Obviously, he's a piece of the rebuild. Is he the cornerstone? Doubt it.
Right now, he isn't surrounded by much talent, especially with Cruz on the DL.
However, when some of the rest of the young talent gets up here and starts building out the lineup, Hayes will be protected in the lineup and he won't feel the pressure to be "the man".
A lineup with Cruz, Reynolds, Rodriguez, Davis, this year's #1, and maybe a seasoned Castro and Suwinski and now there's room for a career .270 guy with a gold glove at the hot corner.
He's currently trending towards a decent ML player. He's today's version of Jeff King, but with his D being the ticket and not the bat so much.
King was another #1 who had a decent career, not great, but decent.