Q.  The quintessential Bill James question, applied up-and-down a 25-man roster.  So, how about Jose?  Can you win your next pennant with him?

A.  Sure.

He's an average-solid ML regular, worth about $10M a year in free agent terms.  He makes $2.5M next year, and $5M the year after (on a slam-dunk club option). 

So, in terms of being a Moneyball player?  Any young player who is solid, and underpaid, is a nice step towards a pennant. 

Especially if he's at a hard-to-fill Yahtzee position, like second base.  He prevents hemorrhaging of the Betancourt, Cedeno, and Hannahan varieties.

That's provided that you leverage the cost savings to add Stars to your scrubs, obviously.

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Q.  What do you mean, average-solid?

A.  Average-solid has a positive connotation, not a negative one.  It's a "50" on the 20-80 scale, and means the man is every inch a major leaguer. A "50" fastball means it belongs in the big leagues.

Jose is an average hitter or a little better -- or you expect him to be in 2010-11.  He was 104 OPS+ last year; he's almost 100 this year; as usual he's heating up in the second half and should finish about 105 or so.

He's an average defender at second base.   He's an above-average clutch player -- he drives in "hard" runs as they say in New York -- and is reportedly an above-average teammate.

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Q.  "Hard" runs?

A.   Some guys, you get in a big game, a tough pitcher, a tight score, the Big Dog kind of games... the only way in the world they're going to drive in a run is with a bloop.

Other guys, it could be CC Sabathia in Game 4 of the ALCS, scouting reports up to his elbows, pedal to the metal .... and that hitter is just as liable to rip one off the wall.

"Hard" runs are a concept they talk about in Big Dog baseball cities.  :- )  Jose can drive them in.

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Q.  But, he should be accomplishing more than this, right?

A.  Of course.

He has one of the fastest bats in the major leagues; he was one of the quickest Mariners ever to conquer AAA; he was anointed by Pat Gillick as a super-special talent.

He's 6'2", 200 lbs.  He's afraid of nobody.  He concentrates in the batter's box.

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Q.  What's the holdup?

A.   We knew that he was not going to walk, but his power has failed to develop.   It has failed to develop because he has chosen not to develop it.

Jose takes almost a "pepper" swing at the baseball.  He takes an extremely wide stance, no weight transfer at all, not a lot of torque --- so when he squares the ball up, he gets a nice flat, static line drive that lands well short of the fence.

Being out in front of the ball so much doesn't help, either, because the bat's on top of the ball all the time.  The grounders and LD's zap his power.

...............

As we've all known for two years, JLo's homers barely clear the scoreboard in LF.  He hasn't shown the occasional 425-footers ... as Cranklin does ... that suggest potential 35-homer power.

..............

Average-solid is of course one possible career path for any blue-chipper out of AAA.  If only 30% of blue-chippers go on to star, what do the others do?  A boatload of them turn out to be head-down, middle-of-the-pack grunts.

Anyway, if Jose plays as average-solid the next two years?  Who says he has to do more...