Wilson Valdez
Claimed by the M’s today, in their attempts to acquire every scrub on the waiver wire. When I first heard the name, I thought, “Why would the Dodgers waive Wilson Alvarez? He’s been pretty good the last two years, is left-handed and doesn’t make much money.” Then I moved on and thought of Wilson Delgado, the middle infielder who’s managed just 542 at-bats over a ten-year career. But no, it wasn’t him either, although Delgado probably isn’t a bad comp — they’re both no-hit middle infielders, though Valdez is six years younger.
Anyway, this is the guy they picked up today. He’s now been waived three times in his career, and another time was traded for Billy Koch. Quality player here, folks. I suppose the positive is his career .302 batting average at AAA, but it’s a pretty empty .300 (.340 OBP, .368 SLG). Oh, and he has ten homers in 2422 professional at-bats.
To make room on the 40-man, Rafael Soriano was placed on the 60-day DL. Keep in mind, they still need to make room for Jeff Nelson and Aaron Sele… as Dave mentioned yesterday, they’ve done a pretty good job bungling the roster lately, and they’re not quite done yet.
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45 Responses to “Wilson Valdez”
Yes, I just saw that on the M’s site: http://tinyurl.com/4mk45
I guess the question is “… does he play great defense at SS?” That would be the only reason to add him (and I still wasn’t done scratching my head over yesterday’s move). Is *this* the Pokey insurance we’ve been looking for? Hmmmm …
Anybody care to project what is going to happen to our 40-man roster in the next few days? It is feeling really crowded at the moment …
Geh.
One Willie Bloomquist isn’t enough, we need every over-rated, under-talent no-hit hustler the game has to offer! We’ll run out grounders for Teh Win!
There’s still Scott Atchison to 60-day DL, if his injury is really that bad. Assuming his spot goes to either Nelson or Sele, they’d only have to free up one more spot. Somehow I’m sensing a Cha Seung Baek trade. He isn’t as good as some of the other pitchers on the 40-man, and doesn’t have the major league experience that JJ Putz does.
Other than Baek, I suppose there’s Mateo (who pissed the organization off last year with his work ethic), maybe Putz, they could try to slip Thornton through waivers. A longshot might be trading Franklin to a team that needs a fifth starter at the last minute.
I still can’t believe they spent roster spots on Abraham Nunez and Wilson Valdez.
jason
I’m sensing a MINOR deal.
Meaning, minor leagues only.
I’d be surprised if Franklin was dealt right now.
Oooh, I forgot about Leone.
jason
Don’t say things you can’t take back.
If something ISN’T going on, then Bavasi has lost it. Right now the superfluous guys on the 40 man roster include Franklin, Bloomquist, Dobbs, Leone, Spiezio, Nunez, and Valdez. Any of them could be traded without a significant impact. Only Franklin and Spiezio are likely to contribute anything if kept. Surely, there’s a trade in the works. The Ms really need a lefty pinch-hitter and a decent shortstop when Pokey is hurt or pinch hit for.
Any speculation on who might be available to fit those job descriptions? I can think of Alex Cora.
I wouldn’t call Franklin superfluous. He’s not good, by any means, but he can throw 200 replacement level (or slightly better) innings, and that’s worth something.
Speez, Dobbs, Nunez, Valdez, and Willie are certainly extraneous. Leone might have value.
Well, the clock on the Bavasi reign is starting to tick…
Why do I keep thinking that we’re about to see a spare-parts trade with the Rockies? I don’t why I keep free-associating Clint Barmes with a Bavasi-type player.
Spezio would have to go with cash, so they’d have to get cash in at some point.
Franklin… who needs a #5 starter? Arizona comes to mind. If so, who do we get in exchange? I can’t see Spezio in that deal because the D-Backs are very cash-poor.
You know, he’d be perfect for the Cardinals in long relief and spot starts. At least he’d be a day’s drive from SPIROOOOO, OK-LA-HOOOO-MA.
