Napoli for V. Wells

[TN TITAN Fan In STL]

FOX Sports' Ken Rosenthal reports that Vernon Wells and Juan Rivera are headed to the Angels as part of the Mike Napoli trade.

Well, the Angels have finally made a bold move in an otherwise quiet offseason, but it remains to be seen if they're any better, and their payroll just took a big jump. Wells had a bounce-back season in 2010 with 31 home runs, but he has an albatross of a contract that will pay him $23 million in 2011 and $21 million each of the following three seasons. The Blue Jays will pick up some of the contract, but it's not clear how much. He's waiving his no-trade clause to push the deal through. Unless the Angels make another move, which is possible, they'll likely put Peter Bourjos in center field, Wells and Torii Hunter on the corners and Bobby Abreu at DH.

[MCP313]

Cash dump by the Jays while picking up two players who are good for nothing except hitting home runs which is I guess what they wanna do these days.

Blue Jays more than likely have to eat half of the contract to make this work.....Anaheim had the money to spend since they ended up getting nothing done in FA.

[LordCC]

At least they found a taker for Wells & it will be interesting to see what Napoli can do. The Rogers Centre is notoriously a hitters park, so I can see him putting up big power numbers at home anyway.

[TTB]

just to clarify it's Rivera and Napoli to Toronto for Wells

[garyrenard]

Amazingly lopsided trade for the Jays. They unload about 55M of salary and get a couple of useful pieces in return. And reports are the Jays are sending no money with Wells.

This looks like Gary Matthews Jr all over again.

[The Nac]

I love it!
I LOVE IT!

[MCP313]

Angels acquired OF Vernon Wells from the Blue Jays in exchange for C/1B Mike Napoli and OF Juan Rivera.

The official releases from each team doesn't mention anything about the Blue Jays sending the Angels any money, but SI.com's Jon Heyman reports that they'll give them $5 million. It's not nearly enough to keep this from being an absolutely horrible trade for LA. Wells is due a whopping $86 million over the next four seasons, and while he did have a nice bounce-back year for the Blue Jays in 2010, the 32-year-old's production will trend in the wrong direction over the course of his contract. He'll likely play left field for the Halos.

LOL is that 5 million a year or 5 million total? Either way Anaheim is smoking something because for the money they are about to fork over to Wells they could've made a push for Pujols for slightly more money annually......I dont get it

[The Nac]

[TN TITAN Fan In STL]

nice job for the BJ's to trade away a bunch of salary.

[JohnnyMapleLeaf]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

I cannot believe AA got somebody to take on that Wells contract. It was pretty much understood that it was untradeable. Wells could be had for a bag of balls, and the Jays get back two decent pieces. Wow, I am amazed.

Nice offseason for Anaheim. lmao. Tori Hunter and Wells making what, 40 million a year on that team?

[L Diablo]

Put it this way, if Wells didnt have that season he had last year, he would still be a blue jay...by him having a breakout year, people still believe that he can become the power hitter we used to believe

And now the Jays trade away Napoli for a reliever who missed the final five weeks of the season and the entire playoffs with a strained side muscle (latissimus dorsi) . I would have loved Napoli to play for the Jays, his versatility and power would have been exciting, but we get another player that hails from the Dominican!

[L Diablo]

Isnt Albert Pujols from the Dominican? Hmmm............

[MCP313]

Napoli isnt what I would classify as versatile really......besides the occasional home runs he hits the guy is worthless.

[L Diablo]

Originally Posted by MtrCtyPimp

Napoli isnt what I would classify as versatile really......besides the occasional home runs he hits the guy is worthless.

I really dont think Napoli is worthless...lets see, first off he plays 1B and catcher. He led all catchers in hr last year with 26 and hes only been in the majors for 5 years (hes 29). And your not gonna find too many players that thrive on left handed pitching year after year esp. catchers. Worthless?

[Jahred]

Originally Posted by JohnnyMapleLeaf

Nice offseason for Anaheim. lmao. Tori Hunter and Wells making what, 40 million a year on that team?

best outfield in all of the majors