Vidro will vest if he’s not stopped
w/r/t Dave’s previous post (“Larry Stone, Bringer of Light“), I did some math.
He got 625 last year, leaving 525 for this year. He has 159 already, leaving 366. We’re 54 games in, leaving 108 chances for him to get playing time. Vidro has to pick up 3.4 PA/game remaining.
That’s not that hard: last year he averaged 4.25/game played. Though he’s moving up and down the lineup as McLaren goes ever more insane, that’s a reasonable number to use in our calculations. He can certainly manage 4 PA/game.
He only needs 86 (on the low end) to 92 or more starts to get vested. They need to bench him (or for him to be injured) for at least 16 games, between now and the end of the season before he’ll miss vesting, and it’s likely 22 games.
That’s over once a week for the rest of the season if you want it to be close and worry all year.
If you don’t, something has to happen. They need to call up Clement to DH for a while, which may be the plan, or they might be looking forward to the late-season roster expansion, when they can run anyone through that spot. They could just DH someone else twice a week or more. Like Ibanez, say.
But something has to happen. Vidro’s option will vest if he continues to start.
And here’s the thing — as much as I want to believe that the team won’t let it happen, I have no faith in that. This is a team with Cairo on the roster, a team that thought Vidro did a great job last year. If he hits for a hollow average the rest of the way, they’re a risk to pick up the option year even if it doesn’t vest. There is no way I can look at a roster management decision like this and feel sure that the team’s going to make the obvious correct decision.
Hot update: it appears I’m interpreting that quote wrong. Sorry.
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I thought that Larry’s source said he needed 600 PAs this year, not 525.
You could also have checked, and discovered that it was x PA over two years or 600 PA in this year. This all deals with the first of those two conditions.
Either way, I’m not going to believe the Mariners are going to give up on Vidro or Sexson until I see it.
That makes it sound like 600 is the min. even though he’ll reach 1150 before that.
The wording is kind of funny but I read thaat to mean that he has to hit either 625 in 2008 or 600 in 2008. Basically, he could get ‘extra credit’ for the 2008 PAs but not the 2007 PAs, so even if he’d had 1150 PAs last year, he’d still need to pickup at least 600 additional PAs this year.
Is that not the correct reading of it?
The way it was phrased in the excerpt Dave quoted, was that it was 1150 over the two years, but at least 600 in 2008. So, it looks like it was a hedge against injury for Vidro to have the 2008 only option of 625, and a hedge against sucktasticness for the M’s to have the 600 PA threshold in place no matter how many PAs he racked up over 550 the previous year.
(comment free of spelling errors in actual words, cannot vouch for made up words…)
They also have 9 games in NL parks, right? Given that Cairo now seems to be the 1B replacement, then perhaps he’d get maybe 10 PAs out of those games tops (as a late-inning PH). So thank god for Cairo I guess.
Of course, this part is all still true regardless of the vesting schedule:
Larry Stone said:
DMZ said:
No, 525 is not the threshold… he needs 525 more to get 1,150 for ’07-’08, but that condition stipulates at least 600 in ’08. He needs either 625 ’08 PA, or 600 ’08 PA.
That doesn’t help a ton, because “Vidro has to pick up 3.4 PA/game remaining” becomes “Vidro has to pick up 4.08 PA/game remaining” and he apparently averaged 4.25 PA/game last year. Hopefully he isn’t batting third for most of the rest of the season.
Ah, now I see why Vidro doesn’t speak up more: he’s close to the vest.
As he knows it’s the vest thing that can happen for him.
Ugh, yeah.
Vidro needs to get to 600 PA this year for the option to vest. It isn’t going to happen.
You can be the most pessimistic person in the world about this front office, but they’re not going to let his option vest. It has a 0.0 percent chance of happening.
Just in case: http://www.snipercentral.com/ Go for a knee.
Perhaps someone should sweep the leg!
It’s possible I’m just paranoid, but I read that (as you’ll note from my too-snooty comment above) as a logical “or” in the sense that it was
– condition A
or
– condition B
Not “combined and has to have 600 this year”. Maybe I’m just not seeing it, but that’s what I got from the Stone quote.
Also, really — I’ll believe Vidro’s not back for 2009 on Opening Day 2009. What reason has the team given us to have any faith in any given decision they face?
When faced with similarly under performing, expensive veterans in the last year of their contract, they’ve almost all been released before the season ended. Olerud, Boone, Aurilia, Spiezio, and Everett were all DFA’d and sent packing mid-season.
Unless we’re resorting to the default assumption that they’ll make the wrong decision every single time, there’s no evidence that the team is interested in bringing Vidro back for 2009. They’ve never done it before in similar situations.
Fact one: Sexson will not be a Mariner in 2009
Fact two: Vidro will not be a Mariner in 2009
Fact three: Ibanez will be a Mariner in 2009 and a vast majority of his playing time will come as the “Left Fielder”.
Sure, it’s true they released those guys, but they did so when they were obviously awful even in their eyes. If they were happy with Vidro last year, and we know from some of their decisions they were at least happy enough to play him over DHing Ibanez and playing Jones, then what’s to say that if Vidro doesn’t manage to hit for a high average the rest of the year that they won’t retain him?
I’m not arguing that they’d keep him in the lineup if he was hitting .220. It’s if he goes “.330 in the two months since the back spasms subsided” or something similar.
condition A: 625 PA in 2008
or
condition B: 1150 PA in 2007 and 2008, 600 of which are in 2008 (combined and has to have 600 this year)
right?
Even if he goes .330/.380/.420 for a few months, they’ll toss him once we get to August. If he’s hitting well, they’ll pick up most of his salary and trade him to a contender who wants a bench player. If he hits .270/.330/.360, they’ll release him.
Either way, he’s pretty likely to end the year off the roster.
So Dave, if I’m understanding you right, there’s reason to believe the the Mariners have a more realistic view of Vidro’s value (or lack thereof) than they did last year that isn’t so heavily driven by a completely empty batting average?
That’d make me ecstatic, because it’d mean they’re learning, at least a little.
Baby steps.
Well, Vidro’s batting average sucks, and they were aware that was his main skill, so they now agree that he’s not very good. But really, this is like a blind man running into a pole and then sidestepping it after getting up – it’s not learning that should be applauded.
What is the advantage of releasing players in the last year of their contract? Their roster spot? Don’t you lose out on extra draft picks, or is that only if they sign elsewhere?
I will puke if his option picks up.
Here’s the thing. The M’s are well aware of exactly when his option will vest. Vidro’s option won’t vest by chance, or just because he’s playing a lot now, etc.
All I’m saying is that it’s like any other decision. It will vest if the M’s want it to vest. If they do not want it to vest, then they will not let it vest. There’s really no sense it counting the PAs, etc.
24- good question. I would love to know the answer in regards to releasing Sexson and Vidro.
#24:
The advantage is that you can add someone better to the roster or create an opening to give some playing time to a young player.
Although you technically lose the possibility of getting draft picks, in reality you don’t lose picks. You only get compensation draft picks when you offer arbitration to a departing free agent who is ranked as a Type A or Type B free agent, and the player signs with another team. When a player is released mid-season it’s almost certain that player’s team would not have offered arbitration to that player at the end of the season.