I appreciate that the new focus Falvey built for 2023 is pitching and defense. The offense on the other hand, I’m in wait and see mode.
We are relying on 6 of the projected 9 starters (Kirilloff, Kepler, Gallo, Miranda, Polanco, Buxton) to either bounce back from injury, regain previous value, or make the next step in their career progression. As we all know development isn’t linear. So out of the 6, we can reasonably expect 2 to have better #s than last year, 2 to be about the same, and 2 to have worse #s than last year.
Buxton is once again the key to success. I hope we don’t see him selling out his swing for HRs as much as we saw last year. I’d love to see more vintage Buxton hitting it through the infield and sprinting to 2B. Here’s to hoping once again he makes it to 100 games played.