Jose Vidro signs with Red Sox
Today, the Boston Red Sox announced the signing of Sean Casey to a 1 year, $750,000 deal to fill a spot on their bench. He’s slotted in to be their backup first baseman and occassional pinch hitter. Barring an unforseen injury, he’ll probably get 150-200 at-bats this year.
In case you hadn’t noticed, Sean Casey and Jose Vidro are the exact same hitter. Here are their 2007 performances:
BA: Vidro, .314; Casey, .297
OBP: Vidro, .378; Casey, .354
SLG: Vidro, .394; Casey, .395
BB%: Vidro, 10.8%; Casey, 9.9%
K%: Vidro, 9.1%; Casey, 8.3%
GB%: Vidro, 51%; Casey, 49%
LD%: Vidro, 19%; Casey, 20%
The entire difference between Jose Vidro and Sean Casey’s 2007 performance could be chalked up to infield singles; Sean Casey got 6, while Jose Vidro got 15. There’s just no reason to believe that Vidro’s ridiculously high number of infield hits had anything to do with his skills. If you convert nine of Sean Casey’s outs into infield singles, he’d have hit .315/.371/.413. Eliminating infield singles from the big picture, Casey and Vidro had the exact same batting average last year. Vidro has the tiniest edge in walk rate, but Casey has an equally small edge in power.
You can’t find two more similar hitters alive right now. They were born a month apart in 1974. They both used to be very good players. They’ve both battled injury problems and now live off their ability to make contact and hit singles. The projections for 2008 are basically identical across the board, no matter what projection system you want to use. These guys are offensive twins.
There are, however, two differences. Sean Casey can still play defense (he’d be a significant upgrade with the glove over Richie Sexson) and everyone else in baseball realizes that this skillset isn’t good enough to lay claim to a starting job.
Every other team in baseball looked at this skillset and said “not interested”. The Red Sox looked at this skillset and said “useful bench player if he’ll play for nothing”. The Mariners looked at this skillset and said “Starting DH, $6 million salary, #2 hitter”.
Useful players that signed this winter for less than the $5 million difference in salary between Vidro and Casey: Milton Bradley, Adam Everett, Cliff Floyd, Jason Jennings, Jon Lieber, Jeremy Affeldt, Randy Wolf, Kerry Wood, LaTroy Hawkins, and Mark Hendrickson.
The lesson, as always – the Mariners continue to get destroyed by every other organization in baseball when it comes to building their roster.
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#48
If down is a direction, then we’ve got one too.
I agree with the general point, although I’d quibble with some of the names as to whether they’re “useful players.”
The best part about USSM is that it makes you so depressed that the regular season actual begins to fill you with hope because no matter what they will out perform our over-deflated expectations. Odds are they will be somewhat in contention for most of the year. We will love every minute of it and at the end reality will come crashing down, but not after we had a fun 4-5 months.
Go away.
The cure for “over-deflated expectations” is one click away.
You know, when a blog reports reality of the situation for a franchise marred in mediocrity, the outlook is not optimistic. Get over it or go to a site that doesn’t deal in reality.
#53, this is in the spirit of your message.
George Will wrote (in various forms over the years): “The advantage pessimists have over others is that they are right most of the time. And when they are wrong, they are pleased to be so.”
Written like a true baseball fan! Most of his suffering has been caused by the Cubs but it could equally well be the Mariners.
Some say that USSMariner is too pessimistic. But what I find is that the pessimism is derived from careful analysis. The optimists cannot rely on analysis because the facts don’t support their hoped-for outcome. All teams take advantage of that by pumping up those hopes. In the end, the crash is all the more painful for finding onself to have been deluded all along.
Who wants to bet that in June of ’09 our new GM is trying to flip Bedard for prospects at the trading deadline?
Hey, everyone’s for reality.
But if 7 speaks for the majority of posters here: “proves yet again how terrible the Mariners are at judging talent”–then where did we get all five of those outstanding talents purportedly headed to the Orioles? Also, as 28 points out, Yuni and Jo? And maybe Morrow and Clement?
Should there at least be a distinction made between trades and player development?
We’ve made that distinction countless times. If you search for “Bob Fontaine” on this site, you’ll find nothing but rave reviews for how well he and his scouting team have done adding talent to the farm system the last few years.
53 – I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my pessimism that made the M’s crash last season. But if it wasn’t me, what could have done it…
Pony time!
Wonderful thought-provoking post, Derek. You could have added that the Mariners needlessly squandered not just money, but also players to secure the services of Mr. Vidro.
So, Geoff Baker is now contending this. I don’t agree with his counterargument at all. I also think he pretty much missed the point that Vidro and Casey are enough alike that paying one guy $6 million per year (not to mention the loss of talent via trade) is a pretty crappy move when the other is getting paid table scraps.
I don’t understand why he’d even bother. Even if some of us are too hard on Vidro, there is absolutely no logical way you can justify the trade by comparing him to Casey.
Sorry, Arbek. Do you really think a new GM would be dumping Bedard? (Or be allowed to?)
This is the Mariners (warning, pony-free pessimism ahead). They’ll hang on to him to the bitter end, rather than risk losing fans. Probably after deciding that, while 6 games back at the deadline, that they are “just a short winning streak away” from getting right back into it.
Of course, you could argue that a smart, empowered GM *should* be dumping him for prospects by then…
Here’s a list of every DH who had more than 450 plate appearances in 2007: David Ortiz, Travis Hafner, Jose Vidro, Frank Thomas, Aubrey Huff, Gary Sheffield, Jim Thome and Sammy Sosa.
So Turbo was either the worst or second-worst regular DH in baseball.
So when Bavasi leaves, and Fontaine and his scouts with him, are we going to hear once again about how “the cupboard is bare” because Bavasi, with no basis to be looking for the long term, traded everything away to win immediately? And will the next GM, after that first couple of years of trying to rebuild while blaming Bavasi, be put “on the hot seat” to win immediately, thus emptying out the cupboard for the next GM? And so on? Because I already know how this story goes, and it doesn’t get any better when only the actors are different.
Woody Woodard, Pat Gillick, Bill Bavasi.
People wonder why pessimism exists.
from Hickey:
“If you’re waiting around for news that Erik Bedard is finally a Mariner, maybe you need to do something else for a bit. For one thing, as of 1 p.m. (PST), Bedard was still at home in Ottawa, and it’s not at all clear when he will be en route to Seattle. It’s possible he won’t travel until Thursday.
That means no announcement will be made before Friday, if then. So if you’ve got something else to do for the time being, feel free to go ahead and do it.”
That is totally ot.
If you come back in five years and say, “I told you so”, I promise I won’t react…
Hey, c’mon guys. I know Bavasi has had a rough spring, but he always has a rough spring. He’ll heat up around July or August.
Oh, is
a1
off-topic?
um, I bet Hickey & Bedard both think Vidro is just Sean Casey under another name.
Well, to be fair, I’m sure sometimes the Mariners look at a guy and say “Useful bench player if he’ll play for nothing,” and then find out that basically, most of those guys aren’t willing to play for nothing in Seattle. (But are willing to play for nothing to be in, say, Boston.)
Hmm. It’d be funny to try to collect The Mayor (Casey), the Governor (Sherrill), and El Presidente (Santana) all on a team someday.