Thursday, December 14, 2006

Trade: Jose Vidro for Chris Snelling and Emiliano Fruto

Last night a head scratchier of a trade was made as the Nationals sent 32 year old, and $8m dollar second baseman to the Mariners for 23 year old pitcher Emiliano Fruto and 25 year old Man of Glass Chris Snelling. The reason this is a head scratchier is taking Vidro away from the Nationals leaves them zero secondbasemen, and now gives the Mariners a second player at the Key Stone to add to Jose Lopez.

Sticking with that theme for a moment, I would guess that means that Vidro will DH or play 1b and Richie Sexson will find himself on a bus out of town. From the Nationals perspective I'd guess this means they are handing the SS reigns over to free agent bust Christian Guzman and with Felipe Lopez shifting over to 2b.

Fruto has a great arm, and could contribute as a reliever or a starter He has the pitches to either and can generate enough swings and misses to be a first class reliever, or middle rotation starter, of course he needs to gain command of the strike zone for that to happen.

Snelling is a very talented AAAA outfielder, who for 3 years now has been on the cusp of being a a major league regular. Unfortunately injuries have side tracked him.

A lot of the Internet is screaming about how bad a trade this is from Seattle perspective, but before I do that I want to see where the chips land. It isn't unreasonable for Vidro to hit more as a DH than as a 2b and it, with Snellings recurring injury woos it wouldn't shock me if he just turns into a left handed version of Jason Werth. This deal could also make the Nationals are shedding 8m dollars and a 2b who can't field, unless the reinvest the money and find a middle infielder to pair to Lopez this deal could conceivably hurt them as well. I'll stick by my label head scratchier.

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