In a handful of games, Adam Lind seems to have completely turned the ship around. No more worries, no more stretches of incompetence. All is well. The end.
In about thirty at-bats, Lind’s hitting .345 with a HR and 7 RBI and 4R. While he obviously won’t finish the season with a .345 batting average, there are a few encouraging signs for Adam Lind:
- Lind’s faced lefties in five different games and 12 total plate appearances and he’s absolutely crushed them. Adam Lind is certifiably awful against left handers (career: .222 AVG) and last year was an all-time low (.117 AVG). Now, five hits in twelve 2011 at-bats isn’t anything to write home about, but he’s nearly A THIRD OF THE WAY TO HIS 2010 TOTAL OF 16. If Adam Lind can return to his career average of .220-something against lefties, he’ll be a useful player. If he can top that, he’ll be a very good player.
- Even during off-years, Lind’s hit right-handed pitching pretty well: He’s a .290 hitter against ‘em and has posted numbers of .294, .317, .275 in the previous three years.
- We’re still dealing with an absolutely minuscule sample size, but it’s nice to see Adam Lind posting a 5.8% SwStr Rate after last year’s atrocious 10+%. It’s hard to draw anything from this because it’s probably just as likely to have occured via luck, but Spring’s about unsupported speculation — right?
Anyways, Lind’s an interesting case because even the slightest amount of production against lefties will result in a very successful player. With Lind, there’s the added benefit of simply sitting him against lefties if he returns to his previous ways. You’re still getting a pretty decent player that posted a .275/21HR fantasy line with an .827 OPS against righties.
…just keep an eye on Lind’s strike-outs: Last year he struck out almost 40% of the time against lefties which was well above his previous two seasons of 27.5% each.