Franklin isn’t superfluous, but he is probably expendable. If you figure on Sele giving you two months of replacement-level pitching before he implodes, that gives you until the end of May to get Nageotte or Baek ready to start. By the first of June one of them should be ready to go. If Sele’s defying age and the law of averages, even better. If Sele outright fails, you can always call in Mr. Overpaid Bullpen Pitcher 2005 himself, Ron Villone.
If all this fails, then you consider King Felix.
No matter what, Franklin’s trade value is high enough right now to get us a better bat than what’s on the bench right now. (That is, a better bat than Suckquist or Valdez.) By the deadline his value will probably be gone.
Looks like I’m not the only one who’s hoping against hope that this signals a trade of some kind. If not, the Mariners better pray to every god in every known pantheon of every religion ever worshipped on the face of the Earth that they don’t sustain any injuries to the starters. Good Lord, the bottom half of this roster is a complete joke…really speaks volumes about the farm systems utter lack of MLB-ready position players when they’re forced to acquire this many below-replacement level journeymen waiver fodder just to fill spots on the 40-man roster. Gag me.
Remind me again why the Mariners are paying Mat Olkin?
Valdez once notched FOUR total bases in a single Major League game!
That’s right sports fans, YOUR Seattle Mariners are going to sport the best Double A bench in big-league history!
Valdez is almost certainly going to be waived again. He’s roster filler for Tacoma if no one else claims him.
Re: #10 – Barmes is the Rockies starting shortstop and while he is nothing to get terribly excited about, he shouldn’t be considered as a spare part at this point in his career.
The Valdez move has to be about having an extra body in Vegas and as Tacoma insurance. The club sent Micky Lopez and Benji Gil on their way and might need a slick fielding middle infielder to help in the late innings and relieve Morse and Lopez (which might mean they are leaning towards carrying Santiago).
Then why release (trade) Mickey?
“gives you until the end of May to get Nageotte…ready”
Fat chance. This guy is going nowhere. For every prospect that fills one with hope, we have two that scare one witless…
Wilson Valdez is a poor-man’s Ramon Santiago (for whatever THAT is worth). This latest move simply boggles the mind.
I am kind of wishing we would have spent that Ron Villone money on keeping Jolbert Cabrera who right now (to me at least) would have solved our bench problem.
Even though they are in the same division and a better team now wouldn’t Speizio be a good fit for the Angels now? He would fill a need for them.
Franklin would be a good fit for the Padres…. Winn and Franlin for Klesko, JJ Furmaniak and Justin Germano with the Pads evening up the money (I assume Klesko makes more than Winn and Franklin combined) would be a trade that I think would help both teams…. The Mariners would get left handed power for Safeco with Ibanez in left and Klesko at dh; the Padres get a fly ball pitcher for their ballpark and an outfielder who is better suited for Petco Park than Klesko…. Furmaniak would be a better option at short if Reese can’t play than Santiago or Bloomquist.
-Padres just traded for Tim Redding
-Klesko is owed 20 mil over the next 2 years and has a full no trade clause that he almost certainly would use.
Who needs Wilson Valdez when you have…MICHAEL GARCIAPARRA!!! Hah!
Re.21 Agreed on Jolbert Cabrera. I never thought I’d pine for him, but he’s a much better class of almost-useless-scrub than we have on the bench this year.
I’m I reading the link right, or is this the second time Wilson Valdez has been waived in TWO days?
I fail to see the problem here. Any of the so-called “superfluous” guys can be waived, and if we lose, for example, Greg Dobbs, is that really a problem? I don’t know enough to compare Santiago to Alvarez, or Nunez to Jamal Strong, but if these waiver-wire pickups give us more options in filling rosters or making trades, what’s the harm?
Aren’t we glad that Bavasi is at least watching the waiver wire? If there better choices for waiver-wire pickups, who are they? Most of the comments here just sound like habitual snarkiness, rather than substantive critique.
Ben Grieve was released yesterday… is there a reason we didn’t just pick him up instead? He’s having a good spring and he’s a better hitter than anything we have, plus left-handed.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=5912
I’m not even sure why he got released, but it seems like a good move for filling out our bench.
