Q.  What are the patterns?

A.  Looks like there is a strong tendency toward guys who got RBI, and who didn't do much else particularly well.  You know what I mean.  As a group, the above players probably don't have 0.70 batting EYE's.  But, come to think of it, neither do they have very poor ones.

As a group, they have midrange EYE's; you're not really talking about guys with "old player's skills," taking a bunch of pitches or anything like that.  Rauuuuuul isn't a pitch stalker.  They have VERY poor speed as a group.  They certainly aren't defenders, either - maybe their gloves would have gotten them more playing time, earlier, but was that factor really decisive for Josh Willingham and Jose Bautista?  Nah.

These guys we listed - it's not a perfect list - but every single one of them is a player with moderate (not weak) talent, who attacks the ball with gusto.  It's definitely a group of 90-RBI men.

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Q.  How does this apply to M's and ex-M's?

A.  Muddyfrog asked about ... oh yeah.  We forgot Bryan Lahair and Mike Morse!  There you go again.  Mediocre EYE's, poor speed, a lot of gusto attacking the ball, larger than average but not huge guys.  Muddyfrog's instincts seem to have served him very well here.  If somebody were to run a study, they might set these kinds of parameters as a first hypothesis.

Of course, on this list you've got Carlos Guillen, Raul Ibanez, Bryan Lahair, Mike Morse... maybe you just need guys who escaped from the old M's player develop system to any other system.

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Q.  C'mon.

A.  Okay...

Smoak, Montero, and Carp?  Mike Carp fits this group perfectly, and if we're on to anything here, that wouldn't mean that Carp has to wait until age 29 to hit.  With Rauuuul and Josh Willingham, we're taking the outer edges of a type of player.  Carp may be at the 60-70 mark where Rauuullll is at the 99 mark.

Jesus Montero isn't a late bloomer yet by any faint stretch of the imagination -- as Grizzly pointed out, he's like one year older than Mike Zunino and instead of being in the minors, he's already a quality player in the bigs.  He's also coming on like a freight train.  Did you realize that he's hit .337 / .393 / .495 in the second half?

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Q.  Justin Smoak?  Would SSI put him on this list?

A.  No chance.  None that he goes on this particular list.  Not if I get a vote.

Justin Smoak, forgive me the opinion but he doesn't match the above list.  I mean, you could say anybody weighing 220 pounds matches.  But Smoak is a pitch-stalker, a guy with a high BB ratio in the minors; that's okay.  A couple of the guys on our list were too.  Thing is, Smoak was a bonus baby, a super high draft pick who landed in the minors with a splash and who was rushed up to the bigs.  That ain't exactly Rauuuulllll.

Nevertheless I've still got a fair amount of confidence that Smoak will pull a Carlos Pena and have a 140 OPS+ season some day.  Asking him to do it at any specific time, such as 2013, is asking too much.  I won't bleed a drop if they move on.

By the way, Smoak's swing was indeed throttled down -- by 10% -- on Tuesday night.  He still pointed the bat head at the pitcher on load, and he still followed through all the way around ... but he decelerated the bat at an earlier point.  As it swung around his hip, it had less mustard on it.  Moe will recognize this as "swinging more smoothly" with a golf club.  The arc looks the same but you're not muscling the bat.  Er, club.

He got early returns -- he could get to the fastball better and he could wait on the offspeed better.  Hopeful signs.  The game-tying RBI, he took a long look at a Rodney offspeed and then barrelled it up.  And that's despite the fact that Rodney was throwing a scary 97.  Smoak wasn't cheating.  So, we'll see.  Check him in a week.

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Q.  Good Q by MuddyFrog?

A.  Yeah, I had no idea, but until somebody proves him wrong that's going to be a neat little rule of thumb for me.  Don't give up on your workmanlike RBI men, your Mike Morses and your Mike Carps.  

If I'm the GM, that pool of Willinghams and Rauuul's and Carlos Guillens is interesting in this sense:  when Mike Carp posts a nice gain on his age-arc, I'm putting a thumb on the scale for him.  It's probably a real gain.  Late development is probably perfectly normal for players in his prototype.

And if so, I'll bet you box seats to bleachers that every scout in baseball coulda told you that.

Cheers,

Dr D