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Q.  To which bats would you compare Michael Morse?

A.  As far as bases lost and bases gained, he stacks up pretty decently to Billy Butler.  And Alex Gordon.  And Nick Swisher.  And Kendrys Morales.  We're guessing you've heard of them.

BaseballHQ projects him to 290/330/500 for the upcoming year, this assuming he's in the Nationals' home park.  SSI figures Safeco to be a friendlier park than that, and Morse's hulking body would be a brilliant test case for the new fences.

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As far as swings that remind ... Morse when he came up was consciously imitating ARod.  A member of the Charlie Lau school.  Frank Thomas.  The left-hand heavy sweeping arc.

That's all gone now.  Morse is one of the biggest and strongest men in the game of baseball, he sinks his weight, compactly follows through with two hands.  Richie Sexson and Mike Piazza had comparable swings.  He's bludgeoning the ball with the Bruce Irvin speed-rusher body.

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Q.  What do you think of the lucky BABIP?

A.  Amazing article by Dave Cameron at Fangraphs.

What did these 29-year-olds have in common with Morse?  Okay:  Josh Hamilton, Derek Jeter, Kevin Youkilis, Matt Holliday, the borderline HOF'er Bobby Abreu (at ages 28-30 again), the fiery-hot Milton Bradley, Kevin Youkilis when he was challenging for the MVP?

Read Cameron's article and find out.

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Q.  Does Michael Morse really hit the ball that hard?

A.  In 2011, BaseballHQ calculated his Power Index (PX) at 173, where 100 is major league average.  There's Josh Hamilton, Mark Reynolds, Adam Dunn, and Mike Morse pretty much.  This kid has swelled up like a punctured can of tuna.  Hammer time, babe.

Cameron concludes that Morse hits the ball EXTREMELY hard, and that the BABIP is generally a skill.  He's right.

To be fair, HQ projects Morse to a 134 PX next year, which has him tumbling down in to Albert Pujols and Robinson Cano territory.

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Q.  What was that thing about the topspin swing?

A.  That it makes the ball sit down at Safeco, right through the air-popper effect.  

And that Michael Morse has it in spades.  Note his career 1.49 grounder ratio, which converges on a preposterous HR-per-fly-ball rate.  Watch him take a swing.  I'm tellin' ya, man.  Roger Federer.

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Q.  You're saying you want Morse here.

A.  No, I want Giancarlo Stanton here.

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Q.  Is 290/330/500 really a fair projection for the guy?

A.  His lifetime total is .295/.347/.492 and his OPS+ is 126.  I think at this point you can give him credit for .295/.347/.492.  He's almost retired, you feel me?

Over the period 2009-12, Morse has the #24 wOBA in both leagues.  Adjacent to him are Troy Tulowitzki, Shin-Soo Choo and Carlos Gonzalez.  Several slots below Morse sits Billy Butler at #30 in the majors over that time span.  

I know, right?!

Anyway.  If were were paying for Billy Butler to DH, you'd be okay with it.  Point is, there's a case for Mike Morse.  It's that he can hit a ton.  You'd be importing a #3 and a #4 hitter to anchor the kids' lineup.

Other batters very comparable to Morse:  the age 26-31 Richie Sexson, and the current Kendrys Morales.  To get to Sexson from where Morse stands, you've got to move some 1B's and some 2B's over into BB's and HR's, in equal measure.  Sexson had a .350 OBP and .500 SLG, but he did it by pitch stalking.

Morales and Morse are pretty much a push all the way around.

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