The Flagrant Fan Blogs: Vernon Wells

<div style="text-align: justify;">Now that the World Series is over, everyone will be focusing on off season awards. The BBWAA will have theirs. The BBA will have theirs and I have already contributed to that effort. All of the focus will be on players that played wonderfully in 2013. But there should be an award for the worst players in the league. Every top statistic has to have a bottom. Every yin needs a yang. Every Red Sox needs an Astros (too soon?). And so I have created my own: The <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=meyerda02,meyerda01,meyer-004dan&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Dan  Meyer</a></strong> Awards</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Why Dan  Meyer? Good question. I was going to go with <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kingmda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Dave  Kingman</a></strong>. I mean, how else can you hit over 450 homers in the pre-PED era (we presume) and still not make the Hall of Fame? But Kingman had enough good years to put him in the positive numbers for his career. That didn't make him very good. But he was not bad enough to name an award after.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I considered <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/flynndo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Doug  Flynn</a></strong>, a guy who played over 1,200 games and had unprecedented negative WAR for a guy with that many games. But Flynn could field a bit. He was no <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/belanma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Mark  Belanger</a></strong>, but he held his own with the glove. He could not hit a lick.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The last guy I considered was <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bergebi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Bill  Bergen</a></strong>, the worst hitter that ever lived. But again, Bergen was a pretty good catcher as far as we can tell for the early dawn of professional baseball. None of them really fit. And so I settled on Dan  Meyer. For a fun tribute to the player, look <a href="http://www.baseballcardbust.com/2011/02/dan-meyer-1979-topps.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There were two Major League players named Dan  Meyer. One was a pitcher the Braves unfortunately selected in the first round of the 2002 draft. He had one good year in 2009 for the Florida Marlins. But the rest were all bad. The one we want here is the other one. This Dan  Meyer was a fourth round draft pick by the Tigers in 1972 and somehow managed to play twelve awful years in the Majors.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our Dan  Meyer could not hit and he could not field. As best as I can tell, his career was prolonged twice by two successful years where he managed to crack over 20 homers and score positive WAR. But other than those two years, he was abysmal. He never had a single season where his fielding approached league average.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our Dan  Meyer played three positions: Left Field, First Base and Third Base. He was not good at any of them and finished with negative runs for all three. Of his twelve big league seasons, he finished with a negative WAR figure eight times. In six of those seasons, he played more than 120 games, so it was not like he was a part-timer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8kdUgeWtUNR4a3Kd7ITM1M02WZY7b7VOb9kjR6p5sXYsGXBeLKCPq8p-8tXUVASJO9mCKWbl2bDKWwdjPIr9x2nCXxm4HrW_CRN6BPNQ-6Ex93umnyzWME1tcfZdWBRrHsIu4str55u8/s1600/100px-Talc_block.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8kdUgeWtUNR4a3Kd7ITM1M02WZY7b7VOb9kjR6p5sXYsGXBeLKCPq8p-8tXUVASJO9mCKWbl2bDKWwdjPIr9x2nCXxm4HrW_CRN6BPNQ-6Ex93umnyzWME1tcfZdWBRrHsIu4str55u8/s1600/100px-Talc_block.jpg" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Meyer played from 1974 to 1985. The first three years were with the Tigers, the next five years were with the Mariners where he had his best years. And his last four were with the Oakland A's. Baseball-reference.com gave him a total of -6.5 rWAR for his career. Fangraphs.com was a bit nicer and put the figure at -5.5 fWAR.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Meyer is the perfect symbol of these awards. <strike>We</strike> I salute him! These are not the Silver Slugger Awards. These are the Talc (<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 19.1875px; text-align: center;">Mg</span><sub style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 1em; text-align: center;">3</sub><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 19.1875px; text-align: center;">Si</span><sub style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 1em; text-align: center;">4</sub><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 19.1875px; text-align: center;">O</span><sub style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 1em; text-align: center;">10</sub><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 19.1875px; text-align: center;">(OH)</span></span><sub style="background-color: #f9f9f9; line-height: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">2</span><span style="font-family: sans-serif;">) </span></sub>Awards. The Awards will be handed out by position (450 plate appearances were needed to qualify):</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>First base</b>: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/konerpa01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Paul  Konerko</a></strong>. Konerko has been a really good hitter for a long time which was great because he was no great shakes in the field and he has always been baseball's worst base runner. But his batting bottomed out in 2013. -1.5 rWAR, -1.8 fWAR. Honorable mentions: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dunnad01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Adam  Dunn</a></strong>, <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/o/overbly01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Lyle  Overbay</a></strong>. Dunn and Konerko were interchangeable at first base and DH, so either works.