Craig Wilson is a stats geek's dream. An outfielder/catcher/first baseman who crushes left-handed pitchers but is a pipsqueak against right-handers, Wilson's numbers can be crunched more ways than the Kellogg's variety pack.
Will this be the year he finally plays full time? Does he deserve 400 to 500 at-bats? What position should he play?
Pirates fans, without much better to do, think about Wilson more than is healthy. This column should make matters worse.
1. Why sign right fielder Raul Mondesi, a right-handed batter like Wilson, if he is only going to take Wilson's playing time away?
The short answer can be found on the Web site baseball-reference.com. Borrowing on a concept developed by baseball numbers guru Bill James, this site allows you to punch in a player's name and find the player he is most like in baseball history. The match for Mondesi is Reggie Sanders.
If Mondesi can have a year like Sanders' 2003 Pirates season, he is a good pickup at $1.75 million. Though Mondesi crowds the outfield, the team will be glad to have him when somebody gets hurt. Jason Bay already is hurt.
2. What about Wilson's playing time?
Here is Wilson's problem. He can pummel left-handed pitching. His batting average/on-base average/slugging average in 107 at-bats against left-handers last year was .308/.431/.692. Only two guys in the league slugged left-handers with more authority last year, and they were Barry Bonds (.790) and Albert Pujols (.732).
Unfortunately, most pitchers are right-handed, a species against which Wilson has considerably less success. His numbers in 202 at-bats against right-handers were .238/.320/.416. It's great that Wilson hit left-handers harder than Gary Sheffield hits them, but against right-handers, Wilson does a passable impression of Kevin Young.
3. It that why general manager David Littlefield signed Randall Simon, to add a left-handed bat to complement Wilson?
This was one of Littlefield's more incomprehensible moves. The Pirates had the ideal left-handed complement to Wilson in Matt Stairs, but they let Stairs sign with Kansas City for $1 million, and wound up signing Simon, a much lesser hitter, for not much less.
Check out the numbers: Stairs was Wilson's mirror image against right-handers, batting .304/.402/.582 in 273 at-bats. Stairs' numbers in PNC Park, with its inviting right-field fence, were even better: .350/.424/.669.
Simon isn't close. Simon swings at everything and almost never walks, hitting left-handers and right-handers with equal mediocrity. He hit .276/.309/.434 combined last season, well behind Stairs (.292/.389/.561) and Wilson (.262/.360/.511). Simon has hit .332 the past three seasons with runners in scoring position, but that doesn't make up for being an out machine without much power most of the time.
The knock on Stairs was that he was old and didn't keep himself in shape, but this old, fat guy hit 20 home runs last year playing part time. Simon is seven years younger but has never hit 20 homers in any of his six seasons. This year he has an excellent chance to be fatter.
4. Isn't Wilson's real problem his glove?
Wilson runs like the back end of a giraffe, but he's a better outfielder than he looks.
Among the 27 players in the league with at least 250 innings in right field last season, Wilson ranked first in range factor, 10th in zone rating and 10th in fielding percentage. (STATS Inc. computes a range factor by dividing a player's putouts and assists by nine innings. It gets the zone rating by dividing the field into segments to find the percentage of balls fielded in a player's zone.)
Maybe that doesn't prove Hack Wilson is a great outfielder, but he obviously has an adequate glove. In a season when he had the difficult task of playing everywhere and nowhere, Wilson worked hard and he made 2.74 plays every nine innings. Reggie Sanders made 2.16 and Matt Stairs 1.58.
Wilson won't hurt you out there. How often he gets out there remains the question.
First Published: March 2, 2004, 5:00 a.m.
