Projecting Wily Mo

Dan Fox at Baseball Prospectus has written an article projecting the likely career ahead of new Red Sox outfielder Wily Mo Pena. Pena is an intriguing player. He has a ton of power, doesn't walk much and he strikes out a lot. The fact that he hits around .250 has a lot of people saying that he won't amount to much. What the don't seem to consider is the fact that Wily Mo is only 24 years old and is starting his fourth major league season. The fact that he's been an above-average hitter over the last couple of seasons is very impressive given his age. I'm not ready to call him a Hall of Famer, but I think he could turn out to be a steal for the Red Sox. For now it looks like he'll be platooning with Trot Nixon in right field.

Fox looks at Wily Mo from a couple of different angles, looking at similarity scores from BP as well as the Bill James method from Baseball-Reference.com. Both of these sysems pick former Toronto star Jesse Barfield as the #1 comp for Wily Mo. The Baseball Prospectus similarity scores also throw out names like Willie Stargell and Kirk Gibson, both of whom were obviously excellent ballplayers. Pena probably can't stand up to the defensive reputation of Barfield, who was gifted with a cannon arm, Jesse was a fearsome hitter for a couple of years in his mid-20's, and the Sox would be very happy with that kind of progress.

Fox also runs some graphs and determines that players with Wily Mo's profile tend to reach their peaks a little early, but they maintain their performance for a long period of time. In wrapping up the article, Fox summarizes:

(G)iven the history of players with similar profiles, it seems Red Sox fans have reason to be optimistic that Pena will enjoy a relatively long career. And although he may not hit the top of his comparable list a la Willie Stargell and instead fall somewhere in the Jessie Barfield range, with adequate playing time and patience, he’ll likely be a productive hitter for at least the next few years.