The Lind move and what seems to us as a low cost does indeed transform the look of JeRy's postseason.
Re: the lineup:
1. 3/4 of your infield now is combined a MAJOR offensive force
2. Nelson Cruz is not being manhandled against his will into the DH role (and thus risking a down year) by the acquisition of a full-time RF'er
3. Your whiz CF'er will likely be batting ninth and not have too much offensive expectation put on him
4. You've solved the black hole at catcher
5. The kind of OBP players now sprinkled throughout the lineup mean you will not routinely need to string together hits to produce runs.
6. The OF looks a BIT thin, in that you really don't have a single player simply locking down a position full time (one surmises Cruz is bound to DH up to a third of the time especially against RHP's). If Guti goes down you will definitely and immediately need a solid RH hitting OFer who can if needed play CF. BUT!!! EVERY ONE of the OFers brings something significant to the table. Smith (solid all-around LHB), Aoki (reliable OBP), Martin (CF glove whiz), Guti (good glove, good stick), Cruz (BIG, BIG stick). No Ackley, no Saunders or Romero question marks, no more gotta put Trumbo in left.
IF Edgar is indeed to be a force multiplier, and IF Marte hits and gets on base at the top of the lineup, this could be an upper third offense, no Toronto, but very good.
The starting pitching looks solid but not great. Felix is now alone at the top. Until Taijuan Walker consistently reaches his potential, he cannot be considered TOR. May he do it this year! Many contenders these days have multiple TORs. The M's will need that from Walker to stay with the big boys. Who knows what to expect from Paxton? He could be a TOR, or he could be mostly on the DL. Karns and Miley at best will be MORs, so it looks like we go TOR!-TOR?-MOR-MOR-???. The problem is we no longer have the depth we did. Montgomery appears to be the only guy left we can plug in who has carried a rotation role before.
The bullpen clearly needs more. Can you imagine what this pen would be like if one of it's better pitchers went down with an injury? Heaven forbid Benoit does so! We absolutely need one more closer-late innings type. And even with that there's not a lot of proven talent. It's thin. A closer and another solid reliever would make me feel a whole lot better. Look around the league. You gotta compete with teams that are stacked to the gills with good relievers. You don't need to be the best if your offense performs, but you need to be good, especially if/when you make the postseason.
In fact, it occurs to me that the 2016 M's have the potential to look like lesser versions of some of the late 1990's M's, scoring runs but not enough pitching to get over the hump, with the bullpen being the Achilles heel.
[DaddyO]