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Regarding the unliklihood that Brendan Ryan ever becomes more than offensive liability.  I have to admit that ever since the Mariners picked him up, that I haven't thought there was any upside to his offense either;  no real power, above average but not amazing speed, poor patience, and at 28, no reason to expect much in the way of development.  And then I noticed something about Brendan Ryan while looking at his Baseball-Reference page for the umpteenth time.  The dude is 6'-2", 195 pounds.  I had been operating under the assumption that he was a David Eckstein type; 5'-10" and 150 pounds of hustle.
So, of course, I ran a Play Index search on recent middle infielders that size that didn't hit at that age and was surprised to find not much in the way of hope (with a couple other current, more expensive shortstops in Jason Bartlett and Yunel Escobar).   But there were a couple interesting comparables:  Carlos Guillen and Mark Grudzielanek.
For me, the more similar is Grudzielanek since Guillen seems to have walked more and run less and I think people believed more in his bat even then.  Grudzielanek is about the same size, used a similar approach, and had similarly poor performance in his early seasons (other than leading the league in doubles during a season where his ISO sat at .111).
Something clicked for Grudzielanek in 1999 and with a little BABiP luck, he managed a 110 OPS+.  I think the 29 & older part of Grudzielanek's offensive career is a good target for Ryan.  It's not like Mark Grudzielanek ever set the world on fire, but he did manage a 95 OPS+ from age 29-38 (including a 99 at age 38).
The trick is figuring out what took Grudzielanek from an 81 OPS+ to a 95.  Was it the move off of shortstop at 30?  The move to more offensively minded ballparks than the decrepit Olympic Stadium, or did he just figure out how to hit it where they weren't, because looking at his stats, that's most of it.  For Grudzielanek's first 4 years, his BABiP was .311, and for the next 10, it was .328, and honestly, that and little bump in BBs is the improvement.  Admittedly he earned it, moving his line drive rate from 22% to 25%.
Anyway, enough about Grudzielanek.  Why does this relate to Ryan?  He has the same basic skill set and size as Grudzielanek (with the added ability to field shortstop terrifically) and with his reputed baseball rat type attitude, would probably be open to the teachings of one Dr. Elliot.  Now I'm certainly not suggesting any miracles (like I said, I think the upside is Grudzielanek's 10 year run of 95~ OPS+, and there were a bunch of guys on that list who didn't have enough offense to keep them on a an ML roster by 33), but if Ryan can squeeze a couple more percentage points out of his line drives and maybe lose a couple points from his IFFB%, then I think he's got a good chance to go from tolerable offense to adequate.  woo.