Comments on: Blue Jay Disappointments

By: andy

andy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:01:17 +0000

Barry Zito 7yrs/126mil. Vernon Wells 7yrs/126mil. Wells has been worth 2.1mil a year and a half into his contract. Zito has been worth 18.4 mil two and a half in. Brian Sabaen IS a genius.

By: kris

kris — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:16:14 +0000

It’s interesting, because Wells is still getting great jumps on the balls. His reading skills haven’t declined at all — What has declined is his actual fielding ability.

He just looks awkward trying to pull in balls after he’s run to their landing spot. He’s making ridiculous jumps where the ball almost hits him in the face, rather than the glove. I haven’t the slightest clue what’s wrong with Wells.

He’s clearly lost a step, but he just reminds me of those old school video games where it’d should you a giant circle and you could never quite get your fielder inside of the circle, so you’d over correct left and right and you’d just end up having the ball bounce off you.

By: Zoom

Zoom — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:33:06 +0000

And half-heartedly swing at pitches out of the strike zone.

By: brent

brent — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:01:31 +0000

Wells is suffering thru the “I broke my wrist and/or hand and now all of my power is sapped for a calendar year or more” syndrome. However, instead of using the tools he could have by losing weight to maximize his speed (stretch out doubles and run the bases well) and defense, he has stuck with trying to hit homers for which he doesn’t have the power for now.

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:34:20 +0000

Thanks for this post Eric. I don’t know if its because i emailed the site a few days ago on the topic of Wells terrible D, but i’m glad someone made a post about it to shed some light to others about what hes (not) doing in the field.

By: Nobody, really

Nobody, really — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:05:57 +0000

It’s not so much that Wells is average as much as it is that his body seems to have finally utterly quit on him. He finally went from average to awful defensively after his hamstring injuries last year, and it appears his shoulders have degenerated to the point that he can no longer get around on a fastball (judging from fangraphs numbers, that is).

Which is unfortunate because for all the things he can control he does really, really well. It’s just that he no longer has the physical ability.

By: Evan

Evan — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:35:08 +0000

Wells in an average player, and he has been for years. I don’t know why anything expects anything different. That contract of his is a travesty; without it they could easily retain Halladay.

Snider’s defense looks poor, but I don’t have numbers to back that up. And his arm is terrific.

By: wobatus

wobatus — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:20:59 +0000

I think well’s wrist is really bothering him still. His babip and especially homers to flyballs are really low. Of course, peole declare those things to be random. But samples like this tell me they are not as random as folks suggest. And if they are random, aren’t you docking Wells a bit much for his supposedly random babip (yes, hitters influence that more) and homer/flyball issue, caused by an injury, that, at 31, he will likely eventually heal from? Even though this year he may be kinda lost, and he was not as awesome as folks thought to begin with.

I am not completely sold on uzr in small sample sizes, although it has been a year and a third. What can I say, I am an apostate.

By: mattymatty

mattymatty — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:16:24 +0000

In any case the 7 year $126 million deal the Jays signed him to through 2014 isn’t looking too good right now, eh? The real kicker is that, according to Cot’s, $117 million of that is due starting next season. Oops.

By: Rowen

Rowen — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:25:27 +0000

I haven’t watched him play that much, but I’m not convinced Snider’s defense is as bad as conventional wisdom seems to say it is. We can infer that it’s better than Lind’s, for instance, from the fact that Cito consistently played Snider in LF and Lind at DH when they were both in the lineup to start the season.