The Jays $128 million man and face of the franchise, Vernon Wells, is playing hurt.  Shoulder.  Has affected his swing.  This is what we’ve been told, first by hitting coach Mickey Brantley and then by a sheepish V-Dub.   He might require surgery in the off season, but he might not.  That’s all we know right now.   The player was reluctant to blame this injury on his performance this year, which was the honourable course of action.  Club brass, however, might be trying to pull the wool over your eyes and excuse V-Dub’s sorry 2007 for that familiar justification for all that’s gone wrong this season: injury.

Back to the cynicism part.   Consider the following: a supposedly ailing V-Dub has not been given a day off since rosters expanded on September 1 and Adam Lind was added to give the club a fifth outfielder.  Some might wonder why Wells, who has no individual statistical goals to aim for on a club with only the remotest of Hail Mary long shot hopes of a playoff birth, still needs to see daily duty in CF.  Lind regained the sweet stroke he lost after his late spring call up, finishing his AAA season with a more familiar .299/.353/.471 line.  We have every reason to believe that he may well be our starting LF in 2008 and he should be given his fair share of ABs from now until the end of September.  Super Canuck Matt Stairs, who is probably the team MVP to date, continues to pound everything he sees and makes a yeoman’s effort in the field.

Primal V-Dub

If the team probably ends up gaining offensively by having Matt Stairs play in V-Dub’s place against righties and gets a chance to evaluate its most MLB-ready bat in Adam Lind (with Rios to CF and Sparky to RF in both cases),  there’s absolutely no need whatsoever for V-Dub to be playing hurt at this juncture.  Yet his allowed to continue toiling away in centre every day without fail, which should pique our interest when contrasted with the club’s ultra-cautious approach to Doc after his grab bag of injuries over the years.  He probably could've come back in late '05 after the broken leg (and possibly pitched through the forearm soreness late last year), but JP realized he's far too important to the club to run that risk.  Considering the far greater amount the Jays have invested in V-Dub, it’s hard to believe that they’d continue running him out in the field—despite injury—until he finally does break down.

Something just doesn’t make sense here and the temptation to call shenanigans on JP “it’s not a lie if we know the truth” Ricciardi and Brantley for the whole V-Dub injury claim is too much to resist.  He simply cannot really be hurt as badly as the Jays’ brass would have you believe.  He's having a shitty year. It happens, and better now than when he's making $23 million a year in 2011.  It would take a good bit of courage on the part of a GM to admit that the player he just sunk $128 million into has tanked badly and you probably all know that JP is not the sort to admit making a mistake…

Here are some points about V-Dub gleaned from stats bible www.baseball-reference.com:

1) Aubrey Huff (956)
2) Trot Nixon (935)
3) Shea Hillenbrand (926)
6) J.D. Drew (920)
9) Jay Payton (912)

That’s right, you saw Shea Hillenbrand’s name on that list.

2008: $9 million
2009: $10 million
2010: $21 million
2011: $23 million (can opt out after season)
2012: $21 million
2013: $21 million
2014: $21 million
2015: Free Agent

One might be tempted to panic after digesting all of this; there is good reason to think JP bought way, way too high when he extended V-Dub’s contract after his career year in 2006.  But like it or lump it, V-Dub is our CF for probably the next 7 years.   There’s no reason to think he won’t repeat his 2003/2006 seasons, but the jury is still out on whether or not he truly is an elite player worthy of that massive payday.  Prove the doubters wrong, V-Dub, prove ‘em wrong.

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