Seattle Sports Insider

Hey! Ho! Let's Go! Hey! Ho! Wily Mo!

Posted by

jemanji

7/27/11

Q. Does the mainframe like Wily Mo?

A. One of the most fun players ever. We LIKE like him. Not baseball like him.

Q. What's the deal-io?

A. Some guys just get overexposed. /stops article

Dee Dee Ramone carried his bass way cool, but about the fifth concert, people got tired of his (and my) eighth notes...

Q. Is that it?

A. Sigggghhhhhh.... career EYE: 150 strikeouts and 30 walks per full season. Those aren't roundoffs.

At least he's making progress: this year with the D-Backs, he's at a perfect 19:0. To put it another way, CC Sabathia's game the other day was against 9 Wily Mo's.

****************

Wily Mo, at ages 22-24, slugged .500 ... always in part-time play. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as a player the pitchers haven't figured out yet.

Wily used to be that guy...

Q. The proverbial lefty-masher?

A. Nope. No more than Peguero is a righty-masher. They're equal-opportunity air conditioners: 6 strikeouts per home run, whether facing RHP's, LHP's, or Tim Wakefield. It's not about angles. It's about a hanging breaking ball every now and then.

Q. What are the M's thinking?

A. Blengino has explained this, over the radio, several times. They are aware of the above.

But what's to lose?, sez Tony. Maybe a change of scenery, or maybe you fix something, and lightning strikes. Hey, Jack Cust was totally written off for his whole age-20's, too.

***

My complaint is: the Mariners are in a frantic race against time. They need to know whether Carp can hit, whether Tui can hit ... they need to figure out Halman, Peguero, etc. before the traffic jam gets worse and Rule 5 strikes.

SSI rebuffs the slot-payout-vs-time-invested here.

But what the hey. Wily's SLG is about 1.000, so they'll take a lotto ticket. How good was Jose Bautista at age 28?

Cheers,

Dr D

Comments

The Problem w/ Lotto

The problem with Lotto of course is that someone wins, and even though that someone does, the odds are still so far against you that it doesn't matter how many times you play. But the fact that "somebody wins" encourages people to play more.
The M's, in acquiring "aggressive hitters" over the years, hoping to find the next Vlad or Jose Bautista aren't giving enough looks to future Nick Swishers - who are probably a little easier to find.
At some point, when you've spent your paycheck trying to match 6 numbers, you've lost the chance to buy groceries...

About Pena

Ho.

Hum.

More of the same..

Holy Snot! You scared the bejeeezus out of me, Doc!

I thought we might have given up something valuable for Pena. I am now somewhat relieved.
Pena was last a MLB quality player in 2007. Essentially he was a more refined Peguerro.
He's now a 29 year old guy who has had a 103 game pretty good streak, over two seasons, at AAA. He showed a vastly improved 2.2/1 K's to BB's rate over those games.
Did he learn anything? Well his 19/0 MLB rate this year would indicate not. But, 5 homers in 46 PA's is nice.
If, by September, he gets a 60 PA's at DH and cust is let go, I could live (cringing) with that. Although denying those PA's to Mike Wilson or Limonta is pretty stupid in my estimation.
And you can also consider every Pena MLB PA one that Halman doesn't get. That makes sense?
Heck, I would rather see Figgins get those. Maybe he can be a .270 hitter next year.
A low cost move, I suppose, if you consider the opportunities he might deny to guys we already have as a non-cost. I don't.
Even if he is my (quasi-) namesake
moe

Bonus Points to Padna

For this great quote!
At some point, when you've spent your paycheck trying to match 6 numbers, you've lost the chance to buy groceries...
I'm applauding.
moe

some guys never learn ...

Wily Mo, IMO, is one of those guys who 'peaked' at age 22. He aspires to be Dave Kingman ... but simply lacks the capacity to learn. He's the ultimate all-or-nothing archetype, who at age 29, has likely exhausted all the upside he'll ever have.
The Yahtzee! dream for his admirers is ... Carlos Pena, perhaps ... who put up some decent years, (but with poor BA), then exploded with MVP seasons from age 29-31. Problem here is that Pena always showed "some" EYE ability, and while his BA stayed dreadful, his patience jumped from the 70s to the 130s for his glory years.
Wily Mo has nearly 2000 MLB PAs and his eye hasn't budged (unless you think his 2011 19:0 proves it is getting worse). He hits lefties a little better than righties, so he'd be a nice fit as a platoon guy for a primary LHB that can't hit lefties ... but in the end, he's a .250/.300/.450 slugger, who probably loses 30 points of average in Safeco, making him a .220/.270/.420 bat.

Carp's platoon mate...

...and org filler because I suspect the team wants its' options open enough to be able to absorb it if they have to trade one of their AAA outfielders.

I like the move. Pena showed

I like the move. Pena showed improved contact ability in AAA this year.
Its possible his short MLB stint proves that its nothing, but theres a slim chance hes figured something out.
I'd much rather invest ABs in Pena than in Cust. Pena at least could mean something for next year.

As far as lotto picks go . . .

Pena is a "why not?" move -- he's not taking a 40-man roster spot. A guy like Langerhans is already down there as an emergency option, Pena's another one. No harm, no foul.
The lotto pick that intrigues me now is a familiar one. Michael Saunders spent a couple of weeks on the "inactive list" for not-very-clearly defined "personal" time. Nobody really noticed or cared.
Came back and was his usual self for a week, and then got three more days off at the all-star break. Since then he's like a taller version of Ackley:
14 G, 17-for-50, 6 doubles, 2 triples, 1 HR, 17 BB, 16 K
.340/.507/.600
Yeah, yeah, he's teased us before with flashes of brilliance, but I'll take a 24-year-old who never got a chance to consolidate his talent on the way up, and may be finally getting his stuff together, over a 29-year-old who's run through 8 different orgs.