MONDAY: The two-year deal could be worth more than $5MM with incentives, according to Jon Heyman of SI.com (on Twitter).
SUNDAY: Pena's deal is expected to be for two years with a seven-figure annual salary, an industry source tells Alex Speier of WEEI.com. The contract will allow Pena to hit the open market after his age 31 season.
SATURDAY: Slugger Wily Mo Pena is nearing a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal with Japan's Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, MLBTR has learned. Pena played in 17 games for the Diamondbacks and 22 games for the Mariners in 2011.
Pena, 29, drew the attention of several clubs after he was cut by the Diamondbacks in July. Across eight major league seasons, Pena owns a .250/.303/.445 slash line with 84 homers.
The Hawks are the defending 2011 Japan Series champions and featured a handful of former big leaguers on their squad including Brian Falkenborg and Jose Ortiz.
willie mo poindexter? man i remember him growin up as a young boy in watts. didn’t think he’d be no ballplayer!
oh wily mo pena. never heard of him. i was layin down lookin at the screen sideways or somethin.
please stop posting, you are neither interesting nor funny.
that right there is encouragement to continue. thank you my boy.
I have no problem with trolling, hell I do it all the time, but you’re doing it completely wrong.
According to wikipidia, you have been dead for over 20 years. So, yeah.
are you mixin me up with some other cat? maybe that old fred sanford from tv? it ain’t my fault we look so alike! anyway, go tigers! or lions or bears, whatever team is good.
I became neutral with you when you said go Tigers; I decided we could be best friends when you said go Lions; but when you said go Bears, you made an enemy for life. Good day sir!
You are one very, very weird dude.
No wonder never see Redd on TV anymore.. For a funny guy on Sanford and Son, he sure was a 100% but& hole in real life and on talk shows.. he would stand up, tell audiences to shut up etc… The guy was a 100% pr*ck from what had read and learned in real life, but yep.. That tv show was a blast way back.
I’ve seen it once at 3 am on one of Detroits “urban stations.” It went of the air when my mom was 12.
How ’bout I stick my foot so far up yer b-tt, you be bitin’ my toenails.
Perfect for Japan.
agree, i can honestly see him hitting 50+ homers there easy
Do the Australians still have a league?
Nilsson 4-eva
I hear Xavier Paul’s trying to get in to the Australian League now
Was he a choice for the poll question earlier about the next big free agent to sign?
I need to get his jersey.
Wow, I give you guys credit at MLBtraderumors because you guys are digging deep for information. The Softball Hawks? That’s when you know its a slow news day.
One of the biggest waste of talen in recent MLB history!!!
talent =/= raw power.
Most shocking of all this? “Pena played 17 games for the Diamondbacks and 22 for the Mariners in 2011.”
He also has the best power I have ever seen. He just can’t make contact, but when he does, that ball goes on forever.
Its just kind of shocking when a guy hasn’t played in the bigs in a few years and is wanted twice. Good for him though
He might have the best BP power, but it just never translated into game power when pitchers cease throwing 85mph FB down the middle of the plate.
Have seen this guy whack literally a dozen in a row (maybe more) into the LF and CF bleachers at Tampa/ST and not cheapos either, but WAY BACK during BP while he was with Boston.
I saw him hit one that went like 470 at Comerica Park this year durring a game. It was insanne.
straight ball i hit it very much
link to saruhouse.com
I’m both shocked and disappointed that it took this much scrolling to get to the first Cerrano joke. Looking for one is literally the primary reason I clicked on this thread.
Really hoping he Cecil Fielder’s his career over there….he’s got talent to mash, he just needs to figure out how to hit other things than home runs and strike outs.
I don’t think any hitter can hit a strikeout. lol
Wily mo is just that good
oops! lol
Will Mo, I was hoping he would become the next Matt Stairs.
…with a semi-full time gig, say 400ABs.
I always thought he could mash, but I guess there’s issues at the plate and/or on D.
I must check the directory for his K/BB ratio, I think that may tell the story.
Hey Paul, I just checked the ratio….5 to 1 on the Ks to BBs….plus hauling around 260 lbs as an OF don’t help either.
I’d head to Japan to play slo-pitch too if I were Willy (No)Mo(MLB) Pena.
Lol oh no doubt he belongs in Japan, I was speaking from a pure enjoyment point of view. I liked watching him play, I like the guys that go up there and swing as hard as they can every single time and are overweight. Also liked picking him up in fantasy on the cheap on days I thjought he might hit a hr.
Definitely read this as he’s getting a multi-million dollar contract to play on the Softball Hawks. I had hope that my participation in several slow-pitch beer leagues could command me a few million in Japan.
Hooked on Phonics worked for me.
I cannot hit curveball. Straightball I hit it very much. Curveball, bats are afraid.
Uh huh..
I meant to reply that to you.
I think he is doing Major League.
NO, SAY IT AIN’T SO, WILY MO!
