Back in the AL West article and its subsequent comments, I made these comments regarding Jose Vidro as a designated hitter:

"Vidro had a .775 OPS last year, which doesn't cut it for a DH...Trading for him and making him DH last year wasn't a good idea, and it's still not..."

"When you don't play any defense, you should be a great offensive player. Jose Vidro hasn't fit that mold since 2003." I'd like to add that he played in Montreal in 2003.

"[H]e was one of the worst full-time DHs last season."

"[I]t's easy to see why I discount his usefulness as a full-time DH."

A couple of people have called me out on this claiming that I couldn't be more wrong. To present my final case for the argument, I compared Vidro to all full-time designated hitters from the 2007 season.

Who gets included in the full-time DH discussion?
I've found that FanGraphs is the easiest site to copy a large collection of statistics into a spreadsheet, so I used their listing for the qualifying DHs. There are a total of ten: Jack Cust, Johnny Damon, Vladimir Guerrero, Travis Hafner, Aubrey Huff, David Ortiz, Gary Sheffield, Jim Thome, Frank Thomas, and Jose Vidro. Four teams aren't represented on the list, but this list will serve its intended purpose.

Is Jose Vidro an above average designated hitter?
I used these ten players to figure out the average statistics for a full-time DH. For simplicity's sake, I will just post the average DH triple slash line - .288/.386/.485. Vidro's is .314/.381/.394, so he hit for a much higher batting average than the average DH. What does batting average measure that isn't better indicated by the player's OBP? There are some differences, but for the way that most people interpret AVG, OBP is a much better indicator. Moving away from AVG, he's just about average in OBP and well below average in SLG. Let's break this down farther by looking at hit percentages.

Vidro reached first (either by single or walk) 33.2% of the time, second 4.3%, third 0.0%, and home 1.0%. The average DH reached first 29.6% of the time, second 5.0%, third 0.2%, and home 3.9%. Over 600 PA (roughly what Vidro had last year), Vidro would have reached first 22 more than average, second 4 less, third 1 less, and home 17 less. That's the same number of times reaching base, but the average DH turns those 22 singles (or walks) into 4 doubles, 1 triple, and 17 home runs. I think that clearly shows Vidro as being worse than the average DH. (Before anyone complains that Vidro gives himself up to move Ichiro over, he only had 5 sacrifices last year.)

Was Vidro among the worst at his position in 2007?
We can also throw out any notion that he was the worst DH last year (Aubrey Huff takes the cake), but was he among the worst? To answer this question, I looked at his rank among the ten full-time DHs in 2007:

3rd in AVG
6th in OBP
10th in SLG
9th in OPS
1st in 1B%
6th in 2B%
8th in 3B%
10th in HR%
9th in BB%
1st in K%
3rd in BB/K
8th in WPA (Win Probability Added)
9th in RC (Runs Created)
9th in RC/27 (Runs Created per Game)
9th in BRAA (Batting Runs Above Average)
8th in EQA (Equivalent Average)
8th in VORP (Value Over Replacement Player)
9th in WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player)

Other than batting average, single percentage, and strikeout percentage, Jose Vidro was closer to the bottom than he was to the top in every statistic. In all of the advanced "all-in-one" statistics (WPA, RC, RC/27, BRAA, EQA, VORP, WARP), he was either 8th or 9th. Out of the ten full-time DHs, that makes him better than Aubrey Huff and maybe Johnny Damon.

When it all comes down to it, when you think about a pennant-winning baseball team, do they have a singles-hitting DH like Jose Vidro? The answer is no more times than not. For that reason, I believe the Mariners have a hole at DH rather than a solution. If he was still a second baseman and hit like this, it would be a completely different story. When your sole responsibility on the team is to hit, you have to be able to hit for power. The Mariners need to get someone better than Vidro to DH. If they don't, they'll be sacrificing that spot on the roster in nearly every single head-to-head matchup in the American League.