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Q.  Hey, I like Jim's articles better than yours.  People check in because of the lead author's legendary name which is the stuff of legend, but atually stay because of the writings of everybody OTHER than him.  What's up with that?

A.  Hey, it works for every other blog in Seattle.  Why reinvent the wheel?

Kidding!  

Aside from Spec being more interested in the minors than most, and aside from his being a very acute fellow, and aside from his all-around greatness ... he has a secret.  

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Q.  That being?

A.  He stays laser-focused on the strike zone.  

Then, he comes up with 9,000 ways to organize stats around that.  Strike zone always at the center.  You're going to see things that others don't, if you keep noodling around that way.  Barbosa being a neat example...

As the founding father put it, "Baseball is about the strike zone."  It's why Spec was first to the Aaron Barbosa rookie-card trough (see his sparkling article here).  Others will feed later, but they're already far too late.  Spec will proudly wear the Barbosa jersey to the 2018 ALCS.  Anybody else daring to do so will be laughed out of town.

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Q.  Suppose that Aaron Barbosa pushed through each level, maintaining his signature attributes ...

• low K%,
• a low ISO, and
• great speed  ...

going up through the ranks.  That would make him what, Template-Ly speaking?

A.  It would make him --- > one whale of a fine percentage bet.

These three attributes ... "little guy you can't strike out, with blazing speed" ... those translate to higher levels, better than any other attributes I can think of.  Billy Hamilton runs as fast in Busch Stadium as he runs in a high school stadium.

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Q.  Is Dustin Pedroia the hitter you'd compare him to?

A.  If Barbosa were to develop any power, that would be the kind of franchise status he'd be aiming for... at 157 lbs., why not take the pressure off him and compare him to players who hit 2 home runs a year?

If you sort MLB hitters by Barbosa's skill set (no K's, 2 HR's, hi SB), you wind up with hitters like

• Marco Scutaro (*no SB here)
• Erick Aybar
• Denard Span
• Ichiro (AARP version)
• Jose Altuve

These guys are all defensive specialists who chip in offensively, and rack up 2.0 to 3.5 WAR pretty routinely.  You don't have to do too much to get to 3.0 WAR with this skill set.  Half your value is defensive.  Marco Scutaro, of all people, pulled down 2.7 WAR this year.

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Q.  Those guys don't seem as fast as Barbosa, except maybe Span.

A.  And Span had 3.5 WAR this year.  The year before, 3.6 WAR. 

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Q.  How does Span get you his 3.5 WAR?

A.  He hits .280, is tough to strike out, 45 walks, 70 strikeouts.  He steals 20 bases and plays a good CF -- he gets you +10 runs with the glove, at a CF spot.  Bam, the best position player for any team in the Mariners' weight class.

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Q.  How does such a player become better than Span?

A.  By running faster?

Here is an article at BJOL that tracks Billy Hamilton against Vince Coleman, Willie Wilson, and Omar Moreno.  If Barbosa were a 60+ SB guy then that's his peer group.

The whole discussion on Hamilton is, "can he keep his K's low enough that he'll have a chance to use his speed?"  And here the M's have a player pre-set to 5% strikeouts.  The contact is already there.

Granted, Hamilton's footspeed is an extra SD (standard deviation) above.  But how many SD's is Barbosa ahead of Hamilton in the K department?

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Q.  Is Barbosa a 60+ SB guy?

A.  You'll probably enjoy this interview rat cheer.  It echo'es the vibe you got from a certain Japanese outfielder we used to deploy.

Yeah, they say the kinds of things about Barbosa that they say about the true speed burners.  Anyhow, guys like him don't get into pro baseball without wings on their feet.

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