Internet Friends, Razzballians, big country breakfast eaters at Billy Butler’s house…Lind me your ears. Yeah, I didn’t know how to start so I figured I’d make it awkward for everyone all around. Hey, I’m Sky. You might know me from the Fantasy Football side of this little part of the interweb universe. That was just an FYI, ICYDK. I’m not expecting you to actually click it. I mean, you can if you want to. Like big, red shiny buttons at the Pentagon, you know it’s hard to resist clicking on an embedded link in a paragraph. Case in point, this link is of a small, drunk Asian kid wearing just a bra and a Teddy Bear that was superglued to his junk while standing on top of a cop car. You’re a hetero and you still totes clicked, admit it! Ok, ok maybe you assumed it was JayWrong and couldn’t resist – and maybe it was – but ya did it. Even after everything I told you, you still decided it was worth your right index finger to push down on the mouse and have a looksee. And now after this long-winded intro that had absolutely nothing to do with Adam Lind, it’s now my duty to keep you intrigued without said links or other forms of Triple-Dub sorcery. So let’s move on from this weird little intro and see why Lind should be a nice value to nab in deep leagues for the 2014 Fantasy Baseball season…
In order to understand why Lind is such a catch, we need to preface things a bit. Since I don’t know when these posts will go nor how many you’ll read, I gotta preface, y’all! I’m covering the deep leagues. You know those ones. Some have 14 or even 16 teams. Some have multiple players at one position. Others have you drafting like High School kids and shizz…not gonna lie, those are kinda nuts. That’s beyond hobby, bro. But never to the mind on that, I’m simply stating if you’re drafting a standard 12 teamer like the Razzball Commenter Leagues are, these are probably weekly ‘grab while hot’ type guys for you. Feel free to ignore. Or don’t…your choice! I’ve had some good sleeper hits from my ONC days here on the site. Go check it if you need my street cred. Now where was I? Yeah, Lind. Tiny flag goes up and you squeak ‘yay’ when I mention him. I know, it’s hard to get excited. His 2013 season was good but nothing like his 2009 when he hit 35 HRs and then fell off the deep end from there. But Lind’s 2013 season intrigues me this year and think it should you, too. First thing that should interest you: his injury. Namely, his back injury. Prior to that injury, Lind was rocking the ball for 68 games to the tune of 11 HRs, and a .327 average and was on pace for roughly 25 HRs, 80 runs and 80 RBIs. Sure, his BABIP was a bit higher than one would expect to keep along but when the back injury hit, the bottom dropped out. He started off July missing two games due to the back injury and after slumping through said month to the tune of a .195 average, Lind finally went on the DL on July 30th. By the time Lind got back on track in early August, many had moved on forgotten how good his start to the year was and finished his season hitting another 7 HRs with a .324 average in Sept/Oct. So, if we take away an awful July, we could’ve had a poor man’s Joey Votto. Not exciting considering how down a year that Votto played out but he finished as the 6th best first baseman and will go in the top 30 players in most drafts. Right now Lind is going in the ‘we forgot to rank this guy’ section of the rankings. So Lind me your ears, deep leaguers, and draft Adam when and where you can.
Sky Sperling is a contributor for Razzball Football and Razzball Baseball. He’s also a lover of fine beer, fine women and fine-toothed combs. You can follow him on twitter @Sky_Razzball and in your most sweetest of dreams.
