Well, someone in the front office has been reading my blog (as well as those of other Mariners fans), since Seattle's housecleaning continues with the long-awaited designation of Jose Vidro for assignment. This gives the Ms 10 days to trade, release, or assign Vidro to the minors. Since they have no plans to bring him back up, it's doubtful they'd put him in Tacoma (and even more doubtful that he'd accept the assignment). It's even more doubtful that any team would take him on, at least at his current salary, anyway.
In his place, Seattle recalled Wladimir Balentien, giving us another look at the future makeup of the team. He continued to rip up AAA pitching since his demotion on June 17, putting up a .294/.382/.606 July and a .375/.412/1.287 August (in 4 games). More importantly, he showed better plate discipline, with 17 walks against 29 strikeouts. That's not beautiful, but it's better than he'd been doing, and hopefully he can carry that over into the majors.
As I've said before, it's still better to put your future in the field and see what you've got than keep your past out there, just because some idiot (Bill Bavasi) signed him to a big contract. Sometimes the cost of a move isn't purely financial, and this is a good example of that.
Bravo to Lee Pelekoudas for having the cojones that Bavasi lacked. He's cleaning up another guy's mistake, but at least he's got the courage to cut these jokers loose. Now all we have to do is finish the long-delayed swap of Jarrod Washburn and my wish list will be complete.
Keywords: Bill Bavasi, designate for assignment, Jarrod Washburn, Jose Vidro, Lee Pelekoudas, Seattle Mariners
