Adam Lind is signed for the next two seasons at $5million each. That isn’t peanuts, but at the same time the manager isn’t obligated to roll him out there on a daily basis.
When he was 26 years old, Lind appeared to have the break-out year everyone was waiting for. His .305/.370/.562 triple slash and .394 wOBA were worth 3.7 wins above replacement (WAR). Fittingly, the Jays rewarded him with a 4 year deal for $18million guaranteed, with 3 years of options to follow. It’s safe to say now that the Jays will not be picking up those options.
Entering the 2012 season David Cooper should be given ample opportunity to prove himself at 1B. Adam Lind has been terrible for two full seasons now. Yes he has hit 49 home runs in that time, but that alone is not enough to provide value. By all measures, he was the worst qualified first basemen in MLB in 2010, and last year he was worse than all but 3. A player who gets on base a dismal 29.1% of the time and strikes out 21.7% of the time is not worthy of an every-day roster spot. For advanced metrics, his wOBA the last two seasons is .311. The league average over that period is roughly .318. A poor defensive first baseman (which, according to defensive metrics and scouts alike, he is) needs to hit well above average to be worthy of a full-time starting gig.
In 2009, according to Fangraphs.com pitch values (they’re reliable, I promise), Lind destroyed fastballs and was very good against the curveball, as well as the change up—only the cutter gave him a hard time (it gives most MLB hitters a hard time). It’s tough to get a guy out when you can’t beat him with fast, off-speed, or breaking stuff. However, in 2010 Lind was bad against the fastball, and in 2011 he was even worse. He struggled mightily with the slider in 2010, and then the curveball in 2011. The high fastball has become a huge issue for Lind—he can’t lay off it. Pitchers figured him out, and he didn’t adapt.
The main issue seems to be that he lost the ability to distinguish a ball from a strike, illustrated by the percentage of pitches he swung at outside the strike zone. In 2009, he swung at less than 25% of all non-strikes thrown to him. That number rose to 34.6% in 2010 and 37.1% in 2011. He also swung at a higher number of pitches in the strike zone (69.6% and 70% in ‘10/’11 vs. 64.7% in 2009), but the percentage of pitches he made contact with dropped on both balls and strikes. He went from swinging and missing at merely 7.2% of pitches he faced to swinging and missing at 10.7% of pitches he faced. To put that into perspective, the ninth highest swinging strike rate by any pitcher in MLB in 2011 was 10.7% (Tim Lincecum); Lind consistently made his opponent look like an all-star. When 50% of pitches are fastballs and you suck at hitting them, that’ll happen.
So what do the Blue Jays do? They have only one real in-house replacement, David Cooper, and it’s time to give him a legitimate shot. Cooper had 81 blah plate appearances last season. However, his minor league success indicates that he has the potential to be a positive MLB contributor. He mashed A and A+ ball in 2008, hit well at AA in 2009, and then crushed AA pitching in 2010. In his first stint at AAA in 2011 he went bananas. Some of his success can be attributed to an inflated batting average on balls in play (BABIP), but even then he hit so proficiently that an average BABIP still would’ve resulted in superb production (roughly 40% better than the average AAA hitter). Cooper lacks the power of a traditional 1B, but he has a good eye at the plate and consistently makes solid contact. In limited time at the MLB level he showed excellent plate discipline but bad luck on balls put in play. With a walk rate around 10%, a strikeout rate around 15%, and a league average BABIP (conservative estimates all well below his minor league numbers), he should be a .270/.340/.420 guy. The jump in OBP alone would make him far more valuable than Lind (about 1 WAR difference given the same level of crummy defense and base running).
David Cooper is not a sure thing, but given the state of Adam Lind’s game and the promise Cooper has shown in the minors, it seems a no-brainer to give the rookie an extended look at the 1B position in 2012.
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