B.J. Is A Cub; Vernon Is Culpable
Two quick things to talk about today before the Jays open a three game series against the Boston Red Sox tonight.
1) B.J. Ryan signed with the Chicago Cubs and immediately reported to their Spring Training complex. He'll spend some time with their Triple A affiliate before the Cubs consider calling on him. I can't remember the last time a Blue Jays reject signed with the Cubs like this.
I just can't get mad at The Beej, but I do have to wonder if he would've refused a Minor League assignment from the Jays, which he has basically accepted by signing a Minor League deal with the Cubbies.
2) Our friends at Mopupduty.com bring us the news that Vernon Wells is the worst fielding centre fielder in the game right now. In fact, only Adam Dunn, who hates baseball, has a worse rating as an outfielder. Although, he may have a few more home runs than V-Dub this year.
Seriously, according to the mad scientists who study such things, Wells has cost the Jays 21.3 runs this season with his anchoring of centre field. That's not good.
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68 rational and reasonable comments:
is that jesse litsch barfing?
Since when did this Andrew Foreman faggotry become funny? Is it just one guy trying to carry this joke, or what? FUCK
Yeah, there's an idiot loser hanging around. Bo-ring.
Well at least we can be happy that our 15+ years of failure will never match that of the Cubbies 100+ years...and if BJ continues his dominating ways (note sarcasm), he can only help the extend the most laughable streak in pro sports history
It's awesome-- all his comments get deleted now, but he still has nothing better to do than come around here and try to post them. Sad sad sad.
I love the lack of respect BJ gets now (note sarcasm).
The guy throws his arm out for our team, and they respond by throwing him under the bus.
Real classy.
Todd McClure, what in the fuck are you talking about. Ungrateful? You mean the team that gave him the biggest contract ever for a reliever?
Who's the goat in this situation?
The GM or the reliever?
How did Wells get so bad so quick? It's bizarre to me. His hamstring injuries don't seem to bug affect him that much when he's running the bases (as rare as that may be).
Is that Jamie Campbell?
Tribal armband and pajama pants? Definitely JC
So what you're saying is that if Vernon Wells was playing for the Argos, he would probably be benched because as a receiver his is costing the team a lot of touchdowns. I get it.
I'm sure Arland Bruce would show him how it's done, just like he's going to show the Stamps how it's done in Calgary tonight. Go Argos.
The goat is JP, as we all can attest to. But explain to me how such a reversal of command can happen from one season to the next? It's much more common to go from shit to good, but to go from 2.95 ERA with 32 saves and almost a K an inning to 6.53 ERA, 2 saves to 2 blown, and more walks than Ks (17 to 13)????
I'm inclined to believe the UZR stats but to me Vernon doesn't LOOK that bad out there so I can't explain it. Mopupduty says his routes are comical. How? They make it sound like he's an oaf out there. We can't see his initial jump on the ball unless we're at the game so how do we know? And how can he just start taking bad routes suddenly after being an above-average to very good route-taker until 2008? He's not making comical errors in the field like Rios either so it's not a freak show. It's gotta be something more subtle is all I'm saying.
Why does there have to be a goat? If BJ had performed as expected for the duration of the contract would have been good. He didn't and rather than bury him in the minors they released him so he could seek out a major league job elsewhere. He didn't find one, so now he's in the cubs minor system for the rest of his contract instead of the Jays'. Who cares, shit happens and teams have to take risks from time to time.
I think he tried making offseason adjustments that clearly don't work...
When BJ was the sandman, he had filthy stuff. Unfortunately, that filthy slider ended up landing him on the operating table.
I think after last season there must have been something he wanted to change in his delivery - in the best interests of preserving his career- so he could put less strain on his elbow.
Result: Poor command and no more dominating out-pitch.
Either that, or a mental clusterfuck.
Steroid testing.
One thing I have noticed about VW in the field is he no longer seems able to catch while running back. I don't know if its because of the shoulder problem or what but it seems like every time it's over his head and he has to get it while in motion he never comes up with it. I don't remember him having that problem a few years ago.
If you ask me, vernon has definitely changed his approach to catching balls. if you notice, now he does this weird running under the ball, widereceiver type catch on balls that arent even really that hard to get to...or at least werent hard for him to get to before. im sure its a compensatory mechanism to make up for loss of range. blair claims teams are more afraid of wells for his hammy than his contract. i think thats bs but even if theres a little truth to it, makes me wonder why he and rios havent already been flipped in the OF
Blair also said that VW is the CF until VW says otherwise. Which sucks, but I do believe it.
