In our exclusive interview, the Toronto Blue Jays legend discusses his former team's slow start to the season, their injury issues, and why the Yankees and Dodgers are the World Series favourites.
Former Toronto Blue Jays centre fielder Vernon Wells says he is not concerned about Vladimir Guerrero Jr’s lack of home runs at this early stage of the MLB season, and believes it’s “just a matter of time” until the first baseman’s power returns.
Guerrero Jr. has hit just two home runs through 43 games while posting the lowest slugging percentage of his career, as the Blue Jays sit third in the AL East with a 19-24 record. After representing the American League in last year’s World Series, the Jays are +2000 in the MLB betting to win it all this year.
Read on for our exclusive interview, in which Wells also discusses whether the Blue Jays could be sellers at the MLB trade deadline, where they could look to improve the team, and why the Yankees and Dodgers are looking like the “monsters” that teams will have to go through in order to win the World Series.
The Blue Jays have made a slow start this season. What’s your assessment of the roster as it stands and their chances of turning things around?
The roster is beat up, I think that’s the problem. It’s hard to compete at any level when you’re missing so many guys, especially in the rotation. And then Barger comes back and goes right back on the DL. It’s hard to overcome those things, and it’s something that they didn’t have to really deal with as much last year.
I think having a prolonged season, getting to the World Series, all those extra games, they tend to add up. Hopefully you have guys that you can call up and fill some of those voids. Even when you lose someone like Alejandro Kirk, he is not necessarily the biggest giant killer in the lineup, but he’s one of those guys that’s consistent. His approach is the same. He’s going to put the bat on the ball. And when you lose somebody who’s near the middle of your lineup for an extended period of time, it’s hard to replace that. It gets overlooked because everybody thinks Alejandro is just the catcher and someone who can hit, but that consistency in a group, you can’t even put a value on it.
That’s the importance of having someone in the middle of the lineup that’s consistent.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr isn’t hitting for power as well as in previous seasons. How concerned are you about his struggles?
Yeah, the hitting part’s hard. Trust me, I struggled with it at different times, and there’s trade-offs when it comes to hitting for average or hitting for power. You’d love the best of both worlds, but when I see Vladdy, it’s obvious that the power component’s still there.
It’s just a matter of when those line drives start to get a little more elevated and balls start going out of the ballpark. For me, it’s just a matter of time. He’s one of those guys that can go on a streak and hit hit 10 in a month, and everybody’s forgetting about the lack of home runs.
They’ll come, they need them. I think that’s obviously a component that you need in the middle of the lineup, someone who gets the ball out of the ballpark. He still is going to strike fear in the eyes of most pitchers and most lineups, and he’s still going to be the focal point when it comes to that, but I’d rather see him continue to have really good at bats, have really good swings on the baseball, and you can’t control some of those things. If you could, we’d all do it, and we’d all be making the same amount of money he is, which would be really cool, but hitting the ball out of the ballpark is hard.
If things don’t turn around for the Blue Jays soon, do you think they could be sellers when the trade deadline comes around?
I think when you look at the construction of that team, the organization, the way it’s moving, I think if there are some pieces that they find valuable that they’re not going to be able to bring back next year, or who are becoming free agents in the next year or two, then yes.
They’re not going to strip away the core of that team. I think they’re in a position now where they’re looking to win championships. And if it’s not the year, then you try to strategically add who’s going to bring you value next year in different areas, whether that’s in the rotation the bullpen or in that lineup. I think they did a great job of trying to add arms in this past offseason, but I think having some bats in the middle that can do some damage – if we can acquire one, great. If not, then you allow this team to hopefully get healthy and hopefully not have to deal with this question towards the end of the season.
All you need to do is make a wild card. You get a wild card, you get a chance to win it all.
Who are the sell candidates on the roster?
That’s a hard one. I think it depends on whether the Max Scherzers of the world are healthy coming down the stretch, and they’re in a position where they feel like they can move them and get a prospect here or there. It’s guys like that. It’s going to be some of the older guys, some of the guys that are on one-year deals and are in that same boat, where you can feel you’re going to maximise the player’s value at that time. Maybe we can get somebody young that’s going to help us in the near future.
That’s the fun side of being in the front office and knowing the construction of the roster that you’ve built, and taking into consideration the very near future.
I think the Rogers Group has put this organization at the top of the pecking order when it comes to wanting to win now and spending the money to do so. With the investment that they made in the stadium, they’re all in.
I got a chance to spend time with the with the Rogers group in Florida during a little fantasy camp, and they got a chance to see how hard the game is, just catching simple fly balls. They had a great respect for what our guys do, and hopefully they’ll turn it around. I think that’s the biggest thing.
Which area of the roster do you think you’d look at potentially improving via a trade if things do turn around?