I actually would have liked him back with the Mariners next season (not that they can really afford to give him the roster space, but still…). He’ll hopefully do great in Japan. Seems like the guy who could really be a star for a team there off nothing but pure power numbers.
Power hitting AAAA players usually flourish in Japan and even some guys who did not hit very many home runs in the minors here went on to hit 30+ there.
Pena earned this opportunity in his 76 PCL games this year. In 332 PA he hit 25 home runs and had a slash line of .338/.440/.712. Most of that was at Reno, but nobody questions his power.
He had seven more in 120 MLB PA with Arizona and Seattle in 2011.
30 or 40 or maybe even 50 home runs should come easy next year.
He can follow the footsteps of George Arias, Tuffy Rhodes, Orestes Destrade, Robert Rose, Roberto Petagine, Boomer Wells, Ralph Bryant, Randy Bass, Alex Cabrera, Jack Howell and Tom O’Malley.
Those guys have all left behind minor league memories in North American ball, but very few in the Majors. What they did do, was game winning home runs and such. Wily Mo has actually accomplished more than those guys did in the majors.
You know what the all-time HR leader in the minors, Mike Hessman, did this year in Japan, don’t you?
I know Hessman washed out, he is not the first to do that either. Wily Mo is certainly capable of doing likewise. My guess is that hits a ton of home runs, but it is not a lock.
Hard to keep your power up on a steady diet of rice, seaweed and raw fish.
Guy has always had tremendous power. He also can’t hit breaking pitches, and Japan is pretty heavy on breaking pitches. Us Wily Mo fans may hope for the best, but it would be silly to predict great success. Gabe Kapler was another very strong outfielder who couldn’t hit off-speed stuff and he was terrible in Japan.
I am no Wily Mo fan. If he fails there he fails there. If it is silly to predict success, so be it. He has power and lesser men have hit 30 home runs there.
For me, this news just assures he won’t be a Mariner next year which is good.
“Us Wily Mo fans”
?
I have to add former Cubs/A’s player Matt Murton destroyed the Japan League. He broke Ichiro’s hit single-season hit record over there and had .349/.399/.499, 17HRs and 91 RBIs. Hope that is an interesting additional point to your comment.
And the hall famer Rich Gossage is known as an easily inflammable gas can full of old fart to Japanese fans.
Mike Morse was a AAAA fringe player who actually managed to hit like a AAAA fringe player does over in Japan in the majors last year. Imagine what he could have done in Japan.
Maybe Morse is actually a AAAAA player?
No, he’s not. Once a AAAA player hits in the majors you can remove that label. pretty sure
It’s 5 “A’s,” it’s a joke..
No, that’s how the label came to be. It means a player puts up awesome numbers at AAA and then stinks it up in the bigs, and its happened multiple times. You actually have to make the bigs to get that label. Wily Mo qualifies as AAAA, Jake Fox does too, as does Kila Kaaihue. Players like that.
Maybe that will be the new term for guys who can hit in the minors and Japan. AAAAA, I like it.
Matt Murton, a stud at the AAAAA level!
I guess that makes Benny Agbayani an AAAAAA player.
I’m shocked more people haven’t been asking this: “Whither Wily Mo?”
Godspeed Mr. Pena. Or rather, “Domo Arigato.”
You lost me at “I’m.”
You know it is a seriously slow news day when people want to argue about whether Wily Mo will succeed in Japan or not. It is really bad that we (including me) even comment about it.
Hopefully when this “Holiday” Weekend is over some real news starts going down.
No matter where he goes, the man sure did get paid by teams.
According to baseball reference through 2008 he made 6.7 mil. Wow. Go willy mo! I mean even if he made the min this past year that would push him up to 7 mil.
Not too bad for just swinging as hard as you can at every pitch, dudes got power and made money and hopefully will succeed in japan and cash in. I mean yea 4 mil(or whatever it is) is about what arod makes a paycheck but dang give me 4 mil and I would be happy for life! Go willy mo save your money dont eat too much and have fun in japan!
I just hope they dont mistake him for godzilla, dude is big!
Wily Mo Pena: Great expectations even greater failure.
I tend to think that WMP suffered from being promoted to the bigs too early. If he’d stayed in the minors for another year or two, he might have avoided some of the problems that have plagued his career.
I hope that he can turn his career around. The guy is definitely a poster child for wasted potential.
He’ll rip up japanese pitching at least
Wily Mo Pena is now the Albert Pujols of Japan.
Sooo he is or isn’t eligible for the HR derby?
82 comments and only two of them Major League jokes. What is wrong with you people?!
wily moe vs yu darvish
dream matchup
This is the middle of the order impact bat the Hawks need.
The third straight Pacific League title is in our grasp.
Go, Hawks! Beat the Nippon-Ham Fighters!
That’s a way better contract than I expected. He can rebuild his value there, or if contracts like this keep coming, just rake for the rest of his career in Japan.
We always talk about pitchers who can only “throw” and not “pitch”… he’s the hitter who can only “swing” but not “hit”
perfectly said