Goodbye Adam Lind

We knew Adam Lind was going to be traded, though, I'll admit I hoped we'd be getting more in return, but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly. I guess it is too late to ask Elton John to re-record Candle in the Wind, with references to Lind?

Lind was one of the few guys left that has been in the system since I first started on the site. He was on our prospect list back when I first joined BBB. I remember the argument about whether he'd turn out to be a '40 home run' guy or not. It turned out not, but then not many players do.

Lind came up as a September call up in 2006 and was great. That didn't earn him a job coming out of spring in 2007, but he was called up in the middle of April to take over left field when Reed Johnson was hurt. When Reed returned, Lind went back to the minors (he didn't exactly make a case for staying, he was hitting .230/.274/383). Again, he was a September call up.

In 2008, again he started the season in the minors, but when the team suddenly parted ways with Frank Thomas, Lind got the call up. A 1 for 19 start and an impatient John Gibbons (fairness to Gibby, he knew if the team didn't win, he was going to be fired) got Adam sent to the minors again and the Jays inflicted the two headed Mencherson monster on us in his place.

When Gibbons was fired, and Cito hired, Cito's first and best move was to insist that Lind be brought back up and Cito seemed to make Adam his pet project, putting him in left and leaving him there. You would often see Adam sitting next to the manager on the bench.

With Cito's help,Lind had his best season (so far) in 2009, playing 151 games, hitting .305/.370/.562 with 35 home runs and 114 RBI. The season set Lind up for some unrealistic expectations and he would spend the next few years showing us how unrealistic those expectations were. He wasn't going to be the perennial All-Star we were wanting.

Then 2010 came and he wasn't the star he was the year before. For a few seasons he was looking like a lost cause.

Then in 2013,  Gibby came back and we, finally, had a manager that understood what most of us here figured out years ago, that Lind had to be platooned. Doing that made Lind a valuable member of the team, once again.

I've always liked Lind. He's the guy you could expect to actually speak his mind in an interview. He didn't just give would the pat answers that we've grown to expect from baseball players. I loved that he said this:

Lind: "My mom wanted me to get an MRI, which I hadn't had yet because it wasn't getting any better." #BlueJays #MLB

— Scott MacArthur (@TSNScottyMac) July 10, 2014

While I can understand the team not wanting their players saying that's that make their training staff look stupid, I like guys that don't worry about the politics of what they say.

Adam seemed like a guy that was happy to be in Toronto and he seemed happy to be a ballplayer. Good teammate, good community member.

It's always kind of sad saying goodbye to players that have been around the team for a long time, and this is the first of several this off-season. We might be cheer for laundry but sometimes we grow to like the people inside the laundry.

I hope things go well for Adam, he's always going to be a favorite of mine. If I was the Brewers I'd have concerns about him playing first base all the time. I think he would be better off if he could rest his back at DH some of the time.

I won't miss his ugly beard.