That's basically what I'm expecting from him. Just stay patient - Buhner didn't hit the ground running. Took him a couple years of spot duty to get revved up and be the Bone at age 24. I agree about the Houston approach too though: the kid will strike out. As long as he's striking out and still being productive, don't jerk him around. He needs to play.
Disagree on 3. I don't think Gamel is anything (and we gave up two of my top 10ish system pitchers to get him). Unless Gamel is playing CF, anyway, and then I don't see him as an improvement on Martin. That could be enough, though, given the right circumstances. He just reminds me of Jeremy Reed. Fingers crossed we finally got one of these guys right.
I like Vogelbach, and I really like O'Neill, but both guys will require patience. And once they graduate the system, our hitting depth is non-existent. We have Kyle Lewis, who if his recovery from knee surgery is quality I still like as a terrific prospect. After him? Rizzo and Brayan Hernandez are several years away from being another year away. Deej had a decent-but-not-great half season (making next year a very big year for him in the hitter-friendly PCL). Alex Jackon still looks like he couldn't pick a baseball out of a lineup of assorted balls, especially if it's spinning, so that pitch recognition will be a big deal for him.
And then we have all the light-hitting college kids I'm not a huge fan of (Drew Jackson, Braden Bishop, Donnie Walton). I like Donnie best of those guys, and Donnie and Drew will probably play in the bigs, but it's like rooting for Willie Bloomquist for me: being a major leaguer and being a player I want to count on are two VERY different things. If you want a glove guy I like a little more I'd go with Luis Liberato down in Clinton, who should make some waves in high-A this year in CF and has all sorts of interesting tools. Really, though, I don't think we have a difference maker up the middle down on the farm who is anywhere near logging time in Safeco. Here's hoping I'm wrong and one of the college kids puts it together.
The system was a winning one this year, but not by using a bunch of players I expect to be plus major leaguers. I still view our farm as being very thin. The expected starting arms other than maybe Moore are still 2+ years away at best, and if something goes wrong with Kyle Lewis's recovery I would count our system blue-chip bats as zero (assuming Vogelbach and O'Neill are graduating in June).
Vogelbach and O'Neill are it for a minute, so they'd better work out moe. If they are Billy Butler and Jermaine Dye, that helps us a whole lot. I'm still hoping for that.