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I've always felt that learning is exponential. Whether it's a mathematical concept, a piece of music, or an athletic technique, in the early stages it seems like lots of time and energy is poured in and barely any drops of understanding and utility are wrung out of the metaphorical rag of knowledge. However, the more you practice, your progress seems to accelerate, pretty soon you're applying it everywhere and with increasing frequency. That steep takeoff won’t ever take place unless the foundation that took so many frustrating hours to create has been properly laid.
Jack Z has bet his job on these young talents hitting the mastery stage before the benefit of the doubt of Chuck and Howard expires. So far we’ve seen these kids put in countless hours of work, and the output, in the cases of Smoak, Ackley, and Montero, has been marginal at best, and non-existent at worst. BUT, look at the last 28 days of Justin Smoak: .277/.413!/.400, with a 15/18 eye. Straight up Nick Johnson territory. That isn’t luck either. I think that’s Justin Smoak finally playing as Justin Smoak and not as “Gotta play like the centerpiece of the Cliff Lee trade”, and as the weather warms up that slugging should climb some too.
As far as Ackley and Montero go, your guess is as good as mine, but they seem to be making incremental progress. They aren’t as far along on the curve yet.
Seager and Saunders are feeling the g-forces of their acceleration. If they continue their CURRENT pace they are borderline all-stars, and that’s not taking into account very probable improvement from them.
I just get the sense that the young M’s have reached the part of the curve where things should start to trend upward quickly now. They aren’t winning these series’ on luck. They are outperforming the other teams. Name one player who is OVERPERFORMING. The only case that jumps out is Wilhelmsen, and that’s just because of expected babip regression. But he isn’t playing over his head. Maybe Raul’s homer streak was a little lucky, but his overall numbers are within reason of preseason projections.
J Saunders, Maurer, the bullpen, and SS, seem to be the weak spots. BUT if you’re gonna argue that Wilhemsen is bound to regress, then you have to say those weak spots will too. Maurer should get progressively better and Saunders isn’t great, but he’s not a 6.00 ERA pitcher.
Good time to be an M’s fan IMO.