Lyle Overbay has always been a bit of a favorite of mine. Nice left-handed swing, good doubles power, good defense. Just a good player. The trouble is that the players at his position on our rivals are great players. The Red Sox have Kevin Youkilis, the Yankees Mark Teixeira and the Rays Carlos Pena, guys that can put up MVP type numbers and play pretty decent defense at first as well. Being good kind of pales in comparison.
Lyle was coming off a pretty good 2009 season, where he hit .265/.372/.466 and he was going into his free agent year, so hopes for him this year were pretty high. The flip of that was that the 'first basemen of the future' was warming up at Vegas, there were doubts that Lyle would make it to the end of the season with the Jays. Many of us figured he'd be traded at the deadline.
He did make it, the first baseman of the future didn't make it to the end of the season with the team. Lyle had another pretty ok season:
It added up to a 1.5 WAR. Not so bad.
Like usual Lyle hit RHP (.250/.340/.441) better than LHP (.222/.295/.405).
He hit a little better at home (.239/.333/.478) than on the Road (.247/.326/.392).
He hit quite well with RISP, .250/.363/.508.
Lyle is very consistent in a lot of ways. His walk rate was 12.0% this year and 11.0% last. Strikeout rate 23.6% this year, 24.5% last. The one thing that did change some was his line drive rate 16.0% this year, 20.2% last. He had a bit more luck on BABIP, .301 this year and .285 last.
His longest hitting streak was 8 games. Longest hitless streak was 4 games.
Overbay's hitting by month:
April: .171/.281/.329
May: .243/.296/.430
June: .282/.378/.376
July: .301/.369/.527
August: .229/.353/.471
Sept: .227/.309/.454
So it was an up and down year.
Defensively, you all know he's a good defensive first baseman. He made 6 errors on the year. Fangraphs has him at a 0.1 UZR/150 which would rate him as average at the position. I think the ratings are for first basemen are a little iffy.
His favorite team to face was the Padres, hitting .500/.615/.500 in 3 games. Of the AL teams he hit best against the Twins .323/.344/.742. His least favorite. Well, he had 3 bad games against the Cardinals 0 for 10 with 1 walk. Yep, I was at that series too. Of the AL teams, Lyle hit .097/.152/.097 against the White Sox in 8 games.
Overbay is a free agent now. I like him, but I think we need someone that could be great at the position instead of someone we know is pretty good. I hope some team picks him up and I hope he does great. I'm just ready to try someone else.