Is UZR a subjective rating?
Looking at the UZR rankings on fangraphs some other players in the bottom 20 of qualified OF Bay, Markakis, Hawpe, Either, Ellsbury, Victorino, and Adam Jones.
Was the Beej not approached to go down to the minors whilst mired in misery in TO?
the_fatman just beat me to the same question. I thought Arnsberg said the offer was refused...but then I checked the original Post article and it's not there. Did I make that shit up?
You did.
This will go down as another one of the front office mysteries that we'll never know the truth about.
UZR or any defensive stat is best used if you look over time (three years is a good window). The bigger the sample size, the better picture you can draw. Guys like Jones & Markakis are having down years while Bay & Hawpe are historically terrible.
That said, Vernon has this brutal habit of going back on an angle for a well-hit ball and suddenly course correcting at the last minute (usually straight back away from the plate). Not only must it put extra strain on his shoulder, he looks like he doesn't know where it's going. Here's video showing Vernon taking a weird route as I described but actually catching the ball. I'm sure this path looks familiar to most Jays fans.
It's too bad it's probably too hard to do a comparison of routes like it would be to compare pitching mechanics or batting stances.
I will agree that Wells has probably lost a step and isn't as good as he was, but it's really weird to me that he's, by far, the worst CF in the game.
Are the jays in the hook for all of Bjs contract or does Chicago have to pay him that rediculous 11 million or whatever.
Fir the record When BJ was good he was worth every penny.
Of course BJ would refuse the minors assignment from the jays because there is still a chance some crappy nl team would take a flyer on him and let him pitch mlb for the league minimum.
jays are on the hook for everything except the 500k or whatever (maybe less in the minors I dunno) the cubs pay him
Yeah, no veteran takes a minor league assignment-- fuck, Frank Thomas wouldn't even take a seat on the bench. I'm sure if the Jays didn't ask, it's because they already knew the answer.
@Bitey Not for long. The New York Times ran an awesome piece on "baseball f/x" where they track the movement of all balls in play and fielders. In time, we'll be able to properly hurt scorn at Wells for taking bad routes and praise at Rios for having the athleticism to overcome his.
Except, Stoeten, Beej just took a minor league assignment from the Cubs. So either he wasn't offered one or had a wake up call by being released.
@Drew - LtB
..and then shit all over Rios for being incapable of actually fielding the ball when he gets to it? Or for air-mailing every throw to the plate?
No, you're wrong Joanna, if you read my 3:17 post you will see the light.
...suddenly accepting being put into the minors with the cubbys puts it all in a strange light. A professional would do all he can to 'fix' whatever the problem is.....ie, if you're pissed because you ain't gettin enough reps to 'elevate your game', but you stink so bad they will never give you any reps that count....then something has to change....if you're a team player you swallow your fucking pride & go to the minors where you can get all the fucking reps you can handle. Until that point, the sympathy angle is laughable at best.
Perhaps other know better, but I believe that the people who suggest VW move to LF believe he wouldn't be a complete retard in LF like Adam Dunn. Let's remember that VW still plays a premium position even if he sucks at it. I think he could have defensive value in LF, in which case once his hitting gets back to snuff would make him a $10-$15 mill player/yr...tradeable if we eat like 30-50% of the contract I say, once he starts hitting...
Also, Vernon apparently can't lay out for a ball. If he dives for something, it's this awkward sommersault tumble to the ground.
More often than not, he just takes it on a bounce.
I've seen Adam Lind dive for more balls. And not just on Church Street after dark.
To clarify, BJ accepted the minor league deal with the cubs because he had no other choice.
He said no to the (presumed) Jays minor league offer because there is no way for him to know if the padres or nats would take a chance on him in the majors at that point.
As someone who has shoulder problems I can see why he would not want to lay out for flies on the hard turf
Once he starts hitting?
it's just so fucked that he totally forgot how to pitch. It seems an unrreasonable assumption that they didn't go to him and say " how about closing in AA or AAA for a while".
You're not going to piss away 15 million without even asking.
Nice little Stat from NESN about Doc
http://www.nesn.com/2009/07/the-abuse-of-halladay-a-cautionary-statistic.html
JC has ginger tities !
...Vern might dive for say another 5mil year,maybe...until that point, 10-15-20 mil a year just ain't enough, Vern's not layin er out on the line for that silly assed chump change. Until that point you get the awesome Vern-o-slide...he does usually belt er out to first on all them ground outs though, must be down to a 4.8 40 with all that practice??
