The Tragedy of Jose Vidro
DMZ · August 12, 2008 at 1:20 am · Filed Under Mariners
What is a professional hitter without a job?
A chart of where Turbo batted up until his release
During this time, Jose Vidro hit .232/.259/.329, dragging his season line to .234/.274/.338 (fun fact: Betancourt was .222/.238/.289 and Johjima .188/.238/.265 over the same period).\
He ends his time here as the worst DH in the league, one of the worst hitters in all of baseball, and an instructional lesson on how player evaluations based on superficial examinations of batting average and RBI go wrong.
It is both stunning and impressive how miserably the M’s have failed to fill the DH spot ever since Edgar’s retirement.
Shocking that he never dropped below 6th. If they were going to keep making a huge error, they weren’t going to half-ass it. No sense being half-stupid, I guess is their philosophy.
(Typo in the headline or a joke I’m not in on)
Wow.
This almost makes me miss the kind of production we got from Ruben Sierra.
You’re doing it all wrong!! You’re not taking into account Turbos veteran grittiness/clutchiness, and the fact that he’s been through the wars!
you know, I think it really was more of a tradgedy than a tragedy …
Look on the bright side: that chart looks terrible, but look how fantastic his chart looks since he was released.
If you unfocus your eyes and squint a little, the dots form what appears to be Turbo’s bloated, sedentary body laying supine with arms behind his head.
Okay, maybe it’s just me that sees that.
Tragedy…when the Turbo’s gone and you can’t go on…oh, wait.
That’s funny, sometimes I see Jose Vidro’s bloated, sedentary body totally naked. And instead of arms behind his head, he is holding and licking an ice cream cone.
I think I’ll leave continued discussion of “naked” and “ice cream cone” to others and focus on “analysis”. Namely, I see how the M’s didn’t do a proper “player evaluation”, but really feel a whole stat nerd-o-gram wasn’t necessary with Vidro. A very simple “analysis” could have been performed.
In sum: DHs should not be ex-2B, unless their name is Hornsby.
The end.
P.S.: Okay, maybe Morgan or Sandberg in a real pinch…and Avila if you’re getting really kooky. But that’s it.
Also: Paul Molitor.
What is a stat nerd-o-gram, exactly?
That graph?
It’s when you pay a bespectacled dude to show up at someone’s door with Dock Ellis’s career FIP adjusted for league, era, park, and chemical environment (documentation affirming mom’s-basement-resideness and game-never-in-person-seenage of bespectacled dude available on request).
DMZ: Nah, the graph is keen and neat-o, I’m referring to the original “analysis” that led to a former 2B being overpaid to be the team’s DH just because he couldn’t field anymore.
I’m confused. How is that a stat nerd-o-gram? They basically just said “he’s a switch hitter, he’s awesome, we’ll move him to DH and do some things for his legs”. There was no statistical analysis involved in their decision at all.
Exactly. Exactly my point.
Also, Professional Hitter!