JR, while it may not be substantially reflected in XBH, perhaps Camp Colvin strength is helping Barney's ground balls and line drives to be hit a little more authoritatively, resulting in a real and sustainable boost in BABIP. A hard ground ball has a better chance of getting through the infield than a softer one.
A second possibility (I doubt it's really true) might be lefty splits. I'm not sure how his minor-league splits were. And I don't know that it's true, but I have a hypothesis that perhaps big-league teams use more LHP. If he's got strong splits versus LHP, perhaps seeing more LHP in the majors helps him?
3. His overall minor league profile is representative: low K's, low walks, low power, lives off his BA. But to some degree looking at his .708 minor-league OPS may be misleading. 2008 Daytona was his first full-season year, .682. Perhaps not surprisingly a lower OPS. The next year he promoted to AA but then got further promoted to Iowa, .634. Maybe the real settled Barney is better represented by the .769 and .711 that he showed at Tenn in 09 and Iowa 10?
4. If he "reverted" to the .711-.769 range that he showed at Iowa and Tenn the last two years, would that be problematic? I would suggest that if he was able to sustain in the .711-.769 OPS range over the long haul, while playing a stellar defensive 2B and being an alert small-ball and situational player offensively, that might be pretty satisfactory for a long-term regular 2B.
I'm not expecting him to end up at .325 batting average or with an .800 slugging percentage. But I'm not sure that he might not settle out as a .290+ hitter and be a good value as a regular 2B. Entering the year, I never considered him as more than a potential utility guy. But now I think he's earned consideration as a long-term regular 2B.