That for me is the big key.
Smoak, Pineda and Ackley are a huge part of the 2012 Mariners run, but first they need to start making an impact in 2011.    Smoak's tightened up his swing a bit - less hand load - and took off.  I look for good-but-not-great things from him in 2011, and him crushing the ball as the leader of the offense in 2012.
Ackley will start posting 105 ERA+ numbers from 2B almost immediately.  His OBP will demand it.  The curious thing for me will be if he hits enough doubles to make that number climb significantly higher.
Pineda should give us 170 innings of delicious talent while he learns on the job.  He has an accurate and filthy FB, and in a Curt Schilling sense that's all you need to be a star, but Schilling took a while to get it right (age 24 before his first full starting season, age 28 before he started striking out the world and making everyone look foolish).  He was still good out of the gate, he just hadn't perfected his game yet.  That's what I expect to see from Pineda:  good out of the gate, but a lot to work on especially with his off-speed stuff.  Being able to throw a strike whenever he wants with the heat will help, though.
If all three guys do what they CAN do we're set up very well for this year and future years, especially with the flood of internal bullpen help that Z has stockpiled (much of it due to trades).
We need a staff that can pitch consistent games (with some greatness at the top), an offense that can get that pitching some leads, and a pen that can hold those leads.
I still think we need a 90 OPS+ or greater catcher while Moore gets ready - we CANNOT run what we did out there, which is a 62 OPS+ relative to position (!!!).  In a league of mediocre catchers ours were THAT far below average.
1B was as below average, but Smoak is available to fix that.  3B was worse, but Chone will get better all on his own.  SS was that bad, but we're kinda stuck at the moment.  Personally I'd get a 2B/SS who wouldn't suffer TOO much at the position defensively and have him ready to plug in when Jack gets injured again or Ackley is called up in late May to play 2B.
But we need the C, and IMO we need to decide what we're doing about LF.  If we're keeping Saunders and his potential, fine.  If we move him we have somewhere in the neighborhood of half a dozen bats that can play there and others we could go get.  Most of them have worse D than Saunders, but with two CFs playing next to whoever is there we can make it work.
2B is fixed by Ackley, 1B is fixed by Smoak, the talent gap left by Lee is filled by Pineda and the bullpen mess should be fixed by adding a decent lefty and using the internal flamethrowers to make a scary pen.
But we can't ride out with SS, C and LF all as black holes again, not if we want to protect against another implosion by Chone or a slow start by Ackley or Smoak.  And riding just the rookies as our MOTO has always struck me as a bad idea, which is why I want a professional hitter as our DH.
DH should be fixable by any number of stone-gloved or injury-prone options from either league.  Hawpe or Glaus or Nick Johnson or whoever.  We need our Aubrey Huff rebound bat, and there are vets out there capable of giving us that rebound.  We just need the right one, and this is a key move for me.
It is a series of coin-flips.  No doubt there.  But Jack's job is to rig the game and come up heads more often than tails - and to keep rigging it.
We've got another VERY important draft coming up, and still have Paxton to sign from the previous one.
This year was abominable, and needs to never happen again, but the talent adds from drafts and trades are ready to make a difference for this team.
Let's hope the flips come up in our favor this year.  We're long overdue for some luck in all this process.
~G

I could see Smoak put up a Josh Willingham line for the next couple of years, with a 115-125 OPS+.  .260/.360/.460?  Totally doable, and around a 115.
Ackley will have to work HARD not to post a 105.  Pedroia walked into the league with a 112 and hasn't looked back.
Here's a post I made on Ackley's best trait, his OBP, and how that converges with being a middle infielder:
http://www.marinercentral.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4663&view=findpo...
Second basemen over .370 OBP in the majors:2010: Cano, Utley, Kelly Johnson
2009: Utley, Pedroia, Castillo
2008: Theiroit, Utley, Roberts, Pedroia, Kinsler
Dustin will be on a fairly exclusive list from day one, if his batting eye and patience are what we think they are. I don't care if Ackley has zero power his first few years.  Castillo has a career OBP of .368 and a 92 OPS+ with a .064 career ISOP.  That's the basement of Ackley's skillset, and I expect him to clear it by a wide margin.
But just hitting a low projection should make both he and Smoak into useful pieces of a 2011 run at .500.  I'd consider Smoak's projection a little tougher than Ackley's, but not a lot.
Pineda as a decent starter should be a given, assuming health.  He'll be on an innings limit but the guy will give the bullpen a nice break on many nights when his FB is on.
Like you said, not asking for the universe in those projections.  But I'd still take the pressure off those projections by adding some veteran voices.  A DH with juice left in the bat is a must, and not some journeyman kid either.
And I'd like an elder statesman on the pitching staff.  I'd be okay with Moyer for a non-contending year.  I just don't want a bullpen and starting rotation full of kids to have to look to each other for leadership just yet, and making the Smoak/Ackley duo the locker room leaders off the bat doesn't seem wise either.
Leadership does mean something still, and we need it.  Then those decent-but-not-worldbeating lines can be the start of something good.  Getting the right couple of vets in here is as important as when Ackley takes the field for the Ms, IMO.
~G

That number is zero.  The reason I didn't use .400 as a defining characteristic is that it's practically impossible in the modern era.  Chase Utley has done it once.
I don't have access to B-R's search database, but based on a quick pull, crossing .400 OBP as a 2B in 500+ plate appearances has been done 47 times in the last 40 years.  Not by 47 people, 47 times.
So about once a year it happens.
 Places ten to twenty on the list go from .424 to .411: Knoblauch, Randolph, Alomar 3 times, Morgan twice, Biggio twice, Rod Carew and Luis Castillo.
Morgan did it SEVEN times since 1970.
Alomar did it 5.
Carew did it 4 times before switching to 1B.
Biggio was also a 4-timer.
Randolph had a 3-peat.
Knoblauch twice.
So of the 47 times it's been done in those 40 years, 25 of em (or over HALF) were by those 6 guys.
.400 from the middle infield isn't cute or nice or a bonus, it's historic.
Multiple times?  Start counting HOF votes if he has ANY power or lasting ability.
~G

I like your Boggs comparison - crack a lot of doubles, not any HRs really, and call it a day.  Boggs hit a LOT of doubles, though, that first ten years.
 
Do I think Ackley can find power? Sure.  So could Ichiro or Boggs, but they didn't.  They chose not to.
 
If he DOES find power and he can stick at 2B for a while, he's gonna be the best 2B in the league.
 
But I'm not planning on him finding it immediately.  First is gonna be defining the strike zone and getting his fair share of walks.  Next would be attacking the zone and launching doubles all over the field.
 
After THAT we can talk about power.  But seriously, when a guy can hit single-digit HRs like Carew and Boggs and be a HOF player, I don't need to be greedy.  Biggio's (relatively) lower average and higher power is possible too - it comes out the same.  All those guys played forever and got 3000 hits.
 
I kinda think that's being greedy too, but I don't know what to do about it.  I have to downgrade his skillset to find comps for what happens if he never finds power, and his average suffers for it and...and...
 
To me, yes, Ackley could find enough power to pull Biggio's trick of 40 2B and 15 HR a year.  With a comparable eye, too, you start talking about instant greatness.
 
I'm willing to settle for goodness to start with, that's all.
 
~G