Archive for Adam Lind

Kendall Graveman (3% Yahoo, 1.6% ESPN, 11% CBS) – on its surface, Graveman’s 5.48 ERA is enough to scare off most casual fans. And his 5.91 FIP and 4.33 xFIP suggest there’s little to see here. Yawn. Move on, right? Well, maybe. But depending on your league size, Kendall Graveman could be a surprising source of productive innings moving forward.

First, the bad. I’ve already touched on his disappointing ERA and the indicators that support it. He’s also walking more batters than he did last year. In fact, his 3.59 BB/9 would be by far the worst of his career, including his time in the minor leagues. After his start on Thursday, his Zone% is sitting at 42%, a 4-point drop from his 2015 rate. And then there’s the home runs. His HR/FB% is a ghastly 25%. As you might suspect, this is where we start looking for upside.

Read the rest of this entry »

After 7 disappointing years under Jack Zduriencik (which followed 5 soul-crushing seasons under Bill Bavasi), new Mariners’ GM, Jerry Dipoto, raced up I-5 with a mandate to bring consistency and a fresh approach to the Emerald City. Faced with a number of holes to fill, the former Angels exec has already made a series of moves signaling a shift in the Mariners’ philosophy towards defense and on-base ability, a welcomed change from that of the last regime’s affinity for low on-base, immobile power hitters who strike out a lot. Huzzah.

Read the rest of this entry »

A look at the Rotographs preseason positional rankings makes Adam Lind look like a moderate bargain. Our experts had him as the No. 21 first baseman, and he finished 2015 at No. 14. However, our experts were much higher on Lind than most fantasy players.

Lind was — rather astonishingly — the No. 40 1B selected in Yahoo drafts in 2015. He was drafted in 90 percent of leagues, but his average draft position made him an absolute steal in the 22nd round. He outperformed his 242.7 ADP in dramatic fashion, finishing the season as fantasy baseball’s No. 109 overall player.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s official. 100% of my value is bothering @jeffwzimmerman to run data and then use that data for said content. I did just that this morning for updated shift data. I believe the last time he posted related content on RotoGraphs was here back in May looking at: Early Hitter Shift Data.

It was because of this post and his balls in play (groundball and pop-up rates) that led me to believe Albert Pujols was going to drop off/continue his downward trend. I guess I pushed out the fact that he was the best hitter of his generation. While the .375 BABIP (from the above link) against shifts did not last, he’s at a very respectable .284. Between this and additional discipline (best contact rate since 2008 and hacking less at stuff outside of the zone), he is able to hover around a .280 BA, which remains elite in conjunction with 30HR, 90R and 100+RBI.

Read the rest of this entry »

Between unforeseen injuries and under-performances, the Blue Jays slogged through a season below expectations. The team won only 74 games after being a popular postseason selection in most preseason projections. Jose Reyes only played a half-season due to injury, while guys like R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle were unable to post ERAs under 4.00. In many ways, it was a season-long nightmare that wasn’t supposed to happen.

Heading into the 2014 season, Toronto could be flying under the radar due to their disappointing performance a year ago. The top half of the everyday lineup appears to be plenty potent, and if the organization can land either Ubaldo Jimenez or Ervin Santana, their starting rotation has a shot to be roughly league-average (assuming some bounce-back for Dickey and Buehrle). Such a combination could allow them to threaten for one of the two Wild Card slots if their bullpen performs well.

The fantasy outlook for the infield, on the other hand, is a bit of a mixed bag. Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Reyes should be high on fantasy owners’ draft boards, while players such as Ryan Goins and Dioner Navarro probably aren’t ownable in standard leagues.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the summer, Mike Petriello wrote a wonderful article outlining the improvements shown by Adam Lind in the first half of the season. The Blue Jays’ first baseman had consciously chosen to become more patient at the plate, and Mike broke down the numbers to illustrate the point. Indeed, Lind was swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone — and at fewer pitches in general — which resulted in a higher walk rate and overall higher production.

To further the point, if we place his seasonal numbers in conversation with each other, it’s quite easy to understand why Lind experienced success for the first time since his 2009 breakout campaign.

When Adam Lind is more selective at the plate, he hits for more power and compiles a higher wOBA. The 2012 season stands out as a potential counterexample, but it’s important to remember that Lind didn’t do much other than pound baseballs into the ground a year ago. His 48.3% ground ball rate hindered him from tapping into his plus power, and while his 45.9% ground ball rate from this season isn’t much lower, that rate is pulled up from a 55.7% ground ball rate in the month of August. Not surprisingly, Lind rocked a mere .126 ISO in August.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re in a league that allows daily roster adjustments, whether it’s head to head or roto, then streaming is probably what you’re all about here at the end. With four more days of games, every little bit helps and picking up the right player could mean the difference between a win and a “if only I had another week to play.” While Mike Podhorzer covers the recommended streamer candidates for pitchers over the next two days, I’ll throw you a few hitters who could give you that one final push. Some may be available, some might not, but all are swinging a hot bat right now and if you can use them…use them. Read the rest of this entry »

Has there been a more frustrating player over the last few years than Adam Lind? He had a breakout 2009, hitting 36 homers with a nice .396 wOBA, giving Toronto hope that they’d found a pillar of their offense for years to come. The next year he collapsed under a pile of strikeouts and poor BABIP, and while he managed to retain some of his power, three years of nearly identical — and lousy — wOBA marks of .309, .316,  and .316 ended with a demotion to Triple-A in 2012. Lind’s Toronto career seemed over; his fantasy relevance almost certainly was. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s face it…nearly every guy who is sitting on your waiver wire is flawed in some way or another and the thought of using someone from the scrap heap on a full-time basis makes your fantasy skin crawl. But when Jason Heyward goes in for an appendectomy and you’ve already lost Yoenis Cespedes, Michael Bourn and Ryan Ludwick, desperate times call for desperate measures. Now obviously you’re not going to find one guy out there who is going to do it all for you, so your best bet is a platoon. And based on ownership percentages, it looks like you can solve some of your issues just by looking north of the border and using the DH spot from the Blue Jays. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2009, 25-year-old Adam Lind looked like a breakout star for Toronto. Splitting time between left field and designated hitter, Lind put up a massive .305/.370/.562 line for the Blue Jays, which along with 35 homers earned him some down-ballot MVP support and a Silver Slugger award. That performance earned him a new contract prior to 2010, one which guarantees him $18 million through 2013 and includes team options for up to $38.5 million between 2014-16.

Lind was unable to repeat that line in 2010, as his strikeout rate shot from 16.8% to 23.5% and his OBP sunk nearly 100 points to .287, though he still managed 23 homers. 2011 – now as Toronto’s primary first baseman – saw more of the same, as 26 homers weren’t enough to offset a .251/.295/.439 line. When he struggled even more, hitting just .186/.273/.314 with three homers in May of this year, the Jays removed him from the roster and placed him on waivers, inviting any other team to pick him up for nothing but the cost of his contract.

No one did. Read the rest of this entry »