Playing Hurt

by Tom Dakers on Nov 4, 2009 11:14 AM EST in Toronto Blue Jays Analysis

Mike Wilner says a lot of things I agree with in his post yesterday talking about Vernon Wells and Edwin Encarnacion's wrist surgeries. In two of the last three years Vernon has had terrible seasons and seemingly in both he has tried to play through injuries. Now to his credit, neither year has he tried to use the injury as an excuse. In 2007 he hurt his shoulder and he never said anything about it, publicly, though the team knew and shut him down in September. This year we never knew anything about the wrist and wouldn't have known except the Jays announced he was having surgery. He had a cortisone shot in spring training and was taking anti-inflammatories during the season.

Now we tend to admire players for playing hurt. TV color commentators will give you 10 minutes on how 'back in their day' you played hurt, they didn't have Tommy John surgery. 'Why Mickey Mantle hit 500+ home runs on one good leg.' And I do admire guys that try to tough it out through an injury. Maybe it's the hockey background we have, growing up on stories of players getting stitched up in the trainer's room and coming back to play next period. "Don Cherry says get up."

But baseball, especially batting, is such a split second thing that it doesn't always work to play hurt. But like Wilner says:

It’s very difficult to blame a player for not wanting to come out of the line-up if he’s physically able to play (never mind play well). It’s exceedingly rare to find a player who will step back and say "Not only am I not helping, but I’m hurting the team and embarrassing myself in the process. I have to ask out." Don’t blame Wells for wanting his name written into the line-up everyday.

So who to blame?

At some point, Cito Gaston (and John Gibbons before him) has to be the grown-up, as it were, and tell Wells that he’s doing more harm than good trying to play in his condition and sit him down - or at least drop him to a far lower-leverage spot in the batting order until he gets healthy.

Is is an amazing thing that with a bad wrist Vernon played 158 games in CF. Not many health guys play that much. Only 8 players in the AL played more games last year. And, in case you didn't notice, Vernon had a terrible season. Now part of why he played so much is likely because Cito really didn't have a reasonable alternative to him on the bench after Rios was let go, but you would think that would be a 30 second conversation with the GM. "Hey JP, Vernon's wrist is bad and he's not hitting at all, I think a few days off would do him some good. Think you could find me a CFer that would take his place and not embarrass us too badly." JP would look into his memory for guys that played a pretty decent CF back in the 90's and, voila, Brad Wilkerson would be back on the team quicker than you could curse the baseball gods for saddling you with this team to cheer for.

A good part of why he played so much, despite playing so poorly was the lack of a someone else that could do the job but then a well put together team would have useful bench players. We, on the other hand, had Kevin Millar and Johnny Mac, nice enough people but not guys you would want to see in CF. So I'm hoping that next season, when Alex Anthopoulos puts together his roster, there is a fourth outfield that can actually play all 3 outfield spots.

I hope the surgery goes well and that Vernon comes into next year pain free and hitting great.

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I would have to say “of course it was Cito’s fault”. I mean, everyone made such a big production of moving Rios and Wells from the 3-4 spots this year when they were batting near 200. If you are not producing, the lineup changes should be automatic. There should be no controversy. This is pro sports. There are millions and millions of dollars at stake. You either produce or get moved. Should be simple. Rios and Wells should have been moved down the lineup much earlier than they were. Millar should have been released late season. The only reason to put a player into the lineup is near the end of season, when playoffs are out of reach and you want to develop talent. As soon as playoffs 2009 are out of reach, the team should be focusing on playoffs 2010. By that logic, Snider should have been batting 3rd spot and Ruiz 5th, both to get them more MLB time. Lind should have been batting 4th so he can get more comfortable in high pressure roles – all, IMHO.

by aagoodfella on Nov 4, 2009 12:56 PM EST reply actions

This is all fine and dandy, but until I hear it from Vernon Wells himself that he was in fact impaired by his wrist injury last season this is nothing more than conjecture and assumption based on his surgery. Is it not? Are worlds being put into Vernon’s mouth by writers?

