jeffkleger

If you trust our scouting, I'd expect Kjerstad to be the rightfielder by 2023. Mountcastle at first makes sense based on my initial impressions of him in left after watching every game. He might correct taking poor angles to the ball and his speed is better than average at least now, but possiby gain 10-15 lbs of muscle nd get slower quickly ), but his arm will always be weak. He would make an athletic first baseman. I would hope that long term our outfield will be Diaz in left, Hays in center and Kjerstad in right. Santander either traded or DH. Mancini is too expensive for a DH. Stewart and Mullins are fine extra parts.

It might make sense for our 3rd, 4th and 5th starters to be three of Baumann, Kremer, Akin or Loether. With no minor league season, I'd argue that it may be worse for the team for these pitchers to lose a year of development time than for the team to lose a year of service time. By pitching every 5 days, three of our better mature pitchers can get 12-13 starts before hopefully fall league.

I'll go with Dean Kremer. He isn't likely to be subject to service time manipulation, so he has as good a shot as anyone to pitch every 5 days. Why waste a year of development. He reminds me of Mike Mussina in alot of ways, especially in terms of intelligence and pitch sequencing. I think he's vastly underrated, and will win a stating job.

I'm going out on a limb and predict that Kremer outperforms all pitching prospects except Hall and Rodriguez.