The Brewers have exercised their option on first baseman Adam Lind, the club announced. He’ll receive $8MM for the 2016 season.
That move has long been expected, as Lind is fresh off of a strong campaign in his first year in Milwaukee after coming over in exchange for Marco Estrada. All told, it’s been a nice career stretch for Lind, who owns a .291/.364/.478 slash in 1,411 pate appearances over that span.
Though Lind’s contract is on the books for now in Milwaukee, he could end up as a trade candidate. His name has come up often as a first base/DH option for teams that would prefer to avoid long commitment. While he’s limited against southpaws, the left-handed hitter has been rather consistently devastating to righties.
Very good hitter, about as obvious of a trade candidate as anyone in baseball. Estrada-Lind is a rare example of a one for one trade working out for both sides as well
While there will be some interest, I just don’t think teams will be willing to give up much for one year of Lind. Brewer fans thinking he’ll bring back anything more than a middling prospect or two are deluding themselves. I’m sure Melvin took calls on him last summer, and nothing blew him away. With the Brewers seriously low on LH power, they might just keep him to start the year then revisit the trade market in July when injuries might make teams a bit more desperate.
You might be right. But at 8 mill a year that is a pretty damn good bargain. He would make a great DH I think, part time 1B. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
I’m curious to see if the Brewers trade him this winter in part for salary relief. Regardless of what they could get in return, the Brewers could try Jason Rogers at first base for a year and shed most of Lind’s salary, which is not insignificant for a club in Milwaukee’s position.
If they were overly concerned about his salary, they could’ve simply bought him out. The $8MM isn’t an issue for Milwaukee — salary relief won’t be a driving force in a potential Lind trade.
I would think salary relief will be a factor for the Brewers this year. Simply buying him out would still cost something (not sure what the buyout on his option was) and they would get nothing for him. By exercising his option they can trade him in the next couple of weeks to a team like the Mariners and get a decent prospect in return (decent not great) or a couple of lotto tickets. Exercising his option and trading him costs them nothing and brings something back.
If they were concerned about the contract or buyout, they could have easily dumped him over the summer and got rid of the entire contract.
By him still being with the Brewers, it’s pretty obvious they expect a solid return for him. Money is not the issue here.
Right, I don’t think they’re overly concerned in any way about his salary.
It might simply be a by-product of trading him that they won’t have to pay the full $8 million.
Trading for salary relief makes no sense. We have 4 arb eligible player of whom non should get too big of a raise. Ryan Braun will get a substantial raise over last year but that’s about it for substantial increases in salary. We’ve got ramierez 14 mil, lohse 11 mil, parra 6mil off the books. Plus we replaced Gomez 8 mil with Santana at league min and we got rid of cotts 3 mil. That’s 42 million coming g off the books. I think salary relief will be the last thing on the brewers minds.
The Brewers don’t need salary relief. Right now, payroll would be over $30 million less than last season.
Is something missing from this story? What is the time period for the “nice career stretch” that includes those 1,411 plate appearances?
2013-2015
Poor guy has been through a million team options already. Every year he must wonder if he’ll be a free agent or not (at least the last couple of times).
Smart move but he will be traded most likely at next season’s trade deadline
Adam Lind would be a great platoon partner for Mike Morse.