Lind had a great season in 2009. He was actually much better than Hill at the plate, slashing .305/.370/.562 for a .932 OPS. It even looked somewhat sustainable: his BB/K was respectable (58/110), his BABIP was in line with career norms (.323) and his line drive rate was good (19.6%).
The BB/K ratio was really the key to Lind's improvement last year - it was better than it had ever been previously in the bigs, and this seemingly led to increased power by allowing him to be more selective at the plate (in 2009 Lind swung at only 24.7% of pitches outside the zone, compared to 34% the year before that). Perhaps he got a little lucky on home runs (19.8% of his fly balls left the yard) but on the whole his success looked mostly sustainable given his improved plate discipline.
That discipline has not carried over to 2010, and is one of the two big causes for his struggles this year. He is striking out more often and walking less often. He has almost four times as many strikeouts as walks. His O-Swing% is back up around 34%, and his inside the zone (Z-Swing%) is up as well, by about 5%.
We all know about Cito Gaston and Dwayne Murphy's aggressive approach to hitting. It seems to have worked wonders for a lot of hitters, but Lind may be an exception. His batted ball profile is similar to last year, indicating that he's still hitting the ball well when he makes contact. He's just swinging too often.
The second oddity in Lind's 2010 stat line is his splits. Despite his season-long struggles, Adam has been an above-average hitter against right-handed pitchers (.815 OPS). But he's been so dreadful against southpaws (.354 OPS) that his stat-line gets dragged way down. So the question naturally arises: can Adam Lind hit left-handers?
Let's look at his career numbers:
This season is clearly an outlier, but it's not as if Lind has no platoon split for his career. Even last year when he was great he OPSed more than 200 points better against righties. This article at Fangraphs discusses platoon splits - the average left-handed hitter hits about 8.6% better against righties than lefties, as measured by wOBA. Lind's split? Almost 30%. That includes this season, of course, but it's not as if we can just toss out 2010 data - it's important to estimate skill based on as much data as possible.
So the answer appears to be no, Lind cannot hit left-handers. It takes a great season where he OPSs almost .1000 against righties just to make his against-southpaw line acceptable. So heading into 2011, I would be tempted to sign a lefty-mashing bench bat who can spell Lind. It doesn't have to be a strict platoon, because if Adam re-discovers his 2009 form, you want him in there every day. It also depends on what the DH/1B situation will be next year; presumably someone will be signed to fill one of those spots. However it shakes down, though, there should be some Lind-insurance (Lindsurance? Sorry) on the bench.
I should note that the sample size used to determine that Lind can't hit lefties is small; less than a full season worth of at bats. Data is subject to wild fluctuations at small sample sizes, so we shouldn't leap to conclusions. But what data we do have with regards to Lind hitting lefties is not promising, hence my advocacy of the aforementioned Lindsurance (sorry again).
Adam Lind needs to go back to being selective at the plate. Every player is different and every player responds differently to different hitting philosophies. Contrary to most of the Jays' hitters, the Cito approach doesn't appear to work for Lind. Here's hoping he goes back to his old habits of selectivity, and this leads to a rebound season in 2011.