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when the Young Core breaks out...
when the Young Core breaks out...
if the Young Core breaks out...
will the Young Core break out?
It seems plenty of other teams devote standard or standard-plus resources to developing young players and come up with more breakout younguns than the M's. The M's lose for a decade, finish in last place in the division 7 out of 9 years and get terrific draft positions, spend five years dedicating their entire organization to the pursuit of developing a Young Core, and have no more to show for it (yet) than their competition. Indeed, it wouldn't be ridiculous to say they have less to show for it at the MLB level.
Mike Morse can lead the league in HR's and bat .290. Kendry Morales can hit .315 with good pop. But unless/until a good number of the Young Players start to truly break out, the org's destiny is to be fodder for more worthy franchises. You can't succeed when you choose an aspect of roster development (Young Core) as your arena of advantage...and then watch as your competition takes a more balanced approach, or even an unbalanced approach with a different emphasis, and then trumps your development of young players with better ones (in terms of MLB production) than you have. They may not have as MANY young players, but if their top young players outperform yours in these circumstances, you are, shall we say, up against it.
Everybody here knows it. You need Saunders hitting .260 and supplying good power. You need Seager at .270 with doubles pop. You need Ackley at .280-plus with gap power. You need Montero starting to induce fear at the plate (theirs, not ours). You need Smoak to make the Smoak Bomb famous. You need decent OBP's from most all of them. You need more than hope engendered by a couple of bloop hits here and there.
Not every one of the above need happen every season, if it ever does, look out. But you need at least two or three of them every season. Down years happen. But until players set their performance bar at a high level for entire seasons and multiple seasons, you're left with perennial down years, a whole lot of promise and little fulfillment.
Gosh I want to explode with enthusiasm and see these kids do it. I pray (not literally) they will. I want it as bad as all you want it. So far it has not happened. We are still waiting in frustration and reciting truisms that give us reason to hope. Those truisms need to resolve into fact. The sooner the better.