Man, I'm conflicted. I keep trying to tell myself not to be confident of this team....but I mostly agree with what you say here. I think 3/4 teams in the division will win 9-11 games, and the Vikings could be one of them.
I think the running game might actually matter this year....
Rodriguez.... At some point. They can't sign a veteran and block him.... Can they?
If anyone would take him, I'd deal Buxton and move on. If he'd go.. it's so hard to build around a guy who can't ever play when you have limited budgets
Agreed. Not a good look. The idea he can't play the OF is ridiculous also. He's not healthy enough to demand anything.
Betts and Cruz are perfectly fine moving around. Maybe he should talk to Mookie
Concur. I don't get how they haven't learned by now. It's better to DL a guy sooner rather than later, to have a full bench for all the games, than hope he "only misses one or two games".
I do think it is near certain Kiersey will field better than Martin (but I mostly blame the FO for playing Martin out of position nearly his entire time here at SS, when zero people felt he'd ever play there, zero, nada, none)
Move Varland to the bullpen already. Seriously.
As for Buxton? I too am joking on the site now about not playing him until July......
But anyone posting these guys are soft is just unbelievable to me. Truly.
They generally have them focus on 1-2 positions....the issue is they don't always pick the right one. Zero people on the planet thought Austin Martin was a SS, and yet.....
As to the OP, I don't know how anyone can be anything other than generally pleased at this point. All three have been fine to good process wise.
Got to actually be on the field to make a play.....It's nice to dream on Buxton, but I'm never expecting more than 50-70 healthy games a year at this point. I'd seriously consider not playing him until July next year.*
*not really, but sort of. nah, well....hmmm...