Thursday 17 May 2012

No One is Safe Anymore - The Adam Lind Story

Photo Credit: Reuters Pictures via Daylife
Over the course of his tenure in Toronto Alex Anthopoulos has quietly stressed one thing and that is that no one is safe, (almost) anyone can be traded at any time and apparently demoted too.

Last year Travis Snider a player everyone seemed to like was sent down after less than 2 months of production. Earlier this year Brett Cecil a player everyone seemed to think was destined for a rotation spot was demoted after a bad spring. Now the latest recipient of this treatment is former All-Star first baseman Adam Lind who yesterday was sent down after an absolutely horrid start to the season.

When I had originally wrote this blog post I had gone on the premise that I would absolutely condone the demotion of Adam Lind that I would get along on the band wagon and make Adam Lind my Official Blue Jays Scapegoat for the 2012 season.

I was going on the premise that Adam Lind had been terrible the entire season, which in a way he has, but before today I hadn't really taken a good look at his FanGraphs page and I may have been going on the wrong premise.

Yes, it is true that Adam Lind is hitting .186 on the season and that he has a wRC+ among the likes of Chone Figgins and Willie Bloomquist, but did you know that Lind is actually walking at a higher rate than he did in even 2009?

His weighted runs created might not look too hot, but he is walking at a career pace and maybe even getting a tad unlucky to boot. Over the course of the season thus far Adam Lind has a .209 BABIP. That number is 53 points below where it was last season, 68 points below his 2010 number, 82 points below Lind's career average, and 91 points below the league average.

Of course BABIP isn't perfect and a slower, power hitting (?) first base type like Lind generally sustains a BABIP that is lower than normal, but a .209 BABIP should easily move up and regress to the mean. Does that regression to the mean make him 2009 Adam Lind, probably not, but Lind is doing a couple things to try and make that happen. These underlying things lie in Lind's plate discipline data.

This is Adam Lind's Pitch F/X Plate Discipline Line from 2009
27.9 O-Swing% - 59.0 Z-Swing% - 43.0 Swing%
75.5% O-Contact% - 87.1 Z-Contact% - 83.2 Contact%

This is Adam Lind's Pitch F/X Plate Discipline Line from 2010 and 2011 Combined
35.1 O-Swing% - 64.5 Z-Swing% - 49.3 Swing%
67.6 O-Contact% - 84.7 Z-Contact% - 78.4 Contact%

This is Adam Lind's Pitch F/X Plate Discipline Line from 2012
27.9 O-Swing% - 57.3 Z-Swing% - 41.7 Swing%
75.6 O-Contact% - 88.0 Z-Contact% - 83.6 Contact%

Take a look at those three lines, take a really good look at them. What do you see? Well if you looked hard enough you probably saw that the 2010 and 2011 combination line is completely different from either of the other two lines oh and yeah Lind's 2012 plate discispline is eerily similar to his 2009 numbers.

Those same 2009 numbers that made Adam Lind an All-Star, a Silver Slugger, and even an MVP Vote Getter. It seems for the past two seasons Jays fans have been holding on to the glory of that magical season hoping for more production from their failing first baseman. Will this be the year that it happens?

Well let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here. Yes, it is nice that Lind is taking more pitches and swinging at less pitches outside the strike zone. It is also nice that Lind is making contact on 5% more of the pitches that he swings at, but unfortunately solely plate discipline doesn't tell the whole story.

Though Lind's plate discipline has been great and he is likely getting better pitches because of it he isn't necessarily taking advantage of these opportunities. He may be making contact on 83.6% of the pitches that he swings at, but Lind is also creating ground balls on 48.9% of the balls he is putting in play.

In comparison to 2009 that 48.9% is 6.9% higher, but then the thing about batted ball outcomes is that they aren't solely independent. Those extra ground balls that Lind has been hitting are coming out of his line drive rate and fly ball rate resulting in close to career lows in both categories.

