Put To Bed
Having some technical difficulties here…but I thought I would shoot this rumour that Lind is being kept in the minors for economic reasons while I beat by modem into submission and look at what made Burnett click last night. A player becomes a “super two” if he is in the top 17% of all players with between two and three years of service:
http://mlbplayers.mlb.com/pa/info/faq.jsp#arbitration
…a player can be classified as a “Super Two” and be eligible for arbitration with less than three years of service. A player with at least two but less than three years of Major League service shall be eligible for salary arbitration if he has accumulated at least 86 days of service during the immediately preceding season and he ranks in the top 17 percent in total service in the class of Players who have at least two but less than three years of Major League service, however accumulated, but with at least 86 days of service accumulated during the immediately preceding season.
It doesn’t make any sense that the Jays would think that holding him back a week is going to be the difference in him being in the top 17 percentile of service time down the road. It makes a lot of sense that he is still not 100% and they don’t want to risk him pushing himself because he’s geeked up to be in the majors or losing confidence because he can’t get the bat around against big league pitching yet.
Lind missed 4 games last week, then then pinch hit on Thursday, and sat yesterday. Why would you give a guy one at bat in two games right when you desperately need him to come up and start mashing? Gibbons is almost certainly not lying when he explains the decision to hold him back like so:
“He may be here in a few days,” Gibbons said. “He has had the neck problem, but he’s getting beyond that.”
