH for the last two seasons; at least with Johnson, you have the hope that moving to the AL and not having to play first base anymore can help keep his bat in the lineup. Rich in the link above has a problem with giving up power and adding OBP...but that's never a bad thing, regardless of the makeup of your team (and of course the Yankees are retaining plenty of power as it is). What a team needs isn't a leadoff hitter, #2 hitter, #5 hitter, and so on; what a team needs, rather, is to put a lineup out there that's going to score as many runs as possible. Nick Johnson might not fit the profile of a #5 or #6 hitter as well as Matsui did, but he'll very likely help create more runs than Matsui would have, so I'll take that instead.

They got younger, got better, and saved $500,000. And I don't think it's even a given that they've given up power so much; Johnson's always had good doubles power, which could well turn into HR power as a lefty in New Yankee.In all, this was an absolute no-brainer of a deal for the Yankees.

Damn them.