Batter's Box Interactive Magazine - Wells & Encarnacion To Undergo Wrist Surgery

Wells & Encarnacion To Undergo Wrist Surgery

The National Post is reporting that center fielder Vernon Wells and third baseman Edwin Encarnacion will have wrist surgery this off-season.

This isn't the first time Wells has had wrist problems. He broke his left wrist while making a diving catch during a game against Cleveland in May of 2008 and has also been plagued with hamstring problems the past two seasons. The 30 year-old Wells hit .260/.311/.400 in 2009 with 37 doubles, 3 triples, 15 homers and 66 runs batted in and was 17-for-21 in the stolen base department.

Edwin Encarnacion broke his wrist early in the season with Cincinnati and struggled upon his return to the Reds lineup. The 26 year-old Dominican hit just .209/.333/.374 with 5 homers and 16 RBI before being traded to Toronto in the Scott Rolen deal. He did improve his batting line to .240/.306/.442 with the Jays with 8 home runs and 23 RBI. Seven of those homers came in September when he batted .274/.364/.547.

It's hoped both players will be ready when spring training opens.

Posted by #2JBrumfield on Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 01:52 PM EST.

Wells & Encarnacion To Undergo Wrist Surgery | 24 comments | Create New Account

The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

92-93 - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 02:06 PM EST (#207979) #

Can we please return to that gorgeous jersey Encarnacion is wearing? I can't stand the Black Jays.

GregH - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 02:13 PM EST (#207980) #

Away from the topic (and I hope both players return healthy), but man, that turf is ugly in those pictures!

Time to pony up the money to replace it.

Mike T - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 02:18 PM EST (#207981) #

Gosh, that would be great. I love those uniforms. Anyone know why they started messing with it. :(

Mylegacy - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 02:28 PM EST (#207982) #

I am over the moon excited about these surgeries - finally an actual PHYSICAL excuse why Wells turned into JMac's caddy! EE's surgery gives hope that even he might be better next year - a black hole turned to a possible super nova! Wrist and hand injuries are murder on hitters.

I LOVE it when there are physical reasons for inexplicable mysteries.

subculture - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 02:38 PM EST (#207984) #

Reposting on this thread, more suitable...

Okay - I'll be the first.

After watching him repeatedly, and almost single-handedly lose multiple games by hitting like your momma in key moments with runners on during games that were still close, I posted at some point if it was Vernon's eyes that were the problem here. How could an athletic, previously decent hitter, continue to hit weak pop-ups on completely hittable pitches that should be driven deep to the gaps?

I saw 2 problems with his bat:

1) He never seemed to look to drive the outside pitch the other way (though that was what pitchers always threw him)

2) When he actually got a pitch down the middle to hit, he'd pop it up to centerfield or center-infield. His timing was there, but he was swinging too low! The few times he'd crank it were on pitches high above his belt.

Now clearly #1 should not be affected by a wrist injury... but #2 in my mind could very much be related? I suspected bad eyesight, but was it a wrist injury? Is there in fact some light at the end of this horrid tunnel of despair?

Christopher - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 03:08 PM EST (#207985) #

Time to pony up the money to replace it.

There was a blurb on tsn.ca near the end of the season that stated they were looking into replacing the turf. Hopefully that happens. Hopefully they can at least put in the dirt basepaths.

Denoit - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 03:24 PM EST (#207986) #

Here is hoping this fixes Wells...again. There is no doubt he still has talent, he is still young enough at 30 (31 next summer) where he shouldnt hit a Major decline for another 3 or 4 years. His body worries me, and being such a big guy could be extra strain on his joints. But as Jays fans I think the best option for us is hoping he can be a .280/.340/.500 type hitter with good defence in Centerfeild. I will take his 2008 numbers in a heartbeat (if he played a full season). Sure he is probably overpaid but at least he would be valuable.

Mike Green - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 03:25 PM EST (#207987) #

Further to subculture's points, here is some data on Wells' 2009 offensive performance: Fangraphs page and Hit Tracker page. From Fangraphs:

1. His LD rate was a poor 14.6% (declining from previous years),
2. his HR/FB rate was a poor 6.4% (declining from previous years),
3. his IF/FB rate was a poor 14.6% (as it always has been),
4. he was performing much better against off-speed stuff than against fastballs

From Hit Tracker:

1. He hit 5 no-doubt homers and 1 just enough homer (a 421 foot shot in Comerica),
2. None of his homers were less than 375 feet, and
3. All of his homers were pulled.

This limited statistical evidence suggests that the wrist injury could reasonably have affected his power to some degree, but that his adaptation was poor.

Wells needs to moved to a corner and told to work on his hitting approach. My major concern with Cito returning is that he may not do this.

Jays2010 - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 03:38 PM EST (#207989) #

Perhaps Wells going forward will continue his recent one good year, one bad year followed by off-season surgery (to hopefully fix the issue) trend. If so, watch out for the Jays in 2010!

