Mariners trade minor leaguers for Hollywood Joe Wieland

Having apparently read the beginnings of our 40 in 40 series (which can be found here and here) Jerry Dipoto decided to throw a wrench in the gears:

Roster moves: M's acquire RHP Joe Weiland from Dodgers for IF Erick Mejia. RHP AJ Schugel DFA

— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) January 12, 2016

I wonder how fidgety Dipoto got in the 25 days between this move and his December 18th trade of Tyler Olson, also to the Dodgers, for PTBNL. Anyway, this is a move that requires us to shuffle around our writing schedule, which is annoying, but not much else of consequence at first glance.

Erick Mejia is a speedy 20 year old who posted a .361 OBP in Everett last year. Brendan, who is very smart, tells me he should "stick at shortstop". The question is whether he will stick there anywhere above Double AA at any point. Slugging .336 in A ball isn't a great sign, but a shortstop-worthy glove tool, like throwing with your left hand, will get you a lot of chances in baseball.

AJ Schugel we barely knew, except for Brendan who spent a lot of time researching him for the 40 in 40 post (You may now make fun of or feel sorry for Brendan as you deem appropriate.) Acquired from Arizona through waivers on December 16th Schugel was a Mariner for less than a month. Now, as he never made it into a game, he will never appear in the Mariners official media guide, just like you and me. See? Athletes! They're just like us.

Of course no one much cares about non-prospect infielders and fringy relievers, especially when they're departing the team. What the people demand is hot, hot Joe Wieland info. Here we go:

Name: Joseph Andrew Wieland

DOB: 1/21/90

Path to Seattle: Drafted out of Reno HS in 2008 by the Rangers, traded in the package to acquire Mike Adams in 2011, Tommy John in 2012, traded to the Dodgers in the Matt Kemp package, and made two starts for LAD last year. Now he is here.

What does Joe Wieland throw? Per Fangraphs predominantly a fastball, with a curveball and a change up. I asked a few people about him, as I've never seen him pitch and they hadn't either! I'm very sorry to let you down.

Can Joe Wieland strike me out? Probably, depending on who you are. Are you Mike Trout? Actually even if you are Mike Trout he probably could because Mike you are very good at baseball but that strike out buggaboo could really become a problem. What? No, yeah I said eat more Subway. You got it. No problem.

Anyway Joe Wieland's fastball in limited MLB action last year average 90.7 miles per hour. You can't hit that. So yeah, he could strike you out.

Enough of your stupid ramblings what's the easy breakdown here? Well I could just link you to Jeff's tweet because Jeff is pretty smart. But as I am not Jeff and Jeff doesn't write here anymore I'll offer my own thoughts. Joe Wieland is a 2015 offseason Jerry Dipoto Acquisition (tm) as he's coming off a scuffling 2015 after showing promise earlier in his career. He's a buy low, bounce back regression candidate. It's clear that with all the jokes we've made around here in the past about piles that Dipoto has implemented a strategy of building a pile comprised of various positions of players coming off of sub par years. Will that work? Absolutely, without question, maybe.

It's unlikely that more than 2-3 of the many cheap flyers Dipoto has taken out will contribute to a successful 2016 Mariner season. But it also realistically won't take much more than 2-3 to make 2016 a successful year. So, maybe Jerry's crazy, in fact I think he probably is crazy in a manic way, but he's not dumb.

Welcome, Joe Wieland. The Pile is over that way. Yeah, that guy's name is Boog. I don't know either, man.

Errors and/or omissions

As the comment from esteemed Adam Morris of sister/brother/father/uncle site Lone Star Ball points out, Wieland was drafted by Texas while current Mariner manager Scott Servais was in charge of player development. Past connections is another common thread of Jerry Dipoto's offseason and we regret the omission.