David Vidal

From BR Bullpen

David Javier Vidal

BR Register page

Biographical Information[edit]

David Vidal has played as high as AA.

Vidal was taken by the Cincinnati Reds in the 8th round of the 2010 amateur draft out of junior college; the scout was Tony Arias. He began his pro career with the Billings Mustangs (.172/.273/1.72 in 8 G), was dropped to the AZL Reds (.297/.354/.538, 34 RBI in 36 G) and ended up with the Dayton Dragons (2 for 13, 2B, 2 BB). He was 4th in the Arizona League in RBI, tied for 6th with 6 home runs and was third in slugging (after Henry Moreno and Ji-man Choi). Christian Villanueva beat him out as the All-Star at 3B.

He had an excellent 2011 for Dayton - .280/.350/.498, 37 2B, 20 HR, 85 R, 85 RBI, .965 fielding percentage at the hot corner. He made the Midwest League leaderboard in runs (tied for third with Donald Lutz and Robby Price), doubles (1st), home runs (tied for 4th with Lutz and Jonathan Rodriguez), RBI (5th), slugging (8th, between Rymer Liriano and Jake Marisnick), fielding percentage at 3B (1st) and putouts at 3B (1st, 105). He again lost out on All-Star honors, this time to Nick Castellanos. Among Reds minor leaguers, he was tied Lutz for second in runs (behind Billy Hamilton), tied Eric Campbell for the most doubles, tied Lutz and Campbell for second in home runs (behind fellow Puerto Rican Neftali Soto) and led in RBI (two ahead of Campbell).

The San Juan native slipped in 2012; he hit .281/.358/.512 in 35 games for the Bakersfield Blaze but .230/.294/.397 in 97 games for the Pensacola Blue Wahoos; he fielded .965 overall and did finish the year with 28 doubles and 18 home runs. He tied Sean Buckley for 5th in the Cincinnati system in two-baggers and tied Steve Selsky for third in home runs. In winter ball, he hit .219/.265/.281 for the Indios de Mayagüez. In 2013, he fell further, to .225/.294/.343 in 60 games for Bakersfield and .206/.286/.244 in 46 games for Pensacola. He was down to 32 runs, 16 doubles, 4 home runs and 25 RBI in 106 contests. Moving to catcher with the 2014 Blaze, he hit .260/.335/.407 and threw out 34% of those who tried to steal, while fielding .996 at the new spot. He did have 13 passed balls in 32 games there, though, and was cut loose late in the year.

Moving on to the independent leagues, he signed with the Somerset Patriots for 2015 and posted a batting line of .259/.328/.395 with 26 doubles and 12 home runs, back at third base again. His second try at winter ball went somewhat better, as he hit .237/.336/.360 for the Criollos de Caguas. He led the Roberto Clemente Professional Baseball League with 11 doubles, one ahead of Henry Ramos. He made huge strides his second season with Somerset, producing at a .320/.413/.633 clip with 26 dingers, 66 runs and 62 RBI in 85 games. He was second in the Atlantic League in home runs (one shy of Jeremy Barfield). Had he qualified, he would have led in slugging (by .056 ahead of Michael Snyder) and OBP (.014 ahead of James Skelton) and tied K.C. Hobson for 4th in average. He finally made a league All-Star team at third base; Barfield took the MVP.

He played seven games for Caguas in the regular season in 2016-2017 (.227/.292/.545) but came up big in the postseason. He scored the winning run to give them the pennant. Then, in the 2017 Caribbean Series, he hit .417/.462/.875 with 3 home runs, 5 runs and 5 RBI in six games. His Game 1 home run off Derrick Loop gave Caguas their first run of the Series and he later went deep off both Leonel Campos and Luis Ramirez. He was among the Series leaders in average (4th, between Carlos Benítez and Chris Roberson), slugging (1st, .187 ahead of Benítez), OPS (1st, .095 ahead of Iván DeJesús Jr.), runs (tied for first with DeJesús), hits (10, 2nd, one behind DeJesús), RBI (tied for first with Jose Castillo and Benítez), home runs (1st, one ahead of William Saavedra) and total bases (21, 1st, 6 ahead of DeJesús). It was the first three-homer Series since Zelous Wheeler in 2014. Vidal was named the All-Star third baseman and the Caribbean Series MVP as Caguas was the first Puerto Rican champion since 2000. It ended the longest drought of Caribbean Series titles for Puerto Rico.

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