Wells Surges...!

The Toronto Blue Jays are facing the road of a long, demaning regular season, backed up against the wall by spectators, critics, analyst and even.... fans.

In the middle of a rebuilding stage, set by trades of staff ace Roy Halladay, injuries to pitchers McGowan and the loss of critical, yet unreliable bats of Alex Rios, Scott Rolen and Marco Scutaro the Jays are, and still are in the need of someone to step up. On a team with multiple rookies, and young guns (Romero P, Snider OF and Lind OF) to name a few, the team if granted, would find their leader in a young player, well that was what was expected, ESPECIALLY after performance of Gold Glove winner Vernon Wells dropped recently after a hefty contract year, and the loss of many role players. But recently in the opening series against the Texas Rangers, hope was found, if only a small sliver of hope...

After a spectacular 2006 MLB season with the Jays, hitting .303 and knocking in 32 homeruns, and 106 RBI's Vernon earned himself a hefty contract, and I use the term "earned" losely, as although I LOVE sports and professional athletes I do not believe in the copious amounts of money they earn, all factors included, but i'll save that for another post. Back to the point, the Jays came to an agreement with Wells and his agent for a contract extension that would pay him a whooping 126 MILLION dollars until the year 2014. He can also qualify to earn almost half a million dollars in annual incentives if he was able to attain League M.V.P and World Series M.V.P.... yes World Series M.V.P.

This extension brought, as all do, plenty of questions, concerning Wells playing ability, credentials and just plainly if he deserved this amount. When an athlete is being questioned in these fields, the best way to lay down the rumors is to live up to the hype in the following season and if you can't at least help your team win, play well enough to show you were worthy of the contract, unfortunately Wells in 2007 batted .245, with 16 round-trippers and only 80 RBI's. In 07 and 08 combined Vernon went yard only 36 times, ( 16 and 20 times respectively) merely 4 more than he did in '06 alone! His performance went back up in 2008, batting .300 in only 108 games, because of multiple injuries, to his wrist in May and hamstring in July. Although he only played a fraction of the season he topped his previous years homerun totals as well as virtually equaling his RBI input (78). It looked as though a healthy Wells in 2009 could be the answer to a team looking to make its first playoff birth since their world series win in '93. Unfortunately once again Vernon had a poor season , and EVERYONE let him know it. He hit .260 with 16 homeruns and 66 RBI's. Not to mention, this happened over 158 games, virtually an entire season. But, 66, that's all for a clean up hitter being paid over 8.5 million dollars? It may be all... but it is NOT enough.

So as you can see his background of poor "pressure" results in years with the extension have been poor, so why would ANY Jays fan rely or expect him to show up this year? Well, he still has to show his worth, but it wasn't expected at all. And even though it is extremely early in the year, just the first series, he has shown leadership to a young Blue Jays squad that is in need of a bit. Perhaps it is because there isn't any pressure, with low expectations for Toronto's ball club this year, or maybe it's merely the fact that he is 100% healthy this year, but regardless whatever it is, we as Toronto fans are sure glad to have him back! Just dont leave or let up anytime soon!

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2698288
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wellsve01.shtml?redir
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Wells#2008
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_was_the_last_time_the_Blue_Jays_made_the_playoffs