Comments on: Vernon Wells is tattooing the ball but it shouldn’t make a difference

By: blacksables

blacksables — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 19:06:40 +0000

If you’re so smart, use your impressive logic to explain your own statement. I did. Why can’t you.

What managers want to see is the guys make contact and drive the ball. They want to see a guy running the bases and being aggressive. They want to see gap power and line drives.

A walk is a walk and you can’t really do anything to improve upon it. Hitting the ball provides many variables.

Now see, was that hard?

This is the problem with statistics, whether they be sabermetric or traditional. People quote them and think it makes then knowledgeable about the game.

By: carbydrash

carbydrash — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:59:25 +0000

AH yes, because because managers are impressed by rookie’s who strike out on pitches out of the zone.

Impressive logic blacksables.

By: unclearnie

unclearnie — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:55:56 +0000

And Bud Black (Padres) and Ron Roenicke (Brewers)

By: blacksables

blacksables — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:52:32 +0000

Players don’t want to walk in spring training. The want to swing the bat. Rookies don’t jobs by walking. Just ain’t gonna happen.

By: dondada10

dondada10 — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:52:26 +0000

If the Angels eat the vast majority of his money (leaving only 4-6 mil to be covered), I can see a team taking a flier on him. The Yankees and Mets both come to mind.

By: dondada10

dondada10 — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:51:18 +0000

Funny how the general impression of Scioscia has changed since he lost Joe Maddon as his bench coach.

By: jwbiii

jwbiii — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:38:39 +0000

Check the “Pujols is able to run the bases on his own” post from last night.

By: Old Gator

Old Gator — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:12:14 +0000

The Feesh would take him if the Halos choked down all but the MLB minimum of his salary, and then passed along that $5 million, just to keep it in circulation, you know? Palanco is having back trouble again and the Feesh will probably need another non-third baseman to replace him at third base.

By: churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged

churchoftheperpetuallyoutraged — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:04:32 +0000

According to Cot’s, the Blue Jays are paying Wells signing bonus so they are chipping in $3.6M a year in ’13 and ’14(1). Also, as PC mentioned, the Jays kicked in $5M for the trade which both Cots(2) and B-ref.com mention (3).

1 – https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tWBCtH8eoSECZxhX-dRCHIw&output=html
2 – http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/al-west/los-angeles-angels-of-anaheim/
3 – http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wellsve01.shtml

By: unclemosesgreen

unclemosesgreen — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 15:04:17 +0000

Oops – my face is red, I stand corrected.

By: proudlycanadian

proudlycanadian — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:58:32 +0000

The Jays and Angels may not have made the actual dollar amount public; but, at the time it was widely believed to be $5 million. If you do search the web as I just did, you will find that number being mentioned.

By: unclemosesgreen

unclemosesgreen — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:48:27 +0000

You believe incorrectly. No cash exchanged hands publically.

By: proudlycanadian

proudlycanadian — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:24:40 +0000

Pujols has been limited in spring training due to an off season operation. In one game, the Angels resorted to replacing him on the base paths with a designated runner. Unfortunately for him, they will not be able to do this when the games count.

By: paperlions

paperlions — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:18:02 +0000

Probably because he is starting to show signs of physically breaking down. As position players age, they typically hit the DL much more often and take longer to recover. No player is considered injury prone….until he is, and that can happen at any point in a career. Look at ARods career games played pattern, that is fairly common. Playing 150+ games every year, hit 33 or so and start missing a couple of weeks here and there, then surgeries that have been put off in favor of rehab start to “come due” as things that healed didn’t get all the way back to 100%. Physically, the sport is tough on a body.

By: iamjimmyjack

iamjimmyjack — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:16:02 +0000

I’m happy for wells…we need a quality backup. But no matter how good he hits, and no matter how bad bourjos may hit (I think he’ll hit great), bourjos provides more value because of his defense and base running.

By: seitz26

seitz26 — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:14:30 +0000

if Wells is getting, like, 400 plate appearances in 2013, something has gone dreadfully wrong in Anaheim.

Or more likely those PAs aren’t coming in Anaheim. If he finishes the Spring strong, I could see someone taking a flyer on him if the Angels eat virtually all of his contract. But yeah, if he get 400 PAs in an Angel uniform, the Angels are in trouble.

By: echech88

echech88 — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:13:04 +0000

Craig, take it from an Angels fan: sadly, this means he will be playing a lot more than he would had he just been mediocre this spring.

Not everyday, but he will probably see a significant spike in his starts because of this.

Scioscia loves veterans and is notorious for giving guys like Vernon absurdly long leashes. After Vernon’s historically awful 2011 season, Sciosca was actually talking about trying him in the 2-spot in the lineup last March. That is not a joke. He actually said that.

By: proudlycanadian

proudlycanadian — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:11:33 +0000

I believe that $5 million went to the Angels.

By: albertmn

albertmn — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:05:06 +0000

If he can get lucky and get a few hits early in the season to go along with the hot spring, maybe the Angels would only have to eat half his remaining salary to move him in a trade, instead of having to eat 85% of it.

By: abaird2012

abaird2012 — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:03:43 +0000

“… that we know of …”

By: carbydrash

carbydrash — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 14:02:00 +0000

“Granted, having Josh Hamilton and Albert Pujols at first and right will likely lead to some DL time ”

A bit confused as to why Pujols was included in this. He’s never played fewer than 143 games in a season, has had 3 short DL trips in his entire career and ranks 2nd in the league in games played since 2001.

By: unclemosesgreen

unclemosesgreen — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:55:40 +0000

He will be remembered chiefly for making Tony Reagins a shoo-in first ballot G.M. Hall of Shamer.

Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera for Vernon Wells and his maximally-bloated contract. And no cash exchanged hands that we know of. I mean … wow.

By: carbydrash

carbydrash — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 13:53:21 +0000

Reminder:

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2013/3/11/4087430/spring-training-statistics-are-utterly-meaningless
From article:
“As you can see, there is no meaningful connection between spring training statistics and the subsequent regular season statistics for hitters. Even after looking at three different offensive metrics the highest correlation we have is with slugging percentage at just .052. The one thing I am surprised at is the fact that there wasn’t a higher correlation between spring training OBP and regular season OBP. If any particular skill would translate in any way I thought it would have been a player’s skill to get on base, but that’s clearly not the case as it has the lowest correlation of the three metrics measured.

Now that we can all clearly see, and not just assume one way or the other, that spring training statistics have absolutely no predictive value on how well or how poor a hitter will perform in the regular season can we stop discussing it as if it does?”