Ive never seen him once say in public that his wrist bothered him.

by Jesse Taylor on Nov 4, 2009 2:35 PM EST reply actions

He never has....

and never will. Check how many times people have claimed he’s making alibis without him saying anything about it.

by Tom Dakers on Nov 4, 2009 2:40 PM EST up reply actions

Thats what Im saying. Its everyone else but Vernon talking about it.

Maybe, just maybe, he’s not talking about it because he genuinely believes that his problems were not from this surgery, or other injury’s.

So again, until I hear Vernon step up and say hes had problems with his health that have lead to a couple bad seasons, its just a writer making his best guess at what his wrong with Vernon.

by Jesse Taylor on Nov 4, 2009 7:46 PM EST up reply actions

And what I said is he won't do it....no matter what...

he’s not going to say it effected him whether it did or not. But odds are if it’s bad enough for surgery, it can’t have helped.

If you don’t think it effected things because he doesn’t say so then you don’t think the shoulder problem in 2007 effected him, he didn’t say a thing about it then.

by Tom Dakers on Nov 4, 2009 8:18 PM EST up reply actions

I think it affected him. Wrists are complicated. I wish he had spoken up earlier. There are times to take one for the team and times to take care of yourself so that you are more helpful to the team. Perhaps Vernon overweights the former over the latter.

by aagoodfella on Nov 4, 2009 11:26 PM EST up reply actions

He was never going to talk to the media about it.

The team knew though, so I can’t see where he speak out about it more.

by Tom Dakers on Nov 5, 2009 9:32 AM EST up reply actions

Buck Coats

I would have liked to see him get called up when rosters expanded, give Wells a week or two off.

by SPENCEMAN on Nov 5, 2009 4:54 PM EST reply actions

wells

wells sucks….. his problem last season and the season before is he never swings at the first pitch…. then he gets behind 0-1, 0-2 and then sucks…. wells’ plate approach sucks…

by hugiman on Nov 6, 2009 2:10 PM EST reply actions

wrong

actually, the statistics tell us that Wells improved his plate discipline if anything, swinging less at pitched outside the zone and more on pitches inside the zone. He got behind in the count less than the league average. His problem was hitting a career low number of line drives while hitting way too many flyballs with very diminished power (a career low in home run per flyball). You can see the statistics here: http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1326&position=OF

If he somehow could get his power back after the surgery, and hit more line drives, he might be a decent player (though never worth his contract), but he doesn’t belong in CF defensively…

by Woodman663 on Nov 6, 2009 8:27 PM EST up reply actions

yea, I would guess you are getting confused with Rios … your complaint sounds more like Rios’ M.O.

by aagoodfella on Nov 7, 2009 6:34 AM EST up reply actions

wells

where is the stat on how many first pitch strikes he swings at…. I don’t know how many times I watched the game and watched wells look at fastball down the middle for strike one…. its hard t hit Major League pitching when your down 0-1 and you have no idea what pitch type / speed / and location is coming…. when you know a fastball down the middle is coming then hitting is not so hard….. I don’t look at stats so much but I watch the game…. and the 3 players that sucked the most this year (one is gone now) rios, well, overpay….. all 3 I have seen time and time again look at that first pitch….. after this surgery wells will still suck until he changes his hitting approach…. after he starts hitting that first pitch fastball….and hitting it hard…. then the pitcher will have to start throwing breaking balls for strikes and then wells will have a better chance of those breaking balls missing and working some more walks and getting into better hitting counts….. right now if i was the picher facing wells I would throw fastball down the middle and go from there…. I also think Wells is too pull happy and needs to start going the other way but thats another issue….. I would like to see him be aggresive on that first pitch…. and then complain about his poor wrist….
And I was never one to look at stats….. i just call them as i see them…. Last season and the season before when I see those 3 take those fastballs down the middle for strike 1 (especially with runners in scoring position) that drives me nuts

by hugiman on Nov 7, 2009 9:49 AM EST up reply actions

Checking in with Fangraphs

I see that Vernon has provided about $46m of value above what he has been paid to date. I think a good barometer for him is to stay in the black in this regard by the time the current contract expires.

Or the Jays could deal him and $46m to another team and call it a wash.

by ayjackson on Nov 7, 2009 8:22 AM EST reply actions