Beyond that what has hurt Lind in the power department is his 9.7% HR/FB, a number 5.4% below Lind's career average.

So then after all this where does the verdict lie? In terms of plate discipline Lind has been right on par with his 2009 numbers, but then in the batted ball data he is far from where he was that magical year.

The Jays have purportedly cited that they sent Lind down in order for him to "gain confidence". That so called "confidence" that Lind supposedly needs will very likely come while he is off crushing balls in that bandbox park in Vegas and in that bandbox of a league that is the PCL, but it is possible that it could come at the expense of his approach?

I don't know about you, but if I was seeing pitches I knew I could just crush out of the ballpark I'd probably swing at them as apposed to waiting for better ones that may or may not come.

Its kind of okay if this "confidence" comes back to Adam Lind in Vegas, but if he takes what I predict to be a new approach in Vegas back to the MLB he could have quite a few issues. At that point I'm not sure how well his confidence will do when he is swinging at pitches way outside the zone in the unforgiving big leagues.

Then if you even factor out the possible potential loss of production from Adam Lind, how well could it possibly serve you to be starting a potential AAAA player in Yan Gomes? My well thought hypothesis says that it probably won't go over so well.

In the end you the reader must realize that I was one of the ones criticzing Lind all season. I was one of the ones clamouring for Lind to be benched, but I have realized the ere of my ways. Lind surely doesn't need to be hitting in that clean up spot that he has not been suited for in over two years, but I fail to see how having him to AAA will help anything.

And please understand one thing, I am in no way suggesting that Lind will become what he was in 2009, but with the way he has been at the plate this year, he has put himself in the very best shape to do so. You know other than the fact that he hasn't been able to hit a fly ball to save his life.

Sources: Fangraphs, Baseball Reference, Texas Leaguers



6 comments:

  1. Well done. I thought for the majority of the beginning of the season Lind was having good ABs, and that if his back is healthy the team's best 25 man roster includes Lind. For all the excitement about Gomes, he's a utility fielder who in his 500 PA the last 2 years has posted a .315 OBP and hasn't been particularly young for his level.

    I think what AA said about Lind's mechanics support what you're saying here - there's nothing they can point to mechanically that he needs to fix, they just think he needs to clear his head and get out of the pressured environment of the bigs.

    We'll see how EE fares the next couple of weeks at 1B, but I'm not enthused about the idea of him being the longterm answer at 1B.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For all his troubles at 3B none were due to his glove. I can't believe anyone would want to see Lind at first over EE.
      You don't get playing time for having great process. You get playing time for results. So I'm done with this Lind whining. 2009 was the outlier and just because his walk rate, fly ball rate and swing strike rates resemble 2009 does not mean he will have those results as the pitch selection is different. Lind is a one trick pony whose time has passed. I'd like to see someone who can help Bautista while he is under contract......3 more years is all we have one of the best offensive players in the game.

      Delete
  2. Thanks

    And as for your comment on the pressured environment in the big leagues, I would probably say that is true to some extent and that again AAA will surely give him confidence, but like I said he might change the approach that made him a star in 2009, which obviously I am not so enthused about.

    We will have to see, he's being paid quite a pretty penny to be down in AAA, so I'm sure they won't stuff him down there too long

    ReplyDelete
  3. Are you sure Lind was an All-Star in '09? According to his baseball-reference page, he wasn't...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yeah you are correct sir, thanks for the correction, fixed now

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think baseball more than other sports can be very mental. When you're going good you can hit anything, and when the hits dry up it seems like you can't make contact.

    I see Lind as a mild mannered type of dude, and do believe that when he gets his confidence up (2009, that 20 game stretch last year) he's unbelievable.

    So maybe letting him rake in the minors could do something for his confidence and bring him back up to some kind of success. Even if he's swinging at pitches out of the zone and hitting 240 it would be a big step forward.

    ReplyDelete