An untradeable player has been traded

In each of the last two seasons I have included Vernon Wells in one of my How can they trade that untradeable contract? posts.

One for the blog after the 2009 season... one for The Hardball Times after the 2010 season.

Well, it took Adrian Beltre, Carl Crawford and just about every other player in creation to turn down the Angels to do it... but the Blue Jays found a suitor.

Vernon is heading to Los Angeles.
And then drive about an hour south and wind up in Anaheim. But let's for the sake of argument call it Los Angeles.

I personally think it is a terrific move for the Angels.
Wells is a stand up guy with talent. And he should fit in well with the organization and the lineup.

Please spare us all the indignity of breaking down his play and his WAR, VORP and OPS+. That's not what this move is about.

As I wrote before, this is about a change going to do him good.
He signed that gigantic contract to stay in Toronto. And it became his legacy and identity.

He even had to wear the hairshirt and indignity of having to admit he wasn't worth the contract.

It was time for a change of scenery. As much as he clearly loved Toronto, and as much as I thought him having a Todd Helton moment would have been super cool, he had to go.

I had him for two years in a row going to the Cubs. I thought the natural surface and a fresh start with a fan base would be ideal. But now he is off to a model organization with a good pitching staff, Kendry Morales should be back and no doubt Torii Hunter will welcome him with open arms.

He'll be playing for a potential Hall of Fame manager and will no doubt be in a pennant race.

And he won't have the constant reminder that his contract his too big.

Can you say "relaxed"? Can you "rejuvenated"? Can you say "big season for a guy who actually made the All Star team in 2010"?

Not bad for an untradeable player.

The reawakening of Vernon Wells - My latest for The Hardball Times

In my latest for The Hardball Times, I speculate about Vernon Wells and the potentially joyful season he might be having for the Angels. My reasons are not based on stats but rather emotions, which means the commenters will probably hate my guts.

Ahh well.

You can read the whole article here.

Give the Rockies credit... they give their fans players to cling to

You are going to hear a lot of mixed opinions about Troy Tulowitzki's long term contract extension with the Rockies.

Jeff Passan has already chimed in on Yahoo. The panel on MLB Network is split on it. (John Hart pointed out what a no brainer Grady Sizemore's super stardom looked like.) And more will come down the pike.

And yes people are pointing to the Rockies rotten contracts for Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle, but those are disingenuous comparisons. They overpaid for them to lure some pitching into Denver and as it turned out, they were both bad fits. (Although Hampton liked the schools and Neagle liked the women in his car.)

You will hear Todd Helton's name being thrown around as a lousy contract as well. And I suppose technically it wasn't a great one. It was an albatross for a bunch of years and by 2006, they would have dealt Helton for flat Diet Sprite.

But a very cool thing happened the next year.
The Rockies went on their amazing run and stunned everyone on the planet Earth by sweeping Arizona and storming into the World Series.

And the last out was recorded by Helton.

The Rockies had a bunch of players most fans had never heard of. But they had Helton, who might not have been the superstar he was when he signed his bear of a contract. But he was the steady player whom any baseball fan knew and could relate to Colorado.

And that is something that all the stat heads in the world will NEVER understand. Sometimes for a fan base, it is GOOD to have a steady reliable player that the fan base can point to and say "That's my guy!"

Helton was that guy on the 2007 Rockies. Who knows? If the Blue Jays make the playoffs, Vernon Wells and HIS brontosaurus of a contract might have a similar reaction to Helton in the '07 ALCS.

It is why I totally understood the Ryan Howard contract. Lots of people killed it, but I got it. Sometimes you need to put OPS+, VORP, WAR and everything else and put it on the shelf.

Howard the Phillies fan's guy. He delivered for them with those towering homers in the 2008 World Series and as the 2009 NLCS MVP. He was a World Champion and an MVP for the Phillies... and you don't have to worry about him going to New York or Chicago or Boston. The long term contract gave the fans license to get attached to him as a Phillie.

And besides, how do you know if an Adrian Gonzalez or whomever else would be able to produce in Philadelphia or be as loved by the fans.

Sometimes to build up a fan base, regular fans need to have fan favorites to root for. Not everyone is watching the game with a calculator in hand. Some people (and brace yourself here) root for the PLAYERS. Some people like having a player to cheer for through thick and thin, and not drop them from their Fantasy Team because their Base Out Win percentage dropped.

Yes it involves emotion, but not all baseball fans are Vulcans!
Some fans have been stung by departing players and want to know if this is a long term relationship or just a fling.

I wonder if the Marlins would have a bigger fan base if some of their World Champions were able to stick around. I wonder if Padres fans would have shown up at the park this year if they felt like the stars they were cheering for would actually come back in 2011.

So guess what Rockies fans... you can buy a Tulowitzki jersey and know it will be good for a while. In the age of free agency, spending 10 seasons in a smaller market is really all you can ask for.

Todd Helton has given Colorado fans 13+ seasons.
Tulowitzki could spend 14+ seasons in Denver if the contract runs through all of its options.

Either way there will be many Rockie fans who could point to Todd and Troy and say "They were MY GUYS."