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Second base</b>: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/keppije01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Jeff  Keppinger</a></strong>. Gee, I wonder why the White Sox were so bad this year? Gosh, these numbers are bad. Keppinger had 451 plate appearances, so he just made it. -2.0 rWAR, -1.5 fWAR. His .266 wOBA was beastly (in a bad way). Honorable mention: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/barneda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Darwin  Barney</a></strong> whose wOBA was even worse than Keppinger, but whose glove saved him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Shortstop</b>: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hechaad01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Adeiny  Hechavarria</a></strong>. The Marlins' shortstop deserves to be here since he has an impossible name to spell and type. Both Fangraphs and B-R agree that Hechavarria cost his Marlins 32 runs on offense. 32 runs!! He was the only shortstop (other than our honorable mention) that met our minimum requirements that finished with a negative WAR in both sites. -1.9 fWAR, -2.1 rWAR (!). Honorable mention: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/castrst01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Starlin  Castro</a></strong>. That was one awful middle infield for the Cubs, eh?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Third Base</b>: Keppinger could slide in here too. But that's not fair. So the winner is <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/player_search.cgi?results=,youngmi02&utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Michael  Young</a></strong>. Which probably isn't fair either as he was a sometimes DH, 3B, 1B, etc. But he did enough of them poorly and batted league average and ran the bases poorly and still managed 565 plate appearances. Jackpot! -0.2 fWAR, -1.3 rWAR. Honorable mention: Can we just give it to the entire Yankees' cacophony of third basemen? No? Okay, <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/f/freesda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">David  Freese</a></strong> then.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Left Field</b>: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wellsve01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Vernon  Wells</a></strong>. That little devil fooled us for a couple of weeks, eh? He fooled <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/girarjo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Joe  Girardi</a></strong> too and ended up getting 458 suck-the-life-out-of-you-until-you-die plate appearances. -0.8 fWAR, -0.2 rWAR. The Angels did not kill two birds with one stone. They killed two teams. Honorable mention: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/v/vicieda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Dayan  Viciedo</a></strong>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Center Field</b>: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ruggiju01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Justin  Ruggiano</a></strong>. I do not know what happened to Ruggiano this season. He lost 216 points off his OPS from 2012. That is sort of incredible. Thanks to positional values, no center fielder finished below zero in the WAR category. But Ruggiano had negative numbers both on offense and on defense. The latter might be because center is not his best position. Honorable mention: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/saundmi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Michael  Saunders</a></strong>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Right Field</b>: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/markani01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Nick  Markakis</a></strong>. This was simply a bad year for Markakis and looking at his career, was probably an outlier. All facets of his game tumbled. -0.1 fWAR, -0.1 rWAR. Honorable mention: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stubbdr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Drew  Stubbs</a></strong>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Catcher</b>: <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/arencjp01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">J.P.  Arencibia</a></strong>. This one is not even close. To finish with a negative WAR as a catcher with all those positional points is pretty darned hard to do. Not only did Arencibia finish with an OPS of .592 and a wOBA of .259, but his defense fell too. And if you followed along with his Twitter account, he seemed to be in complete denial. That was one ugly season. Honorable mention: How about <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/brantro01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Rob  Brantly</a></strong>, except he did not get enough plate appearances.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There you have it: Your 2013 Dan  Meyer Awards. I would have to go with Adeiny Hechavarria for the anti-MVP. What about pitchers, you ask? I am saving those for tomorrow when the first annual <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/davieky01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Kyle  Davies</a></strong> Awards are announced. </div>

