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WaPo report: M’s agree to trade Snelling, Fruto for Vidro

Article here.

The Washington Nationals took a major step toward freeing room on their future payroll and breaking loose a logjam in the middle infield, agreeing to trade second baseman Jose Vidro — who has spent his entire career with the Montreal-Washington organization — to the Seattle Mariners for a pair of prospects that could contribute to the 2007 team, Vidro said in a telephone interview tonight.

The trade — which is pending a physical for Vidro, expected to take place Thursday

I guess we hope Vidro blows that physical like a horse in Enumclaw, because this is crazy.

Chris Snelling is a 25-year old corner outfielder with an injury history and a plus arm who hit .250/.360/.427. Based on his PECOTA projections, he’s one of the best hitting prospects in baseball. He was the third or fourth-best hitter on the team last year (performance, not taking playing time into account).

Fruto’s a 22-year old reliever. He’s a big boy. He’s got a ridiculous change and through his whole career in the minors he was as stingy giving up the home run as you could possibly hope for.

Jose Vidro is a 31-yr old second baseman who hit .289/.348/.395 for the Nationals last year.

Does this bode ill for Jose Lopez? It does.

Nearly as important for Washington, however, is that Seattle has agreed to pay $12 million of the remaining $16 million left on Vidro’s contract for 2007 and ’08.

You don’t take that on if he’s going to sit.

The Mariners have traded two players, one finally healthy and tearing the cover off the ball who can play right or left, and a still younger, cheap, effective reliever in order to acquire a 31-year old passable hitter who plays a position where team has another cheap, effective player (if Hargrove would just stop telling him to ground out over and over).

I’ve tried to come up with a justification for this, and I can’t. There must be another deal waiting, which makes this hard to justify in isolation: at least one of Broussard/Lopez/Sexson is going to be booted.

But this move hurts the team. More than just next season: Snelling and Fruto were both the kind of players who could be parts of the next Mariner championship team. Snelling in particular could be one of the best hitters on any team (if he stays healthy, of course), and he’s under team control for years for very little money. Jose Vidro’s a declining, increasingly immobile player on the wrong side of his peak who’ll be paid an immense amount of money. Vidro will not help the M’s win a pennant. If it comes to be, this will be one of the worst trades the team’s ever made, even if Snelling never plays another game and Fruto doesn’t throw another strike.

This is ridiculous garbage.

Update: Geoff Baker at the Seattle Times writes

Another offensive upgrade for the Mariners is to be finalized later this week when Jose Vidro joins the team as its full-time designated hitter.

No, but whatever.

“I think this is the best deal for me,” Vidro said in a telephone interview tonight from his home in Puerto Rico. “By me becoming the DH it will give me the chance to focus exclusively on my hitting and not have to worry about all that other stuff.”

So DH it is, which means the team’ll be paying him a ton of money to be a below-average DH. Broussard’s then the obvious next move.

Update: the hot rumor is that this also involved picking up Vidro’s 2009 option, which is a dingleberry topping on the shit frosting on today’s shit cake. Whee.

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