Nationals Opinions: Best Second Baseman In Nats History

Jose Vidro

As I mentioned before, Jose Vidro was already the franchise second baseman when the Expos moved to Washington DC. The sixth round pick in the 1992 MLB Draft spent 2005 and 2006 with Washington, the first two seasons that the team was in DC.

His best season out of the two came in 2006. In 127 games that season, he hit .289 with seven home runs and 47 RBI’s. His on-base percentage was fourth on the team in ’06 (.348) and third on the team in 2005 (.339). Even though his numbers were respectable, Vidro was not the player that he was in Montreal when he went to three All-Star games and won a Silver Slugger award in 2004.

This is especially true when you consider his WAR of -0.8 was the second lowest on the team in ’06 (Jose Guillen was -0.9). His defensive WAR in 2006 was -2.0, which was the worst single-season of his entire career.

Ultimately, Washington would end up trading Vidro to the Seattle Mariners in December 2006 for Emiliano Fruto and Chris Snelling. Snelling was the only one of the two who actually played at the Major League level, appearing in 24 games at catcher in 2007.

Vidro doesn’t get the nod for this honor in my opinion because the glory days of his career were left up in Canada. While he would go on to play his final two seasons in Mariners, he was not the All-Star that he was with the Expos.