Denoit - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 03:43 PM EST (#207990) #

I think Wells still plays a good centerfeild. He still has the physical skills to play there, not to mention his instincts. But thats just my opinion I guess. I don't think he hurt the team out there. He definatly isn't the player he used to be, but there weren't too many plays where I thought to myself "he should have had that".

Timbuck2 - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 03:44 PM EST (#207991) #

That's nice to hope for Jays2010 but if the Jays luck turns out to be an organizational thing and not due to J.P. then I predict Well will miss half the season with various hamstring injuries...

Dave Rutt - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 03:54 PM EST (#207992) #

Mike Wilner points out that this indicates a shift in injury-transparency for the club.

brent - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 05:50 PM EST (#207997) #

I have been vindicated! It feels so good to be right after all of the naysayers.

ayjackson - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 06:09 PM EST (#207998) #

It's a bit of a mystery how Wells wrist was fine on the road but affected him so greatly at Rogers Centre.

Dave Rutt - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 06:21 PM EST (#208000) #

They call it Carpal Tunnel Skydrome. (ducks)

Impossibles - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 06:39 PM EST (#208001) #

via @MLBastion: Jays claim 2B Jarret Hoffpauir from STL. Pretty good minor league numbers. 2004 6th round pick. http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/H/jarrett-hoffpauir.shtml

Bill Murphy released from 40-man roster.

Back up middle/corner infielder? Replacing Bautista or MacDonald? Looks like a decent hitter, with really high contact/eye numbers.

ramone - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 06:39 PM EST (#208002) #

From MLBTradeRumors: Jays claimed infielder "Jarrett Hoffpauir off of waivers from the St. Louis Cardinals. Left-handed pitcher Bill Murphy was designated for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster for Hoffpauir."

Timbuck2 - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 06:45 PM EST (#208003) #

Well he's bigger than 'Tiny' Tim Collins (Height: 5' 7" , Weight: 155 lb.)

But not by much.... (Height: 5-9 Weight: 165lb.)

lexomatic - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 09:15 PM EST (#208004) #

This limited statistical evidence suggests that the wrist injury could reasonably have affected his power to some degree, but that his adaptation was poor.

Wells needs to moved to a corner and told to work on his hitting approach. My major concern with Cito returning is that he may not do this.

My concern is that Vernon didn't make an issue out of his wrist because of Cito, and in a similar situation would still play someone. i have nothing to back that up, but it's my gut. Vernon did the team a disservice by trying to gut through things in a year that management was writing off publicly to begin with. If you have a health issue mid-season, thats the perfect time to miss a lot of time... when it wont' really affect the playoffs.
who knows also whether did to weaken the area long-term (making him less likely to bounce back and earn his contract)?

There's too little information to really know how this played out, but i think it sucks.

John Northey - Tuesday, November 03 2009 @ 10:33 PM EST (#208006) #

Jarrett Hoffpauir has hit 285/362/428 in AAA over 1102 PA's. 8-8 for SB/CS in AAA, 113 BB vs 94 SO. Not bad for a middle infielder. However, in his 6 years in the minors he has played 614 games at 2B and 10 at SS, 8 at 3B, and 2 in the OF. During his brief ML stint in 2009 he played 5 at 2B and 1 at third.

Given that info he sounds like Joe Inglett the 2nd but from the right hand side with a lower batting average and moderately better contact. He could be useful, but will probably not be more than a call-up for anytime that Hill goes down.

92-93 - Wednesday, November 04 2009 @ 03:11 AM EST (#208009) #

There better be a damn good reason why VW waited 6 weeks to have this surgery.

Matthew E - Wednesday, November 04 2009 @ 09:29 AM EST (#208013) #

There better be a damn good reason why VW waited 6 weeks to have this surgery.

He probably wanted to finish scrapbooking the start of the new TV season first.

JustinD - Wednesday, November 04 2009 @ 11:18 PM EST (#208040) #

There better be a damn good reason why VW waited 6 weeks to have this surgery.

A damn good one? Well there is a reason, from the article on bluejays.com

Anthopoulos indicated that Wells informed Toronto's training staff of pain in his wrist earlier this offseason -- after the outfielder stopped taking anti-inflammatories. Wells was then examined and it was determined that the operation was needed. Anthopoulos reiterated that Wells did not complain of any pain that would have led the team to look into surgery during the year.

I'm slightly more optimistic about his season for next year. If he can hit the way he did in 08, that would be pretty darn fine with me.

lexomatic - Thursday, November 05 2009 @ 09:50 AM EST (#208055) #

why was Wells taking anti-inflammatories and for how long? I can't remember of anything happening that would require him to take anything.... so if it was for a long part of the season, that's when you check out if there's an actual injury. because frankly this would just reinforce my opinion that like many athletes he puts playing over his own health and the good of the team, but it also raises questions about the medical/training staff.

basically something happened here that shouldn't have (but often does happen with pro athletes.)

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