What in the world is going on?
Is there some reality-distortion field around Vidro that makes him appear like a major league hitter when you get too close? Does he emit some delicious pheromone that makes managers drool? Does he have pictures?
He is the worst designated hitter in the American League. He batted fourth tonight. Here’s Vidro against the next-worst designated hitter with over 200 PA, Billy Butler:
Butler: .263/.325/.347
Vidro: .216/.263/.315
That’s a big gap. That’s the Huff-Thome gap, or the Thomas-Butler gap.
Just over .200 with some walks and the once-a-month extra-base hit from the team’s designated hitter, batting cleanup.
And yet we’ve seen two supposedly sane managers bat him cleanup not out of necessity or
If you want to see the team try and climb back to respectability this season, you should be incensed every time Vidro is in the lineup, angrier still the higher up he bats.
It makes no sense, absolutely no sense.
Also, what Dave said.
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I disagree with the premise here. I don’t care if you want the M’s to climb up to respectability or tank to get the number one draft choice (though history would tell us that baseball is not basketball; the number one draft choice may well tank and the number seven make the Hall of Fame). The fact is that there are players here (Clement, Felix, Morrow, RRS) who should be part of the next good Mariners team, and it is simply wrong to have them have to play with Vidro batting cleanup, or Vidro batting at all. Any kid from Tacoma and any waiver wire pickup would be an improvement, if only for morale. Silva put the team in a position to win tonight, and they were playing four guys who don’t belong in a AAA lineup together.
He is the worst designated hitter in the American League.
You can pretty much remove the word “designated” from that.
I’ve honestly given up trying to understand why Vidro keeps batting third or fourth. I just pray his option doesn’t vest.
I just can’t imagine how they even justify it to themselves at this point, much less anyone else.
2: Not even Jose and Pepe are in the same ballpark of bad as Tony Pena Jr.
The difference between Vidro and Tony Pena Jr offensively, considering position, is ~ten runs.
That’s the same ballpark.
Scene from the interview of our next GM:
CHUCK: So, what’s the first thing you’d do to turn the team around and get it back into contention if we hire you?
CANDIDATE: Fire any manager stupid enough to bat a guy with a sub-.600 OPS in the cleanup spot. There are a lot of other things besides that we need to do, but let’s start with the easy things. Finding talent can be hard, but making out lineups that six year olds won’t laught at is pretty easy. We start with that.
HOWARD: Thinking if the kids – I like that! Family friendly…
Or, better yet, can we just designate him (for assignment) already?!
I designate him the worse hitter in the american league.
Well, right now we are paying Vidro $337,142 per extra base hit. So there’s that.
[head explodes]
Yeah Vidro has no business anywhere near a major league roster. No other team would let him take up a roster spot let alone hit fourth.
But I just read something [ot]
If that’s the case about RRS, it’s kinda sad, really. It only took him two starts to stretch out to five respectable innings — as opposed to Batista, who hasn’t thrown five respectable innings in any of his “starts” yet this year.
That just want to be stupid in ALL phases of the game.
Reality distortion field. So you did buy a Mac. Only good news tonight.
The “delicious pheromone” theory scares me.
What, does it smell like bacon? ‘Cause, if you need bacon, I can get you all the bacon you can handle. Good bacon, too. Bacon that won’t suck a thousand outs out of your baseball team, dude.
PS: question for new GM: “do you know what a sunk cost is?”
I think they play Vidro because they pay Vidro. It’s as simple as that. Same reason Sexson isn’t shopping for recliners right now.
hmm. I used to have a highly risible mail-order ad for something called Liquid Magnet ….
Any chance the FO is hoping Vidro, et al. will rip off a couple of XBHs, like Richie’s anomaly last night, and get some drunken and/or deluded team to give TWO bags of balls for one of these guys?
Season lost, AAA kids really not screaming to get to the bigs (a la AJ last season), why not trot them out until the trade deadline hoping for a miracle, THEN release them? Other than, you know, this might cause USSM correspondents’ heads to explode.
I’m pretty sure they’re tanking. They are tanking right?
There isn’t a team in MLB that doesn’t have a big fat file on Vidro, full of completely black pages like the one in Tristram Shandy. He could hit four home runs tomorrow and Pelekoudas’s phone wouldn’t ring.
When was the last time a team finished the year with no players over .800 OPS (the HACKING MASS cutoff)? We currently have none.
Why all the Debbie Downers here?
Willie’s Streak continues!
Steve makes a good point: Somewhere there’s an As fan with Vidro, Bloomquist, Cairo, and Sexson all on his HACKING MASS team and laughing hysterically.
These comments are awesome.
I’ll admit I was shocked and mortified they expected Vidro to still be playing every day after last year. It is now with sick amusement that I watch him continually trotting out onto the field. This can only last so long, right?
How pissed will the next GM be if Vidro’s option is allowed to vest?
Oddly, the current HACKING MASS leader has no Mariners at all. It’s a bit of an odd competition. I note that Johjima is the #1 catcher, but of course hardly anyone picked him; Kendall was the overwhelming favorite. Vidro is the #1 first baseman, tied for 7th overall. Sexson is only a surprising 8th on the 1B list. Lopez is 11th at 2B; Bloomie is an impressive 17th, not bad for a part-timer. Yuni is #9 at SS. Ichiro is 13th at CF (Adam Jones just two points back). Balentien is still our top RF, in 10th. For pitchers, Batista is tenth and Silva is 12th. Cairo is listed as a 3B, where he is 10th, despite limited playing time (Beltre is 20th).
All told, if you were allowed to cheat a couple of positions you could come up with a roster like this:
C Johjima 58
1B Sexson 30
2B Lopez 28
3B Cairo 22
SS Betancourt 44
LF Vidro 60 (that’s my cheat; Ibanez only 6)
CF Ichiro 29
RF Balentien 22
P1 Batista 44
P2 Silva 41
For a total of 378. That would put you just outside the top ten. That’s the lineup we’re sending out there, more or less every night. Whoo hoo!
There are plenty of other players worse than ours on an individual basis — the top five are Freddy Sanchez (PIT 2B), Michael Bourn (HOU CF), Tony Pena (KC SS), Khalil Greene (SD SS), and Omar Vizquel (SF SS) — but you will notice that they don’t all play for the same team, and they all play critical defensive positions. The top-ranked non-SS, non-2B, non-CF is … Jose Vidro, who plays NOTHING, then a couple of terrible pitchers, another CF, then … Kenji.