Hyde: Bonifacio often confounding, but he can be electrifying

Or as Robothal told Bic-quick Harold Reynolds the other day…“HE CAN’T HIT!...HE CAN’T HIT!”

(BTW…Rosenthal has been a saber-godsend on the MLBobfeller network)

Like it or not, Bonifacio is the exact kind of player this franchise has to mold from clay to succeed. He’s young at 24. He’s cheap at the major league minimum. He’s raw, obviously, and a liability at third base, though that’s the most irrelevant part of the conversation moving ahead. He’s a second baseman.

“Tremendous skills there,” said Washington General Manager Mike Rizzo, who signed Bonifacio out of the Dominican Republic while in Arizona, traded for him with Washington and then watched him shipped to the Marlins this offseason before becoming the GM.

Rizzo says what all baseball people do. “If Emilio can get a .360 on-base percentage, he’d be a terror.”

OK, if you can leap tall buildings, you’d be Superman. But let’s note a couple of numbers. Bonifacio’s on-base percentage is an awful .297. But through May, his on-base percentage was .291; in June it was .319.

Through May, he struck out nearly once every four at-bats (24.4 percent). In June, it was about once every 5.5 at-bats (18.6 percent). Yes, that’s still bad for a speed guy. But still.

“The numbers are moving in the right direction,” Gonzalez said.