Jason Churchill gives scouting report on Mike Wilson
May 9, 2011, 2:28 PM | Updated: 2:57 pm
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710Sports.com staff
Jason Churchill of Prospect Insider and ESPN.com joined Bob & Groz on Monday and offered a scouting report on Mike Wilson, the 27-year-old outfielder the Mariners called up to replace Ryan Langerhans, who was designated for assignment earlier in the day.
Wilson, a second-round pick by the Mariners in 2001, is hitting .381 with a 1.111 OPS, four home runs and 14 RBI in 16 games for Triple-A Tacoma this season. He’ll join the team in Baltimore on Tuesday for his first stint in the big leagues.
Churchill: “He was tearing it up down in the PCL. He’s a right-handed batter and apparently that matters to the Mariners right now. He’s not going to give the club a whole lot of defense. He’s probably more of a DH type, although I expect him to play some left field. He’s not going to take Jack Cust’s job at this point.
“(He has) a lot of power, will strike out, will walk a little bit but the strikeouts are usually so high, his contact rates are so poor in general that he’s not going to hit for a whole lot of average. We’re really looking at a part-time player here in Mike Wilson.
“He absolutely does (have some power). He’ll square up a fastball. He actually hits the breaking ball pretty well, but he will chase balls out of the strike zone. Again, piling up the strikeouts. He’ll work himself into a lot of pitcher’s counts … we’ve seen that with Michael Saunders this year where that caused a problem, and we see Saunders’ batting average dipping below .200 because of it. That’s pretty much Mike Wilson from the right side of the plate.”
