Vidro this year has a BABIP of .335, as opposed to a career .317 (.321 over the last 8 years). (Plus if the Safeco 2004-2006 BABIP differential of .013 is typical, that .335 is about a park-adjusted .341). I wouldn’t say that it’s proven that Vidro’s 2007 BABIP (maybe .02 over what might have been predicted) does not represent a replicable skill of some sort. I believe Vidro has claimed that he’s changed his approach at the plate to try to get on base more. Obviously this could be a rationale to explain the fact that his extra-base hit totals are so low, but who knows?

Vidro’s XBH rate is below his career level, his walk rate and his BABIP are above. To what extent these things are due to luck or due to such factors as aging, Vidro’s legs getting better, Vidro’s legs getting worse, Vidro changing his approach, Vidro changing his pre-game pharmaceutical cocktail, etc etc, etc, who knows?

(Yes, a player chosen at random with a .02 improvement in BABIP is probably due to luck, but what about a player with Vidro’s characteristics chosen at random? – next year, if his power goes up by the same level his BABIP goes down, will that automatically be ascribable to luck too?)

Note: Ichiro’s BABIP is .373, compared to .354 career. Is this just luck? Maybe, sure, or maybe Ichiro’s approach is different this year. (His lowest BABIP years in the past have coincided with highest IP or HR years, and his IP is down this year – not that this necessarily means anything).

Vidro at least means that instead of 9 Mariners avoiding a walk (most of the time) at all costs, you’ve only got 8. It at least looks like “working the count” is part of his thought process. So if not Snelling-level refreshing on that score, he’s at least a little bit refreshing.

Not that this has anything to do with Vidro, of course, because it’s not like he’s part of the problem- a lineup that has a TON of players who are slow GB hitters.

an opportune time to point out vidro struggling since he has silenced his critics nearly all season long

Several weeks after the all star break is not “nearly all season long”. If you don’t understand he wasn’t hitting well before then, it follows that you wouldn’t understand that he has not in fact had a good season, either. Not as awful as he could have had, considering what he is — a dead-slow singles hitter — but not good. If he’s this mediocre next year, we’ll be lucky.

We’re now seeing Reversion-To-Mean Vidro, which is probably who we’ll be seeing most of next year.

So yeah, this whole argument translates to “Does Vidro suck? Or does he suck a lot?”

Really, his first half was pretty nasty, he got hot after the break, but even hot for him just involves a whole lot of singles. Even then, he hasn’t been consistently hot.

Based on his overall performance this year he isn’t a bad spare part to have around, but he doesn’t deserve to be starting every day and he makes way too much money for what he brings to the table. He’s really more of an opportunity cost problem than anything else.

As far as what adjustment he might have made, I really couldn’t say without going through hundreds of swings worth of video analysis to compare and contrast, and frankly I just don’t have the time for it. Perhaps you could ask him or the hitting coaches on that one. Maybe he was just getting more sleep so he was more alert during games for all I know. He tailed off because the stress of the playoff race kept him up at night lately.

Maybe this whole thing comes down to a concentration issue on his part.

As far as the infield hits go, I agree with you that I doubt he was trying to do that. Perhaps the answer to that particular question lies in how the fielders were playing him.

Again, I am not ruling out the “plain old luck” factor either. I personally just feel he sustained his “hot streak” a little too long to pass it off as just luck.

It’s not unbelievable. There’s no explanation for the why, and your answer here is an inadequate explanation.

What was the adjustment, though? Why did he never make it before? Why isn’t it apparent to observers? Why doesn’t it show up in any other metric? Why, if Vidro can do it, doesn’t everyone?

Take one of the components here: the infield hits. Vidro’s hit a lot of weak grounders, which presumably is not his intent, since he’s slow and has bad legs and it’s not a good percentage move. He’s got a huge amount of hits.

Major league hitters do have the ability to hit it where they want to.

No they don’t. Otherwise they’d all hit 1.000 all the time and it’d be really boring to watch.

Even the best bat-control guys in the majors don’t hit .400. Even the most powerful hitters don’t hit .400.

This is the anamoly: Vidro’s BABIP is – for no reason – among those of slap-and-dash hitters with a ton of speed.

We really then have three choices:
- Vidro is unique among all current major league players in that he is able, like you playing softball, to hit major league pitching in such a way that it lands where he wants it to, and that his technique or skill has not yet been copied or negated through scouting
- There’s an explanation for Vidro’s success at getting hits on balls in play that lies in a skill or ability that hasn’t yet revealed itself to analysis
- Vidro got lucky for a while

One of those is the simplest.