OT: Angels could have had Beltran instead of Wells

[darth_federer]

Weeks later, I’m still questioning the Angels motivation for making the trade and their willingness to take on $86 million for Vernon Wells. This questioning went from professional curiosity to general concern over Angels GM Tony Reagins’ mental health after reading Joel Sherman’s column in the New York Post today.

"The way I hear it the Mets and Angels did actually discuss Beltran. But the Angels ultimately saw Wells as the better choice despite the much larger financial investment. The Angels liked that there were no doubts about Wells’ health as compared to Beltran, whose knees are a serious wonder. And despite the sense that Wells’ defensive game has regressed some, the Angels believed that he was definitely capable of playing center field. They did not believe that about Beltran".

Well, if there was ever a reason to compare Carlos Beltran and Vernon Wells, this would have to be it.

Let’s start with their age and contracts.

Vernon Wells: 32 years old, owed $86 million over 4 years.
Carlos Beltran: 34 years old, owed $18.5 million over 1 year.

Now, let’s take a look at their offensive production last season.

Vernon Wells: 646 PA, .331 OBP, .515 SLG, .362 wOBA, 7.7 BB%, 14.2 K%, .242 ISO, .272 BABIP.
Carlos Beltran: 255 PA, .341 OBP, .427 SLG, .332 wOBA, 11.8 BB%, 17.7 K%, .173 ISO, .275 BABIP.

And now, their offensive production over the last three seasons.

Vernon Wells: 1796 PA, .327 OBP, .466 SLG, .342 wOBA, 7.1 BB%, 13.1 K%, .191 ISO, .280 BABIP.
Carlos Beltran: 1318 PA, .380 OBP, .486 SLG, .376 wOBA, 12.8 BB%, 15.7 K%, .197 ISO, .308 BABIP.

Vernon Wells’ 2010 season was the second best of his career and came four years after his best. Comparing both of their careers, an average healthy season from Beltran has been better than every year of Wells’ career except for his best. Over the last three seasons, the only thing that Wells has on Beltran is that he strikes out less and has been able to play in more games.

But that comes with a caveat. He’s played in more games, but it’s believed that he played through an injury. How valuable is it to your team to dress for every game while playing injured. In Wells’ case, it wasn’t valuable at all as his 0.0 WAR over 158 games in 2009 will attest.

http://blogs.thescore.com/mlb/2011/02/0 ... -stranger/

I guess they really liked Vernon

[The_Hater]

Beltran is obviously a much bigger injury risk but he's always been a better player than Vernon when healthy. And taking that contract over Well's contract was a no-brainer.

[satyr9]

This is a dumb comparison. For their careers, of course Beltran's better, but he isn't likely to be that Beltran any more and although Wells has been all over the place and may have played through injury, his injury status isn't the same at all.

This is a piling on article to me. We hate the deal for the Angels because of the money they took on for less than an equal return. From that standpoint a 1 year 20 million dollar corpse is better than Wells, but that doesn't mean Beltran and Wells are actually comparable players at this point in their careers. No GM is gonna take the 20mil guy on a 1 year who hasn't been healthy in over a year unless the Mets want to eat 95% of the deal. To be fair no other GM would've been likely to eat Wells' deal without the Jays eating a huge portion either, but that deal gets them a guy with no more or less health questions than your average player at that age. Beltran is a totally different kettle of fish.

Sure maybe he comes back and proves me wrong and makes the Angels look even stupider, but that still doesn't really have a bearing or relation to the Wells trade IMO.

[The_Hater]

This is a dumb comparison. For their careers, of course Beltran's better, but he isn't likely to be that Beltran any more and although Wells has been all over the place and may have played through injury, his injury status isn't the same at all.

The huge difference in contracts aside, did you miss the part where Beltran has put up a better OPS than Wells over the past 3 years?

[Kaizen]

Did you miss the part where they said they are not sure about his knees? Last year's stats may be a much better indicator of what to expect this year and not what he did 2 and 3 years ago.

[The_Hater]

Did you miss the part where they said they are not sure about his knees? Last year's stats may be a much better indicator of what to expect this year and not what he did 2 and 3 years ago.

And Vernon Wells could fall back to his sub 800 OPS levels of previous years too.

I addressed that Beltran was a bigger injury risk in my previous email. I'm not aruging that. I'm still convinced that just about any other GM in baseball would take a 1 yr, 18 million flier on Beltran over a 4 year - 84 million flier on Wells. AA was very, very fortunate to find a desperate team willing to take Wells off his hands.

[SCF99]

I am glad the Angels are the ones having this debate not us...

[Strav]

um, Beltran barely played last year - injured for most of it and then frequently sat out successive games. Not sure why this is a discussion other than money. He wouldn't bring much to the Angels other than being slotted in as the regular DH at best if they wanted him to play all the time.

[The_Hater]

um, Beltran barely played last year - injured for most of it and then frequently sat out successive games. Not sure why this is a discussion other than money. He wouldn't bring much to the Angels other than being slotted in as the regular DH at best if they wanted him to play all the time.

Beltran missed the first half of the season, had to work himself into playing shape the last half of July and August and then hit the cover off the ball in September with an .967 OPS.

And for a guy that can only play DH, it's amazing that he didn't play anywhere but CF for the Mets last year. They didn't even move him to a corner spot. I'm not saying that he's a great defensive CF but he's not worse than the grossly overrated Wells. Wells shouldn't be playing CF at all.