Sorry for not getting all the facts before posting…
This link: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05092/481748.stm
Says he signed with the Cubs as a FA already. Texas and Chicago both contacted him. He’s signing with the Cubs for a “chance” to make their big league club.
Seems like he’d be an automatic to make our team, so I’m confused why we’re wasting our time with Valdez and the other guy. .360 career OBP has to mean something to our FO.
re #30
Personally, I agree, but it’s important to know if the guy was even interested in coming up here. If he already had preferences for Chicago and Texas (both hitters’ parks, by the way), then he’s not an option.
This just in… Bavasi signs Domingo Ramos and Mickey Brantley off of waiver wire…
And surprisingly he had no hits today.
And even more suprisingly, he was kept on the 25 man roster today.
Atchison to the 60 day DL
Nunez DFA’d
Piniero to the 15 day DL
Reese to the 15 day DL
Snelling to the 15 day DL
Alvarez and Dobbs selected for bench.
You mean Valdez? And Dobbs? Does that mean we’re carrying only 11 pitchers or did I miscount?
Oh, I see the roster now on Yahoo. Yes, Dobbs is in (for now) with the 12 pitchers I had thought.
This team is awful…sadly, it might be in the best interest as fans to hope that the M’s just bomb this year, so that the FO will be totally cleaned out.
[deleted for extremely long text link which messes up comments]
HAH!
http://seattle.mariners.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20050402&content_id=994034&vkey=spt2005news&fext=.jsp&c_id=sea
Gah, both Aaron Sele and Ryan Franklin starting…
We really need to buy two top of the rotation arms next off-season.
well, looks like WFB finally gets his chance to start at SS while Pokey recovers. Lord, I hope they bring JLO up instead! For now, Valdez is backup insurance at SS until Pokey comes back.
Would we rather see Spiezio and Aurilia starting on the left side of the infield for two weeks? The team is not “awful”–it hasn’t even played any games. People’s reactions to the 24-25 temps are kind of scary. The Sonics were bad, too, and then they lost to the Clippers by 30 to open the season. I thought they would be last in the conference. Let’s let the season get underway and see what happens.
Grrrrr…
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2002230010_mari04.html
Despite the defensive similarities, the decision probably was based somewhat on Valdez’s offensive potential.
In the Marlins’ system in 2003, he hit .313 at Class AA Carolina and .287 after a promotion to AAA Albuquerque. Last year, he hit .319 in 66 games in the Pacific Coast League again, then .302 at AAA Charlotte after being traded to the White Sox.
Considered a good bunter, the 5-foot-11, 170-pounder also showed speed at all levels, totaling 81 steals over his last two minor-league seasons.
Lifetime SB%= 68% (basically, his base stealing in the minors neither helps nor hurts his offensive contributions).
The point about his .300 being as empty a .300 as you can get has already been made, but add to that his odds of hitting an empty .280 in the majors aren’t as good as him hitting an empty .225 like Ramon Santigo has, and that his base stealing isn’t so good, and… oh, screw it. Let me respond to the point made above,
I’ll put it this way- you can win punting offense at a position like SS (it’s done all the time), and you can probably win with a crap bench, and you can win with a questionable rotation, or some marginal veterans stuffed in your bullpen. But the more of these flaws you add in, the less likely you ARE to win. These are all decisions Bavasi has had his hand in, as well as signing Beltre and so on.
I think you have to conclude from the construction of this roster that they know this team can’t win the division this year. What they’re trying to do is put together a team that will be reasonably competitive and draw OK this year without sacrificing the future.
Hence giving Lopez and Felix another year of development while filling out the bench and bullpen with NRI veterans, local favorites, and waiver wire pickups. And keeping Thornton despite his craptastic spring.
They’re not doing this in order to put the best team on the field tonight. Rather they’re doing it to put the best team on the field in 2006.
Given that, does it really matter whether the stopgap SS is Santiago or Valdez?
Actually it does matter whether they use Valdez or Santiago — Santiago isn’t on the 40-man roster