The first annual Dan Meyer Awards - the Anti-MVPs

Now that the World Series is over, everyone will be focusing on off season awards. The BBWAA will have theirs. The BBA will have theirs and ...

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<div style="text-align: justify;"><strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/w/wellsve01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Vernon  Wells</a></strong> was drafted in the first round with the fifth overall pick of the 1997 draft. His first full season for the Toronto Blue Jays showed promise in 2002 when he drove in a hundred runs. His star exploded in 2003 when he led the league in hits, doubles and total bases. After two middling seasons in 2004 and 2005, he again had a terrific season in 2006. He rallied for decent seasons in 2008 and 2010. But he never became the superstar 2003 promised. His last two seasons have been so bad that Wells has become a symbol of sorts of what can go wrong with a career and a GM decision. What this post will attempt to show is that the signs were there all the time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Toronto Blue Jays general manager, Alex Anthopoulos, was heralded as a genius when he was able to unload Wells on the Angels an off season move before the 2011 season. The move has probably been the most mocked trade since <strong><a href="http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ruthba01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker-www.blogger.com" target="_blank">Babe  Ruth</a></strong>. It cost then Angels' GM, Tony Reagins, his career and led to the hiring of Dipoto. Dipoto, who has a reputation for using the new metrics from the analytic world most likely have never done the Wells deal if he was in office at the time.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And that is because there have been signs since 2004 that Vernon  Wells had serious flaws in this game. In his early years (2002, 2003), Wells had good line drive rates which led to league average BABIP rates. But the flaw of his game in those years was a lack of taking walks. In his first three seasons, his walk rates were 4.9, 4.2 and 5.7 percent respectively.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">His walk rates rose by a couple of points in subsequent seasons while his career lost some of its luster. So that really is not a smoking gun even though his last three seasons have seen his walk rates again plummet and even worse, his O-Swing rates rise dramatically.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">What Tony Reagins should have seen and what Alex Anthopoulos undoubtedly saw was that there were several items in Wells' stats that showed that a little less bat speed would accelerate these hidden problems to the point that he would start tumbling to the point of uselessness.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Okay, these stats have been hinted at for long enough. Let's get to them. Two of them are striking. The first is that since 2004 and with a minimum of 5,000 plate appearances, Vernon  Wells has had the highest infield popup rate in baseball. There is nobody even close. Damon is second and almost a percentage point and a half behind Wells. And this is not something that is new in Wells' career that suddenly rears its head. It has always been there. Wells never had a season where this rate was less than 12.2% and most years it was much higher. His career rate is 16.3% and that is what it has been since 2004.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was mentioned earlier in this piece that Wells started his career with good line drive percentages. His first full season of 2002 showed a line drive percentage of 24.4% and his terrific season of 2003 showed a line drive percentage of 21.6%. But starting in 2004, his line drive proficiency dried up. And again, if we look at all players since 2004 with at least 5,000 plate appearances, nobody has a lower line drive percentage than Vernon  Wells. Since 2004, his line drive percentage is 16.6%. And since 2009, his line drive percentages have been particularly woeful: 14.8, 15.9, 12.3 and 15.7.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though those line drive percentages have been particularly bad in the last four years, the signs started way back in 2004 as they never again came close to his 2002 and 2003 seasons.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Add the low line drive percentage to the high popup to the infield percentage and you have a recipe for a low BABIP and again, continuing the theme of looking at 2004 to today and nobody with 5,000 plate appearances since that time have had a lower BABIP than Vernon  Wells.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Combine a low BABIP, low line drive percentage, high popup rate and the fact that he puts a lot of balls in play thanks to low walk and strikeout rates and you have a recipe for the death of a once promising career.Wells had once improved his plate discipline to respectable levels but in the last three years, that discipline has gone out the window meaning even less good contact than before.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These numbers put the nail in two coffins. The first was Reagins' who should have seen these and the second was in the Blue Jays before Anthopoulos who gave him this massive, intractable contract that makes the whole story worse.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Angels have tried to shop Wells all winter. But in today's day and age with analysts in front offices, nobody is going to make the same mistake the Angels did. They are stuck with a player who once looked like he was heading to a superstar career. Instead, he turned into the conversation of worst trades and contracts of all time. </div>

Vernon Wells - Anatomy of a career's death

Vernon Wells was drafted in the first round with the fifth overall pick of the 1997 draft. His first full season for the Toronto Blue Jays...

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