The Washington Nationals have agreed to terms on a contract with first baseman Adam Lind, MLB Network insider Jon Heyman reported. ESPN’s Jim Bowden was the first to report that a deal was imminent.
Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports reported that Lind’s one-year deal includes a club option for a second season.
The deal is pending a physical.
Lind, 33, batted .239 with 20 home runs and 58 RBIs in 126 games for the Seattle Mariners in 2016 and is expected to provide Washington a left-handed power bat to compliment right-handed Ryan Zimmerman at first base.
The Nationals are making an inexpensive bet that Lind can bounce-back from a rather poor stint, outside of the 20 homeruns he hit, in Seattle, who opted to not re-sign Lind, instead going with the younger Dan Vogelbach moving forward. Lind had the 14th-worst batting average on balls in play (.259) among MLB hitters with at least 400 at-bats, according to FanGraphs.
While it’s unlikely, due to his age, that Lind makes a miraculous turn-around in terms of efficiency he could prove to be a valuable situational player for the Nationals, if things work out favorably.