NY Yankees’ Acquisition of Vernon Wells Is Utterly Pointless and Just Atrocious
March 25, 2013 · Brandon Mauk · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
The New York Yankees neared the acquisition of outfielder Vernon Wells from the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday night (via Yahoo Sports). The Angels will pay $29 million of the $42 million owed to Wells for the last two seasons of his contract.
The piling injuries looks to have pushed the Yankees to the point of desperation, and in their desperation they turned to a player they fully didn’t understand.
Wells came to a similarly desperate Angels team in 2011 as a massive salary dump by the Toronto Blue Jays when Anaheim missed out on the likes of Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth.
He struggled mightily in two years with the team, posting a .222/.258/.409/.667 line with an 86 OPS+ along with a WAR of -0.3. He was the odd man out with the emergences of Mike Trout and Mark Trumbo and the signing of Josh Hamilton.
This trade is just utterly pointless, and quite frankly, insane. To say Wells is bad is an understatement. He has consistently been one of the worst and most overpaid players in baseball for the past several years. Over the past six seasons, he’s been barely worth over one win over the replacement level. PUTRID. In terms of dWAR, he’s also been a waste in the outfield.
Honestly, with the amount of injuries to key players on offense, especially Curtis Granderson, the Yankees clearly needed to make a move, but is this really the move they had to make?
There are plenty of other options the Yankees could have pursued in both the minor league system and in free agency.
With Granderson out, the Yankees could have paid either Ronnier Mustelier or Melky Mesa the league minimum to play left field. Either would be a lower-risk option likely to produce better numbers than Wells.
This is just the latest move in an offseason where the Yankees have spent a lot of money on the wrong people. They let Russell Martin go to Pittsburgh for two years and $17 million, leaving a massive hole at catcher, but they’re willing to pay Wells and Ichiro Suzuki both $13 million?
One has to wonder what the people in the Yankees’ front office have been thinking this offseason. There is no rhyme or reason to their insanity, and their foolishness could lead the Yankees to their worst season since 1993.
Brian Cashman, Randy Levine, and the Steinbrenner Bros. are running the team into the ground, and this is just the latest of their senseless transactions.
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