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If Zunino turns into Jason Varitek, that's great, but you can't have Varitek as the hub of your offense. We need Manny Ramirez/David Ortiz/ in the lineup, and then the Varitek/Millar/Damon level bats can raise the ship to contender status.
I feel fine about most of our current hitters. But Ackley has not yet turned into the product the college hitter of the decade should be. Montero through the first half was crushed by righties and by the Safe, though his 2nd half numbers look more like what you want from a MOTO hitter. Carp can't stay healthy. Guti's never been healthy. Smoak is a lost babe in Fangorn. Saunders has Hero Disease, which means he needs to NOT be in your MOTO so he can keep contributing. Ryan had a party when he got over .200. You can't hub an offense around a .250 hitting third baseman and your backup catcher (which is essentially what we're doing this year).
We don't have 40 HR guys hanging out in the minors. We don't have 30 HR ones. Even if Catricala climbs out of his cavern of despair or Franklin stays healthy at 2nd base or Romero and Miller keep hitting, they're not thumpers. Edgar could thump without home runs, but it's not easy, and none of our top minor leaguers like to take walks - except Zunino. Romero has walked 5 more times than Zunino in THREE HUNDRED more plate appearances.
I hate to put the pressure on Zunino to crush 30 bombs AND be a good defensive catcher AND get here quickly AND have a .380+ OBP...
But if one guy is gonna do all of that, it's him. So we'll see what he's got. My guess is he's more Matt Wieters than Buster Posey, but man... I can dream of Posey over the offseason, right?
~G