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He will have to continue to swing a big stick, you do not get paid 126 million to hit for singles and doubles. I think are teams success will fall on the productivity of Vernon this year.

kavan wrote:He will have to continue to swing a big stick, you do not get paid 126 million to hit for singles and doubles. I think are teams success will fall on the productivity of Vernon this year.

does that mean he got a 15 homeruns by actually TRYING? wtf. If he hits .280 with 10 homeruns i'd be much happier with that

^^ Well he better come out 30hrs and 100rbis or he will end up like Rios.

These are unreasonable expectations for a player that hasn't put up numbers like that since 2006 and is probably, at his age, in decline.

We're going to have to face it...Wells isn't worth his contract and that isn't going to change for the next 5 years.

kavan wrote:^^ Well he better come out 30hrs and 100rbis or he will end up like Rios.

Vernon's worth a lot less than Rios already.

Our success doesn't depend on V-Dub and it hasn't for many years now. He's just that big ugly piece of old furniture that is too big to haul out of the house so you have to live with it until you come up with a better plan... only you aren't paying the piece of furniture $126 million to do nothing ~cringe~

^ Say what you want but V-Dub does not produce we will not win. Are pitching isnt going to have cy young winners and we wont have any triple crown threats. He will have to get his game together or we will suck worse then we have. Are team plus a productive CF at the clean up wins us an extra 15 games. I think we were one of the teams that had the most games decided with 3 runs or less last year?

kavan wrote:^ Say what you want but V-Dub does not produce we will not win. Are pitching isnt going to have cy young winners and we wont have any triple crown threats. He will have to get his game together or we will suck worse then we have. Are team plus a productive CF at the clean up wins us an extra 15 games. I think we were one of the teams that had the most games decided with 3 runs or less last year?

Whether he produces or not, this team still isn't good enough to contend and won't be for several years.

If all goes well, we have a wild card shot.

kavan wrote:If all goes well, we have a wild card shot.

To make the wild card in the AL, we'd need to win 95 games at least. Not happening. And it's not going to happen for a long time with this group.

Randle McMurphy wrote:

kavan wrote:If all goes well, we have a wild card shot.

To make the wild card in the AL, we'd need to win 95 games at least. Not happening. And it's not going to happen for a long time with this group.

Maybe if it's a 5 team league they could scratch out 4th, but this is a bad baseball club this year. Going into spring training there are always enough question marks that you can play the expectations game and get yourself to .500 or imagine a little better. You could've asked Pirates or Royals fans early in spring training for the last decade and each year you would've found guys with explanations for how this was the year things would go well and they'd be competitive. You count on guys who were hurt or prospects to rebound or whatever, but almost every team has those sorts of expectation vs. let down situations that could make them solid or terrible. So yes, if everything goes perfect there could be a chance to be vaguely competitive, but there is zero chance everything goes perfect. It never ever ever happens. IMO this squad is going to have to fight tooth and nail to avoid 100 losses.

And Vernon is incredibly important, only insofar as a mid-market team is totally boned with him on it. 25ish million a year for 5 years. He can't do anything that could make him worth that deal to the Jays. Maybe if he's resurgent for the next 2-3 years, some idiot GM buys out half of his remaining deal and the clock gets pushed forward a year or two. Personally, I'm a fan of spending the entire 2011 payroll on VW's buyout and playing the core pre-arb guys and filling the rest of the squad with minimum guys. Anyone in arby or FA gets dealt. That would be a fresh start that would contribute to the future success of this club.

I think he'll be better this year (is that really too hard?). Hopefully his wrist is fixed and healed.

He does look more comfortable this year though. I saw a bit of the Yankee game and his swing looked solid and he looked comfortable. Hoping that's a sign of things to come.

The difference is the Royals and Pirates actually have a semi-legitimate chance to make the playoffs every year. The Jays don't. Not in this division.

Defensively he will always be Vernon. But when your getting paid as one of the richest players in the game...you have to at the very least be showing us 30 homers and 100 rbi's. On that note..I was thinking maybe he might benefit by having a strong hitter behind him like we did with Delgado.

BTW I know we have Lind now, but until he becomes a legit DH for us then i'll consider him for that position.

CapeCrusader wrote:Defensively he will always be Vernon. But when your getting paid as one of the richest players in the game...you have to at the very least be showing us 30 homers and 100 rbi's. On that note..I was thinking maybe he might benefit by having a strong hitter behind him like we did with Delgado.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. He had a reputation as a gold glover, and whether you think it was earned he was at least solid in CF. Last year he was probably the worst starting CF in baseball. I could almost live with his offensive decline if they were getting good D out of him, but unless he really looks like he's vastly different than last year, he's a guy that needs to be moved to the corner and preferably LF. Hopefully the sheer depths he sunk to last year can be overcome and he gets back to being the adequate player who's tremendously overpaid rather than an almost sub-replacement player value guy who's tremendously overpaid.

Problem with us is we let some of are great OF go. Werth? Johnson ? Ring a bell to anyone. Look at what they are doing now even Gross is doing alright. I think we have a good OF. Why can I not get a RF to come to mind?

We are in a great division and trust me we might just hang in there we have never all been great at the same time. Last year we thought we had a chance.. wrong, this year less expectations may = a little more success. Hey why even talk ball if we are going to suck that bad?

We might surprise a few teams and maybe mid-way through the season we can add a big arm or SS.

Who is are RF? I know LF will be Snider or Lindd or are we going to play both?
I guess we could use Batista.. hmmm

kavan wrote:We are in a great division and trust me we might just hang in there we have never all been great at the same time. Last year we thought we had a chance.. wrong, this year less expectations may = a little more success. Hey why even talk ball if we are going to suck that bad?

I didn't think we had a chance last year, and I certainly don't think we have a chance this year. Being a fan isn't about that, though.