Lind destined for greatness
I have this strange feeling that the Toronto Blue Jays marketing department had a feeling that 2009 was going to be a great year for Adam Lind.
Staring at my bulletin board of random Jays paraphernalia, I noticed that Adam Lind was one of the four players featured in the brochure of information that the Jays head office mails out to get fans to buy flex packs and season tickets.
Do you want to know who the other three players were? Roy Halladay, for obvious reasons. Also included was Scott Downs – did they have the clairvoyance to know he was going to usurp B.J. Ryan as the closer too? And finally there’s Vernon Wells – they probably figured he’s getting paid $126 million, so might as well give him lots of face time before Toronto gets sick of him. That’s probably another reason why the Vernon Wells Hatred Advisory System (VWHAS for short) over at Sports and the City is still at SEVERE. Come on Vernon, at least put on a show for your hometown crowd in Texas if not for the fans in Toronto.
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Fans, sports writers and bloggers have been talking about moving Lind into the cleanup spot for weeks now and I noticed that Mike Wilner is on board with moving Wells down in the lineup. What does a guy have to do to take over the cleanup spot from Vernon Wells – win American League player of the week? Oh wait, Lyle Overbay just did that and he’s still batting 7th in the lineup. Congratulations on a job well done Lyle, but Cito needs to realize that his best hitters should be placed in the heart of the lineup, not sprinkled gingerly throughout the card.
Other news in the blogosphere that isn’t related to hating on Rios or Wells (which is surprisingly difficult to find these days):
Dan from Johnny Mac’s Cabinet talks to Katy from the Blue Jays Dance team to discuss what it’s like to dance on top of a dugout for a living. She shares an interesting story about how an there was once an impromptu visitor in the Blue Jays dugout. Check it out!
Lind has been simply awesome this season and I entirely agree that a "change of role" is in order if the Jays are going to make the most of their home runs. I'd say that they should consider the following lineup:
Scutaro – Rios – Hill – Lind – Wells – Overbay – Rolen – Barajas – Bautista.
Rios doesn't hit for enough power to be in the 3-hole and has more speed than Hill.
Love the marketing bit. Who do you think they'd recommend the Jays select for the draft? lol.
Hill and Lind at 3 and 4 would be an incredible lineup. But I wonder how many times we need to keep saying this for Cito to finally change the lineup card. I think the only way that happens is if Rios or Wells goes down to injury or something like that.