After his usual miserable April, it was widely argued (by me, among others) that Wells would rebound, as usual, as the weather warmed up. But while the power has returned, the on-base skills haven't. Wells in his career has posted a 900 OPS in May and 958 in June; so far in 2005, those totals have been 838 and 817, respectively. But there's more to it than just a near-junk stat like monthly OPS. Wells does not look right at the plate. He seems to be guessing a lot, and guessing wrongly, on the next pitch that's coming.

He seems particularly clueless on breaking pitches: against a struggling Daniel Cabrera the other night, with the bases loaded and nobody out, Wells swung and missed on ball four and ball five, breaking pitches away and out of the strike zone. It's baseball gospel that those are hitters' situations in which you focus on getting exactly one type of pitch in one part of the strike zone and driving it, ignoring everything else. Wells didn't, and I've seen him not do that a lot this year.

More worrying, though, is that play in centerfield against Baltimore -- you know the one, where Wells strolled over to pick up Miguel Tejada's single up the middle, and Tejada hustled down to second base for the double. As Jamie Campbell said in the booth, meaningfully, "That is not a play you expect from a Gold Glover." It was such an embarrassment that JP Ricciardi brought it up on his post-game radio appearance, and John Gibbons told the media tersely that it had "been addressed" internally (both of these items from Jeff Blair's notes in the Globe today).

Wells became a father last weekend, so there's certainly cause for him to be distracted. But this is not a sudden thing: after what seemed like a breakout 2003, Wells was only ordinary in 2004 and he's sitting at .246 this morning. Frankly, much like Eric Hinske last year, I'm no longer expecting a big breakout and rebound from Wells this season. I'm just hoping he can reach his 2004 output.

I'm not in any position to judge whether or not Wells is at 100% in his focus or his efforts this year; fans can't tell anything sitting in the ballaprk or watching on TV. And I'm not ready to call Wells a disappointment, because there's still time for him to save his season and become more Bernie Williams than Mike Cameron with the bat.

But you have to feel a little for Ricciardi, who signed Wells and Hinske to five-year deals as the cornerstone of the franchise's revival. Nobody, not even his harshest critics in the press, doubted the wisdom of those deals; but Hinske has failed to live up to expectations, and Wells is starting to tread close to the same line. I don't like the vibes I'm getting here at all.

Here are the batting stats this year of AL CF regulars. Vernon Wells has the most power of the bunch, and is about average in speed. Yet, his BABIP is a pitiful .243. He's definitely popping up too often and that is contributing. His G/F ratio of .82 is very low, and unusual for him (last year, it was 1.2).

My take on this is that Vernon is pressing. With the departure of Carlos Delgado, Wells was anointed "the man" at the beginning of the year, despite coming off a mediocre season from him. I suspect that Wells would be happier and perform better with the spotlight off him. The arrival of Aaron Hill did seem to help, and his struggles this week may be due to lack of sleep from the new baby as much as anything.

I don't think JP will end up regretting the Wells contract. I expect that Vernon will end up the season in the .270 range with good pop and good defence in centerfield. That has significant value.

I agree with this. This season is long but over, and it wasn't too long ago that he was on pace for 30+ home runs. I'm more disappointed than anybody about his tail off after 2003, but I do think he's going through an adjustment period with the departure of Carlos Delgado. I don't think he was overprotected by having Delgado in the fourth spot, but I do think that his role has changed since, and he's struggling to fit it. I can't give a solution to his problem other than time, which he does have, if we're to be in contention by 2006, but I think (and I'm not turning this into a crazy proposition for a star player thread) if we could acquire a big bat, Vernon could go back into his old role of being the best overall contact hitter in all aspects, of the lineup, as supposed to being the big bopper, which I speculate he's trying to be.

I do have a problem with people ragging on his work ethic or his "heart". I don't know how much more or less intensity he has than any other player, but I do know that it cannot be measured by how many times he yells out, or throws his bat, or has an angry look on his face. To assume that he has no emotion because he stays quiet and walks back to the dugout after a strikeout in a clutch situation is just wrong. In fact, I would need several hands to count the times he has tossed his bat or yelled out if that's what people have to see to judge his intensity.

An indication that he does play with emotion and intensity, is the fact that when he strikes out in a clutch situation he doesn't go to the bench and make conversation with the other players, he doesn't laugh at something else, and he doesn't go and make conversation with the other players, some of the things that people had a problem with when Carlos Delgado was in town.