In the next three years, the Angels will pay Vernon Wells more than the Blue Jays paid him for the previous thirteen.

Memories from a simpler time.

Not going to pretend that I'm not still reeling from all of this, but I managed to pull myself together enough to have some lunch.  And whilst enjoying that lunch, it occurred to me that the whole narrative on Vernon's time in Toronto has to change.  It was never really true that Vernon was horrendously overpaid.  It was certainly true that he was going to be super seriously overpaid once his contract really kicked in unless he all of a sudden became his 2003 self, only better every year, plus became a doctor and a lawyer and a really good kisser.  Then you could look at twenty-odd million a year and think, well, we're really getting a lot for that.  

But we never got there.  If you actually look at what the Blue Jays spent, and what they got in return, you would really have to be an asshole to say that Vernon was badly overpaid.  I took a quick look at his contract information at Baseball Reference, and was all set to just go with that, but somebody in the comments section over at Drunk Jays Fans broke it down even better, so you can read all the particulars with all the bonuses and everything over there if you want.  The long and the short of it is that the Blue Jays payed out something like $60 million for thirteen years of Vernon Wells, with 2010 his first year of really making well over $10 million, and some real steals in there early on like 2003-2006 (Fangraphs WAR: 3.8, 3.7, 3.2, 5.7) for basically no money.  

And unless Vernon opts out of his contract, which he's entitled to do pretty much any time now but which would be one of the worst financial decisions anyone had ever made ever, the Angels are going to pay him more than that total in the next three seasons. Both GMs have confirmed that there isn't any money changing hands in this deal at all, not the rumoured $5 million, not anything.  It's just straight up dudes for dudes. Clearly the Angels are banking on him being the 4.0 WAR guy he was in 2010 and not the 0.0 WAR guy he was in 2009, but maaaaaaaaaaan they are rolling the dice on this one.    

Anyway, everybody agrees that Vernon Wells is a totally solid dude, and, when he wasn't playing through all kinds of injuries, a totally solid player, and at his best a really good player.  That's pretty much consensus stuff.  Hopefully the other part of the Vernon Wells consensus, that he was ridiculously overpaid, Blue Jays fans will actually kind of shut up about because it didn't ever actually come to pass.  Not because J.P. didn't try: he seemed determined from the outset to write a ludicrous contract.  But that's not the Blue Jays' problem at all.  Because Alex Anthopolous is amazing.  


KS