Lyle Overbay or Overpaid?

There is this cruel streak in all human beings. It's part of our dark side. For the Fan it manifests itself by tweaking other blog buddies and some of their favorite players. On one such friend's site, the Fan has consistently baited about Lyle Overbay and has called him Lyle Overpaid. Such a comment yesterday finally led the blog buddy to exasperation and that buddy said he will now have to write a post concerning Overbay. Well, the Fan doesn't like to be shown up in any way, so this is an expedient post to deflect the ire coming this way. So what about Overbay?

Surprise number one: Lyle Overbay is a good fielding first baseman. His range and his zone ratings are much higher than expected. This means that Overbay is not a statue over there. He's not a Dunn first baseman. He's good over at that bag and the Fan would never have guessed that. He excels in all three areas of fielding: percentage, zone ratings and range.

Surprise number two: Lyle Overbay has earned his salary for the two years preceding this one. Due to his good fielding and some decent (if not spectacular) offensive numbers, Overbay was worth $9.2 million in 2008 and $10.8 million in 2009. His salary for 2008 was $6.75 million (making him plus $2.45 million) and he made $7.95 million in 2009 making him a plus $2.85 million last year. The somewhat bad news is that it is going to be tough for Overbay to make it to even value this year because the team has apparently given up on him.

Surprise number three: Lyle Overbay can hit lefties just fine, thank you very much. Overbay's lifetime batting average is .276. His lifetime batting average against lefties is .267. That's hardly in Grandeson territory. His OPS when facing lefties is much worse than against right-handers, but for the amount of time he actually faces lefties, this seems like a moot statistic.

Surprise Finale: Lyle Overbay has been every bit worth the contract that he signed with the Toronto Blue Jays. He's a good fielder with good range who makes all the plays and he's a steady hitter with good doubles power. His probable downfall is that although he has been well worth his salary, there are so many power first basemen in baseball that what he does isn't quite good enough in the grand scheme of what first basemen should do.

The Blue Jays now seem quite serious about making Adam Lind a first baseman and letting Overbay walk at the end of the year. Lind, if he hit like he did last year, had typical first baseman type numbers. But this year, he's fallen off a cliff and while in theory he has more pop than Overbay, the reality is that he might have been a flash in the pan and might not be any good. Do you let a quality first baseman walk while tossing the dice that Lind can play first AND start to hit again? That's a big IF.

The Fan needs to get off the Overpaid thing and admits that Overbay was a good signing. He's has been worth what he has been paid and then some. There are at least a dozen other first basemen in baseball that are worth more than him and that is part of his problem. But if nuts get to bolts, this Fan would rather see Overbay over there than Lind.

Adam Lind - Obscure Baseball Player

This week in the FanDome, we have been featuring players that seem to get lost in the shuffle. Earlier in the week, this space featured Will Venable. Now we bring to your attention another great young player that seems to be lost in the shuffle. His name is Adam Lind, a 26 year old outfielder for the Toronto Blue Jays who just happens to be in the top five in American League OPS+.

A lot has gone wrong this season for the Blue Jays. They lost a major portion of their starting rotation due to injury in the spring yet started really well. They have Roy Halladay, who is the best starting pitcher in the American League not named Greinke. But their young pitchers, who did very well in the beginning, could not hold up and the team lost 24 games in the standings in 45 days. The team has a lot of great bloggers up there in Toronto, one of which has been featured here a couple of times. But Adam Lind seems to get lost in the shuffle, even among those great bloggers. And he is having a heck of a season.

Lind is from Muncie, Indiana, and was drafted out of high school in the eighth round by the Twins. But he decided to play college ball instead and played two years for the University of Southern Alabama. He was drafted after his sophomore year by the Blue Jays in the third round in 2004. If you want to read more, see his Wiki page.

In two short years, he made his major league debut in 2006 as he got the old cup of coffee and played in 18 games. The next two years, he played about half of the Blue Jays games and after a tough 2007, showed some signs of what he could do playing part time in 2008. This year, he has blossomed into one of the best sluggers in the league.

Cito Gaston has penciled Lind into the lineup consistently and Lind has been fantastic. His current line is: .302/.366/.556. He has 44 doubles and 28 homers. His RBI total of 91 is impressive considering that he didn't have a chance to bat in the middle of the order until late in the year. Those places were inexplicably filled by the likes of Vernon Wells and Kevin Millar. This Fan has a feeling that Lind will be spending a lot of time there now for a very long time.

If you asked a hundred people who led the American League in extra base hits, it's a good bet that none would answer Adam Lind. But that's the guy. He's also in the top ten in eleven other offensive categories.

Adam Lind isn't that great an outfielder. He has slightly better than league average range, but his RTOT and other stats aren't great. But hopefully he'll improve there and not get relegated to the DH spot where he has batted in 75 games this year.

Adam Lind has arrived and sooner or later, someone will notice.

Box Score Mayberry RFD

The Fan likes the box scores over at Yahoo Sports. Unlike some other sites, they seem very straight forward. You can go right to the the main baseball page and the list of games is there and you are only one click away from the information you crave.

If you have read the Fan's previous post, you know the Fan was furiously flipping back and forth between two exciting innings--one between the Tigers and Blue Jays and one between the Yankees and Orioles.

Even when watching the games, the Fan still likes keeping the box scores going because it adds to the experience. Hey, so the Fan is weird. What else is new. In the midst of these two bizarre and exciting innings taking place hundreds of miles, and two countries apart, the Fan came across these two pictures. The one on the left is Zack Minor, the Tigers' pitcher. The one on the right is Adam Lind, who was batting against Minor with the bases loaded.

And in the middle of all that, the Fan busts out laughing because of those two pictures. Minor looks like Gomer Pyle and Lind looks like Opie. "Holy cow," says the Fan, "Gomer's pitching to Opie!"