He was a MONSTER last year for the first month as well. The other 5 months were all a slow side to sucking. His walk rate and K rate are improved early on, so that's promising, but since this is his habit (have one good month around a bunch of worthless ones) I'm not putting any stock in it until we see it sustained.
Still, I'd be fine with promoting him for the next 2 weeks until he starts being worthless again. Two weeks of power hitting is better than none... ;)
Choi is down in AZ working on catching full-time, Moe. He could hit in High Desert right now, but we're trying to convert him and the conversion to catcher isn't an easy one. I expect us to take our time with him, even though I personally want to rush him to the bigs. He has a cannon for an arm, is pretty agile for a thick-limbed guy (saw him very briefly in Spring Training) and that swing is sweet and pure. I can be patient if I'm waiting for a Carlos-Santana-lite catching prospect.
He's got to learn both Spanish and English. Right now he speaks neither with any sort of efficiency, and has a translator on hand at all times. Needs to learn how to catch, to call games, to work with pitchers...Catching's a hard gig. If we didn't have a 1B already I wouldn't worry so much about it. But the only positions we really have for Choi are C, LF and DH, and our biggest need BY FAR is catcher. Choi was a 3B before we signed him but is a little hefty for the position. Catcher is perfect for him IMO, if he can do it.
If not, then put him in LF and let him hit 35 doubles in the bigs with a huge OBP. But 35 doubles as a catcher sounds much, much sweeter. :)
As for Wilson, I can tell you he's not being platooned, but I don't know why he's not playing full time currently. I do know that last year he was hitting #8 or #9 whenever I saw him, so the coaches didn't feel like putting him in the MOTO even though he had a lot of power. There's gotta be some sort of doghouse thing going on, but I don't know what. Maybe he's just a knucklehead, I dunno.
Definitely not expecting to EVER see him manning LF for the Mariners, though.
~G
Add new comment
1