AE he's always been top 5 in that list with no serious arm issues
Halladay = ginger. Proof there's good and bad with all races.
Just for the record, the "doesn't dive in the outfield" line of attack is possibly the stupidest in all of baseball, if not the internet. Think of a time you saw Devon White dive. You can't because he didn't. What about Ichiro? Nope, he doesn't dive either.
Fuck Jim Edmonds in his overrated ass.
Drew
sorry not top 5 always but pretty high esp in non injury years
Zero surprise on this end that BJ accepted a minor league deal from the Cubs but either refused or suggested that he would refuse a minor league assignment by the Jays.
The minute the Jays even attempted to option him to the minors, he could become a free agent while still being entitled to all his salary from the Jays.
BJ's not stupid, he realizes that if he wants to stick in the majors he'll have to go back to filling the LOOGY role. And is his best chance for that the Cubs, who have one LH in the pen in Sean Marshall (ideally more of a long relief/fringe starter than a LOOGY), or the Jays who have a LH closer, a solid LOOGY in Jesse Carlson, and a LH long relief/fringe starter in Brian Tallet?
He did what was in the best interests of his career, can't really blame him for that.
The reason team's are slobbering over Halladay is because he's the last of a dying breed.
His rigorous training routines and discipline are going have him pitching until his kids are in the Majors.
NESN's pretty litte stats aren't going to fool any of the serious buyers.
Drew, I'll take your word for it that you've seen him take bad routes multiple times, but in that specific video you linked it's pretty obvious that he simply looked down while running to see where the LF was and then when he looked back up he realized he overran it a little while looking down. If anything, that's just an awesome catch.
who gives shit what white & ichiro do or don't do...vern has lost more than a couple steps...you make up for that by layin er all out...not by following some stupid template: 'diving is of no use, afterall, ichiro & d.white have never dove once in their careers, therefore
it is not relevant'.
I know it won't deter many because Doc's solid as a fuckin rock. But I can dream...
Diving is of no use because:
1) if you don't catch it you're hopelessly out of position to recover the ball or make a throw.
2) You risk injury every time, thereby hurting your far more than one isolated out ever could.
But hey, smartly holding up on a basehit never landed anybody on Sportscenter, did it?
SP - I say bad routes because we generally see good outfielders run to the spot the ball will land, Vernon just seems to chase after it. In the video I linked he overruns it, forcing him to make a right turn. If he takes a better route the ball's in front of rather than behind him when he catches it. Nice catch in this instance, but playing with fire for sure.
That is halarious!
There's obvious exceptions to diving. Outfield fly ball in a close game with a runner on second or third and 2 outs. You make the catch, inning over. You let it drop and the run scores. You miss it, the run scores.
Interesting suggestion from McCown.
It's hard to pitch something to Roy to attempt to resign him, since both Beeston and JP will probably be gone after this season. Bob suggested signing Roy to a huge deal, but give him an opt out after the first year. Then, if Doc doesn't like the direction of the new administration he can leave and has only given up one more year. Not the worst idea I've ever heard.
What the fuck must be going through your head, anonymous retard. You don't get to play any more, you might as well just fuck off already.
@ SP: I remember Mike Wilner noting at times that Wells starting positions on the field was odd. Like he notes he plays a lot more shallow than the stadard CF'er at times.
UZR only notes where the ball was caught and compares to the average CF, so that could be a reason there.
And pathetically complimenting your own shit, dude? This is really what you're doing with your fucking life?
Poor baby's having a little manic episode. Jesus fuck, loser, just give it up.
Um, Alex, did you not see that I wrote that BJ was either not offered a minor league deal by the Jays or saw the light (ie took the best deal offered)? Cause signing a minor league contract means taking a minor league assignment. So basically what you said.
And do we not remember when Vernon dove and broke his wrist? Cause that was fun.
Joanna, going to the minors with the Jays would have exposed BJ to being claimed by anybody-- refusing and being granted free agency lets him choose where he ends up.
@Drew from Ghostrunner
how can you say Jimmy Edmonds is overrated? EIGHT gold gloves. Enough said
Wells has cost the Jays a lot more runs with his bat than he has with his glove.
PS: I fucking hate Vernon Wells.
Wells has cost the Jays a lot more with his inflated salary than he has with his glove.
PS While I don't hate Vernon Wells because I don't know him personally, I certainly don't like him as a ballplayer
@Bubbles
A Gold Glove is the baseball equivalent of an ESPY. Means less than nothing.
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