Wily Mo Pena’s prospect in Japanese Baseball League – MLB Special
Free agent Wily Mo Pena is planning to test his skills in Japanese Baseball League and now some reports are suggesting that he is about to sign a potential contract with a Japanese team.
On Sunday, this news hit in many sports publishing that Mo Pena, who has played for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners in 2011, is planning to play for the Softbank Hawks in Japan for a full season in the coming winter.
Having strong baseball skills and hugely experienced, Mo Pena certainly made this decision to avoid a full season lost in the Major League Season as his free agency is not attracting much in American baseball. He played his last contractual year in 2011
with the Mariners in MLB but having played relatively poor in the past season, he decided to perfect his game with another league and come back with more thrust.
Playing first with the Cincinnati Reds in 2002, he impressed many with his pure hitting and earned great acknowledgement. He was pretty comfortable with the Mariners at that time but after his trade into the Boston Red Sox in 2006, his game started to decline.
Later he came into the Washington Nationals in 2007 but still played an average game while becoming a free agent.
However, his last two teams, the Diamondbacks and the Mariners were hugely impressed with his talent and regarded him among the very best. But soon he again lost control over his hitting and people started objecting to his long career in baseball.
As a player, his performance impressed but on a whole, his performance never won many games for the Mariners and Diamondbacks.
His batting average of .204 which then reached .250 and .416 with total home-runs in 120 plate appearances for both teams somehow supported his game down the stretch but carrying a hitting average of .358/.440/.712 including 25 homers in 332 plate appearances
for Triple-A affiliates Reno and Tacoma.
The most recognised factor of Mo Pena’s game is the hitting skills which instantly brought him fame in 2008 when he hit five homers in 39 Abs. Now, his decision to play for the Japanese Baseball League is also very tactful as he knows his game better. Even
Pena’s agent Josh Zeide, who is certainly busy making a viable plan for his client’s contract, has said in the past about Mo Pena’s game,
“The reality is everyone knows he can hit home runs, and to this point having struck out 17 times without a walk is not the ratio that he’s looking for and not what he wants to accomplish, The Triple-A line is more in line with what we’re trying to accomplish
in terms of his approach, his walks-strikeouts ratio, his average and everything else.”
Mo Pena, with relatively good experience in the Major League, certainly has a huge chance to excel in the Japanese Baseball League. The official statements regarding the details of the contract are yet to come but all the preparations have been finalised
and next few days will be significant for both sides.
It will be interesting to see how well Mo Pena can perform in the Japanese League, as he is a tremendous player with an immense amount of talent.
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