I love your optimism, but you sort of made my point. A couple guys are batting "around" .300 (actually .292 and 284)? Our best returning hitter has 5 extra base hits in 116 at bats. That's not good news, but you're putting a happy face on it.
Of your pitchers that "are improving," one of them gave up 8 runs in 3 innings his last time out, the other lost his starting job and is walking more than a batter per inning. Their "improving" ERA's are 7.86 and 8.59.
And these are the guys you offer up as doing well. I'm definitely not trying to embarrass any players. Every name I mentioned in this thread was in a positive light, but when you tout specific players as doing well when they really aren't, it's fair for me to straighten out the record.
I'm not calling anyone out. I'm just saying this summer's results don't make me feel better about next spring.
Do you really feel the numbers support a different outlook?
Oh, and please don't talk about all stars. In a league with 6 teams, a third of the players and more than half the starters have to be all stars in order to field two teams for the all star game. Even in the bigger leagues, each team has 4 or 5 all stars. Shouldn't we be concerned that only two of our players are on all star teams?