June 24, 2009

For all the wrong reasons




It's safe to say Jerry Crasnick does not believe in Vernon Wells.

If you haven't yet read Crasnick's inspired ESPN.com column on Toronto's beloved centre fielder, let me take you on a tour. And trust me, bring some Kleenex along for the ride. It's a tearjerker.

So saith Crasnick:
Since Opening Day 2007, Wells has a slugging percentage of .429 -- the same as Chris Duncan and Rickie Weeks. Among the players who are better: Melvin Mora, Kevin Kouzmanoff, Chris Snyder and Ronnie Belliard.
Chris Duncan makes $825 grand a season. Rickie Weeks, $2.45 million. Kouzmanoff, you ask? $432,400. Mora I know makes some coin, but I'm not even going to bother checking on Snyder and Belliard. I don't need the aggravation.
Over that same span, Wells has an on-base percentage of .317 -- the same as Jody Gerut and Brad Ausmus.
Seriously, Vernon, .317? Fuck. And it's always fun to see the star centre fielder compared to Gerut, who's batting an impressive .199 this season, and Ausmus, a 40-year-old backup catcher. Good times.
The money issue isn't going to abate anytime soon in Toronto. Wells' contract is heavily back-loaded, so the big financial hit is still to come for the Jays. He'll make $12.5 million in 2010, $23 million in 2011 and $21 million in each of the final three years of his deal.
This is where the Kleenex comes in handy.
Wells also has a full no-trade clause, and he'll be approaching age 36 when the contract winds down in 2014. Just imagine how he's going to feel when people say his money is standing in the way of Roy Halladay's signing a long-term deal in Toronto.
The Vernon Wells Hatred Advisory System would cease to exist as we know it if Wells ended up costing Toronto Doc. That scenario would essentially be Armageddon.

It's a depressing read. Wells' best season, 2003, was a long time ago. When some guy named Carlos Delgado, who hit 42 home runs and drove in 145 runs that year, was hitting behind V-Dub.

Well played, by Mr. Crasnick. I applaud his efforts. He did good; had me looking up Delgado's and Wells' 2003 situationals. But I believe in Vernon Wells. He's on a seven-game hitting streak. And I'm pot committed.

One more thing: playoffs!!!1

12 comments:

looshV said...

Oh dear god, my heart just skipped a beat! I really do feel like sobbing now.......fucking depressing man. To think of that money being tied up for that long....
For crissake Vernon it's time to pull yer socks up and earn that massive paycheque, there are only so many Raul Mondesis that the Yankees will take from a team after all.

the expos said...

Stats taken out of context, being Wells playing on one arm in 07. Lets put his 08 and final 09 numvers together and we'll see how bad the contact is.

Archi said...

Ray of optimism from your earlier post:

Despite how absolutely fucking awful Vern's been for so long, the Jays are still in this race.

QJays said...

On the bright side, he's not been absolutely horrible the past few games, and he did get his jack in DC like you said (predicting the inevitable is like that, you have to just keep predicting it). It's probably worth pointing out that these things happen (Zito, Jones, you can get an extensive list pretty easily by googling bad baseball contracts).
I'm with you on this though - when you cheer for a team, and that team has a player who cannot be traded and will be costing 20% of your salary for the projected future, there is no good reason to not believe in him. I can only do it for so long though.

William J. Tasker said...

On the bright side, Rolen is the bomb at cleanup.

The Ack said...

Please, Vernon. PLEASE.

SL said...

Jody Gerut was really fucking awesome for some reason in EA Sports' MVP 2004, which coincidentally was the last time Vernon Wells was hot shit in a video game as well.
I always knew Vernon was better off as a Scottie Pippen to Carlos' Michael Jordan, but the spin he's gone into this season is unprecidented.
I love those stolen bases though, I bet you Brad Ausmus can't do that.

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

I'm giving Wells the benefit of the doubt for the rest of the season. I'll be the happiest mother sucker on the planet when he contributes in July and August, against the Yankees, Red Sox and DEVIL Rays. If he was going to have a whack-ass season like he's having, and not contribute anything for three months, I'd rather those three months be April, May and June.

Seriously, how the fuck we're tied for the Wild Card spot, I don't know.

And I hope Wells is never compared to Ausmus again. Ever again.

And William is right: Hoss is raking in the four-hole: .406/.457/.656

Stan the Caddy said...

Sweet Fancy Moses I'm depressed now.

Escaped Lab Rat said...

And when we get over V-Dub, we've still got Rios to get over as well.

They're paid to produce more (MUCH more), but if we end with .270-.285 with 20+ HRs, 85 RBIs and 20+ steals then I'll live with it. Our lineup is predicated on contributions from throughout the order so as long as the two of them aren't making all of the outs (like I've seen when one pops up and the other hits into a DP) then I'll learn to live with it.

No jokes about Roy leaving. It would seriously kill me.

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

No jokes about Roy leaving. It would seriously kill me.

You and us all, my good man. You and us all.

looshV said...

V-dub must of read the comments in your previous post and decided to finally get his act together. That home run.....that special HR he so desperately needed. Now he will go on a tear ala Mats Sundin. He visibly looks more comfortable and selective at the plate and his base running game is also coming back in grand fashion. I feel the Jays are at their best when they do a lot of the smallball stuff to generate runs on top of the spread out power in the line-up.
Hoss >>>>>>> Glaus!!!1