Hopefully, if we can get arms healthy, then you don’t really have to look at areas like that to go out and get someone.
I think bats. When you look at the Yankees and more so the Dodgers, and the construction of that lineup, it’s a beating trying to get through one through nine. That puts stresses on starters and the bullpen. It starts to wear a rotation down because you’re having to navigate not just carefully through four or five guys, you’re having to navigate through nine guys. When you have to do that over the course of a series, even over a course of a game, that’s where I feel like the Blue Jays can improve in some areas. Let’s add a bat or two if we can.
And no one wants to get rid of bats, so if you’re trying to get those, you have to give up something. There’s some young talent that you don’t necessarily want to move, but you put yourself in a position now where it’s win now. So some of those prospects that you’ve been able to have some success with and are having success in the minor leagues, that’s where you have to start looking at, “okay, unfortunately, we may have to move you, but it’s for the team that we’ve already currently constructed.”
Bo Bichette was a big loss for the Blue Jays in the offseason, but things haven’t gone too smoothly for him in New York. Do you think that has vindicated the Blue Jays’ decision to let him go?
I think Bo’s gonna be just fine. It doesn’t get talked about very much, but changing organizations, changing your entire routine, your life – it’s a big move.
It’s something that is kind of an out-of-body experience, because all he’s known is the Blue Jays, from the time that he was basically a kid to this year. Everything has been the same, whether it’s his minor league stops, his big league time. You take yourself out of that routine, out of a city that you’ve known for so many years, and put yourself in a place that, regardless of whether it’s New York and arguably the biggest market in baseball or wherever it may be.
That change is hard. You’re having to try to prove yourself sometimes in ways that you never really thought you had to. To have to do that in baseball. That’s undue pressure, whether you’re putting on yourself or not, it’s there.
So for him, he’s one of those guys when it comes to repeating his best swing and simplifying things. Watching him with the Blue Jays, he’ll get on streaks where he’s just getting hit after hit after hit. That’s who Bo is. And when he gets hot, he gets hot. Slow starts don’t really mean anything for guys like him, so I see him turning it around.
And I think the Blue Jays signed a pretty good third baseman in the offseason, and someone who’s still figuring it out and still producing at the same time. So I think they’re doing just fine in that regard, but I think they would also like to have Bo in the middle of that lineup to help things.
The Blue Jays’ division features two of the best teams in baseball so far, but which MLB team has impressed you most this season?
Just look at the top of the AL East. Who would have thought?
You never know in this game, especially with young guys. I think when you get a group of young guys who may not know any better, who are just hungry, want to go compete and enjoy that process of just being together, that’s when you can see strange things happen. It’s still early, but that part of it is surprising to me. I didn’t see a Rays team being so good at this point. So they’re the biggest surprise for me.
Obviously, the Dodgers are still doing what they do, and that’s never going to stop in the near future, which sucks for everyone else. Unlike most organizations, they are just built different. So everything that goes on over the course of these 162 games, by the end of it, you know who’s going to be there, and you know that they are the ones you’ve got to take down. And good luck trying to take that monster down.
The Yankees are close behind the Rays in the standings. Do you see them as the favourites to come out of the American League, and are they the team who have the best chance of taking down the Dodgers?
The amazing thing about that 2024 World Series for me was it was two different brands of baseball at that time. You looked at a Dodgers team that executed not only offensively, but defensively, on the base paths. They were playing all phases at an elite level, avoiding mistakes that the Yankees were making. You knew which team was better. You knew which team was executing the game like they should have.
You look at the World Series last year and you saw a team in the Dodgers who were on the ropes. By all accounts, the Blue Jays should have won that World Series, but that’s the championship pedigree that the Dodgers have. If you do not capitalise on your opportunities, you will lose. And the Blue Jays didn’t. They won’t say it, but I think they’ll continue to look back and say, “what the heck just happened? We should have a ring on our finger right now, and not them.”
But that’s the nature of the game. You have to execute, especially in the largest stages. When you make mistakes on the base paths and in the field, and you don’t take advantage of opportunities, they will come back to bite you.
The Dodgers are just one of those teams where you look at them and you know they are just really dang good. As a player, you try to focus on just, “okay, they’re built differently than the rest of us as a group, but they still have to put their uniform on the same way I do, so let’s go out and compete with them.”
That was my thought back in the day against the Yankees and Red Sox of those days. My numbers were probably the best against those two organizations because I loved competing against the best. You embrace that part of it, which I think the Blue Jays did.
I don’t think anybody saw that World Series being great as it was, but the Blue Jays embraced that moment and that’s something that every team, every player has to do when you go up against the Dodgers or Yankees. They are ultimately going to be there at the end, because the Yankees are the Yankees, year in and year out, they’re going to be somebody to deal with. At this point, I see them being that monster that people still have to go through when it comes to the American League.
