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Mariners expect more than good glove from Wilson


The Seattle Mariners knew he had a glove. Now, catcher Dan Wilson is beginning to show his game doesn't necessarily end there.      When manager Lou Piniella shipped promising second baseman Bret Boone and pitcher Erik Hanson to Cincinnati for Wilson and pitcher Bobby Ayala in 1993, he was expecting to get a good receiver.      Now, Piniella is hoping to get more.      "Talking offensively, he's on the verge of a breakout year," Piniella said.      In the Mariners' AL West championship season, Wilson hit .278 --62 points higher than 1994 and the highest single-season batting average ever by a Seattle catcher. Although he didn't homer until June 22, Wilson finished with 9, and 51 RBI. Both were career highs.      He had a 10-game hitting streak in August, and hit in eight straight in September. He homered in three consecutive September games.      "I'm just getting to know some of the pitchers better," Wilson said. "And I'm a little bit better experienced''      Wilson who will turn 27 on March 25, has gotten stronger through weight training, too. He's now a solidly built 6-foot-3, 190-pounder who played in 119 games last season, 28 more than 1994.      That was the third-highest number of games caught in the major leagues last season.      "I think preparation in the offseason is real, real important," Wilson said. "It paid dividends for me last year. This year I did the same thing."      Piniella knew first-hand about Wilson, the seventh player picked in the 1990 June draft by Cincinnati, because he managed the Reds from 1990 through 1992. Wilson played a dozen games for the Reds in Piniella's final season there.      "When we traded for Wilson, we knew he was a good receiver," Piniella said. "We knew he called a good ballgame, and handled the pitching staff well. We were unsure of his bat."      The Mariners rewarded Wilson with a two-year, $1.4 million contract last week      Despite his improvement often-sirely, Wilson sun thinks defense first. The former all-state hockey goalie from Barrington, threw out 34 percent of the runners attempting to steal, the fourth-highest number among catchers in the league last season.      "I think defense should be No. 1 and offense should be No. 2," he said. "There are a lot of duties for a catcher defensively. Sometimes those can't be overshadowed offensively.''      Piniella thinks Wilson is capable of becoming an all-star, perhaps this season. He has the potential to hit 15 homers and drive in 70 runs, the manager said.      "Two-seventy-eight is a pretty darn good average for a catcher," Piniella said. "He's emerged as one of the top catchers in all of baseball and he hasn't peaked yet. He still can get better."      Wilson would like to live down the Mariners' 11 postseason games last season when he was 2-for-33 with no home runs and only I RBI. In the ALCS against Cleveland, he was 0-for-16.      He agrees with Piniella that this will be the most important season in his career.      "Certainly, I'd like to continue to improve," he said. "I think anytime you're staying still, you're actually going backward.      "I'd like to improve some of my numbers, especially in some of the areas like home runs and RBIs. And I'd like to be consistent on defense, again."

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Notebook: World Series? Wilson played in it — in 1981


NEW YORK — With batting practice called off for the pregame ceremony honoring Dave Winfield, a number of the Mariners watched the Little League World Series on the clubhouse TV. Among those who saw Danny Almonte of the Bronx team throw a 16-strikeout perfect game, only Dan Wilson took a trip down memory lane. Wilson played for the Barrington, Ill., Little League team that went to the Williamsport classic. "Twenty years ago, 1981," Wilson said. "Wow, that's a long time back. We beat Escondido, Calif., in the first round, then faced a Tampa team that had Derek Bell playing for it." With two outs in the last inning, Tampa was leading 12-4. "We got something like 11 straight hits," he said. "Then our tying run was thrown out at the plate." Wilson called it "a great experience. We had a good team, and the one thing I took from it was the value of having a good team, a group that plays well in the field, that pitches, that gets hit at the right time. In fact, that's just the kind of team the Mariners have this year."

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