Seattle Sports Insider

Jack Wilson and the Yankee Template

Posted by

8/10/09

At Mariner Central, TopCat (who was a third baseman himself IIRC) has a great little post on Jack Wilson's powerful DP turns. C-points.

Jack is the kind of guy who takes about one series to win over all the dyed-in-the-wool hardball purists.

... Jeff Nelson was on the radio postgame tonight, and was asked, as a ballplayer, what are your thoughts on Jack Wilson? And the first thing that occured to him, stream-of-consciousness: you have a lot of confidence in him, just because of the way that he gives you 100% on every play out there.

It didn't occur to them until later that this is the thermal-inversion of Yuniesky Betancourt.

=== Well, I'll Go the 27 Flags Part of the Template ===

After we comp'ed RRS to Pettitte the other night, Kelly pointed out that the Yankees would have a lot of templates the Mariners should use, considering the two stadiums.

Jack Wilson is a Yankee-style shortstop: for one thing, you figure on your shortstop being right-handed,* but in Safeco and in Yankee, he can't be a pull hitter, greedy hitter, first-pitch hack away guy like Betancourt. He's got to do something else.

Wilson, and Jeter, and Rizzuto, are / were RH hitters who took the ball the other way, who scrapped their way on base, who were effective against tough pitchers.

We're confident that Wilson's slap-the-ball-around, bunt, hit-and-run game won't lose much in the NL-AL translation. At any rate, I'd much rather take his skill set (defense and scrappy, tough, modest offense) than one that won't translate into Safeco.

...................

The Yankees feel that their shortstop is their 155-, 160-games on-field captain. That they take their personality from him. Wilson's personality is to challenge the other man.

=== Now THIS Guy's Glove Carries His Bat ===

A game or two ago, the bad guys had the bases loaded and then the batter rifled a grounder directly into the 3B/SS hole. Wilson screamed over there like a shot, scooped the ball easily, and whipped the ball over to 2B to end the inning. He has done this several times, turned clean 3B/SS singles into outs.

=Chv9rtYe" />One DP he'll come through low and aggressively, like TopCat says, and flip his feet up towards the OF so he's parallel to the ground ... then right himself like a cat again, do a 360 to regain his balance, and trot off the field. Another DP he'll hop straight up over the runner, glove in the air. He uses whatever body position suits him at the time. It's amazing.

His feet will be turned in any angle, his arms will be in any position, but one thing's always the same: Wilson's got his weight moving in the right direction, because he's so light on his feet. Guess that's the soccer player in him.

Wilson drives forward so powerfully, because he is playing like he means it. He's the opposite of Betancourt. And he perfectly illustrates Jack Zduriencik's feel for what a real ballplayer is. The Betancourt-Wilson transition is a transition from theory and speculation, into baseball the way the Big Dogs play it.

Omar was asked, "That Wilson guy has a lot of flash, doesn't he?" Omar: "For an American."

Jack Wilson is one of those guys who is such a dominating athlete, that he was put at shortstop just because there's noplace harder to play.

..............

Assuming his bat holds up okay in the AL, you could win your next pennant with this ballplayer.

Cheers,

Dr D

Comments

+15 runs hard

Wilson is a +15 defender hard on the barrelhead. You can expect consistently great defensive performances from him if he has any help at all on the infield (defense is a team sport even though UZR does not acknowledge it, so when he's playing on bad infields, his ratings go down...that's an indictment of UZR though, not Wilson). He's not going to do much more than be a -10 hitter (relative to average) but that still makes him easily 2 wins above replacement (read: worth his salary).

I'm waiting for Wilson to get

I'm waiting for Wilson to get comfortable and totally locked in defensively. He's been good so far, but a couple sloppy plays resulting in errors and a couple of mental errors (cutting off the throw from RF, trying to throw behind Crawford over the weekend) tells me he's still got some new team jitters.
I will says that his effort is tremendous and definately Jeter-like in the way he brings it 155 games a year.
Last night, I think it was Quentin who doubled off Beltre's glove (I think it was the fifth inning) and the ball took a deflection into the LF area where the ballgirl sits. Wilson sprinted all the way from his position into medium/deep left field and I think he beat Saunders to the ball.
Check it out if you have the time, I don't think I've ever seen an infielder run that deep into the outfield after a baseball. Just great hustle.

Query:

Would Wilson's defense cause them to consider Branyan at third in 2010 (I recall when Beltre went down they said "we don't want to move him in the middle of the season when he's so hot at the plate" or something to that effect; that is, they may view it differently if he had the whole offseason to prepare).
I raise this because of the comment the brass made to USSM that they love Tui but aren't convinced he's an MLB 3b.
Branyan at third opens up both 1b and DH for any FA, trade and/or prospects you'd want to slide in there.
I realize Branyan ain't great on defense, but he has played third more often than not. Just how bad is he if paired with a guy like Wilson?

I'll go the +15 runs

I have a suspicion that the +15 might not show up in Safeco (e.g. Guillen had lousy stats in Safeco and then instantly had great stats for the Tigers.)
But that doesn't matter to me. I'm just slapping the +15 tag on him, because of the balls he gets to that other Safeco guys won't. And it could be we get +20 back from him.
If somebody proved that Wilson were worth +25, +30 in a particular season, it wouldn't shock me.

But contract time, I'd pay him for 15 runs.
Good stuff as always Matty.

Was in the 3rd deck for that streak down the wing

His effort on that sprint was just unreal. Saunders seemed taken aback to be beaten to the ball. Wilson like yanked it away from him, kinda.
Yes he has botched several plays early. Doesn't bother ya a bit.
If he can hit for a 75 OPS+ (and am sure he will) then I'd like to fight for the pennant with this guy at short.

Will put up a post on it amigo

And then would like your thoughts back please :- )
Is there a link to Zduriencik's comments at the USSM event, or did you go, or ? Would be interested in a summary of Capt Jack's remarks to us locals.

Here's the recap:

http://ussmariner.com/2009/08/10/ussm-goes-to-safeco-recap/