Sayonara Dano

Dan Wilson suffered a torn ACL in Wednesday's game and was placed on the 60 day disabled list. He is almost certainly done for the season and he might very well be done for his career.

Danny has taken some heat in the local blog community as a guy the Mariners should have done without long ago. And while he has probably been overrated by fans and overpaid by management over his career, there are worse things a person could do than garner a few extra cheers and whole lotta dineiro for being a good guy.

At his peak (95-97) Willie was a .275 hitter, good for about 15 dingers a year (Gotta love Baseball Reference). Baseball Prospectus figures him to be worth about 5.5 wins a season over a replacement player over those 3 years, which ain't too shabby. It was often said that he wore down over the course of season but he only had one season of more than 140 games caught(1997) and only one other over 130 (1996). Over the last 3 years though, April was far and away his most productive month, with a 789 OPS (the next best month was August at 693).

I have wanted the Mariner's to supplant him as the starting catcher for the last couple of years for sure, but have been unable to call for him simply to go. As the last continous link to the 95 team (Nellie and Villone were on it as well) I will be a little sad if this is indeed the end of the line.

If it is the end, so long Danny Boy! Lets hope that by this time next year you've pushed Hendu right out of the broadcast booth.