Random Chicago Sports Thoughts

So another week has come and gone in Chicago sports, and there's a few thoughts on my mind for this past week as well as what's to come. I'll cover the NHL, NBA, NFL, and baseball (not just MLB) here. While there's not a ton going on right now, I still have plenty of thoughts to annoy any of the tens of people who read this blog.

I'll start with the Blackhawks. The draft season ended yesterday with the NHL draft coming to a close. The Blackhawks picked Nick Schmaltz with their first pick, trading up to the #20 spot with the Sharks in a trade that just moved a couple other draft picks. Schmaltz is a center who will likely not join the team for a few years (although I could be wrong). I would go over all of the draft picks, but first off, I don't know anything about any of them, and they have names that are very difficult to spell, and I don't have two monitors at home. Anyway, Schmaltz seems like an offensive presence whose only real worry seems to be his size.

The Bulls have had their draft come and go, and free agency starts in just a couple of days. The Bulls are scheduled to meet with Carmelo Anthony on Tuesday. To be honest I'm not too crazy about them being the first team that Anthony will meet with. Sure, that does give the Bulls a chance to convince him and he never even sees those other teams, but at the same time, assuming he does go to every team he's scheduled to see, the Bulls won't have the final impression on him. I'd say Anthony is the only of the major free agents that I see the Bulls winding up with, and I just can't see them getting a trade together to get Kevin Love over either, so if they don't get Carmelo, then it will be back to plan B, which isn't bad either. I'd give the Bulls a 40% chance right now to wind up with Carmelo. I don't think it will happen, but there's a chance. Anyway, plan B, the Bulls still amnesty Boozer and bring Nikola Mirotic over, as Mirotic has supposedly grown very disenfranchised with his European club, Real Madrid. From there the Bulls have quite a bit of money still to spend. I see them holding on to Kirk Hinrich and maybe signing another cheap option as a 3rd point guard. I also see them bringing in one more veteran wing type of player as well as holding on to Jimmer Fredette for cheap. As for the bigs, the Bulls have Noah, Gibson, Bairstow, and Randolph. I just really don't think Nazr will still be around anymore, I think he opts for retirement.

Anyway, here's what I see the Bulls roster looking like based on position:

PG - Rose, Hinrich, Cheap Option
SG - Butler, Snell, Fredette
SF - Dunleavy, McDermott, veteran
PF - Gibson, Mirotic, Randolph, Bairstow
C - Noah

Keep in mind that players can play more than one position. For instance, the most glaring thing there is Noah being the only center. Remember that Gibson and Bairstow can also play center, and even Randolph in a small lineup. Butler and Snell can both play the 3, and Dunleavy and McDermott would even be able to play the 2 on occasion (mainly against bigger lineups). Anyway, that's a 14 man roster there, and I can't imagine them carrying a 15th guy unless it's absolutely necessary. Of course, Dunleavy may still be moved to clear up cap room so they can spend a little more on another free agent.

Moving on abruptly, let's go to football. This is dead time for the NFL until training camps get going in less than a month. Anyway, there's a lot of talk right now about Aaron Kromer talking about Jay Cutler making huge strides in his career. I've never really given my thoughts on Jay Cutler, so now I will. I'm a fan of Jay Cutler. I do think that he has shot himself in the foot a lot throughout his career, but at the same time I can't blame him. He was given horrible offensive line after horrible offensive line year after year with the Bears. Remember that in his last season in Denver he had the lowest sack% in the entire league. Therefore, the detractors that would blame him for getting sacked so much really don't have a leg to stand on, since if you give him a good offensive line and a good number of targets to throw to, he won't get sacked. The Bears refused to do this and expected him to do everything himself for too long, and if I'm him, I'm not happy, and I don't know if I'm able to put forth my best effort or play with a lot of heart knowing that I'm getting fed to the lions every Sunday without anyone putting out any effort to help me. It's pretty obvious that Angelo didn't think he needed to help when as soon as Emery takes over he gets Brandon Marshall, and a year later he's completely fixed the offensive line. In his first draft, when Emery really didn't get a ton of time to get acclimated to the Bears, he knew enough about the receiver woes that he knew Cutler was going to need more than just Marshall, and he drafted Jeffery. The next year's draft he knew that the Bears would need at least one more receiver, and he stole Wilson in the 7th round, although Wilson hasn't proven anything yet.

What I'm getting at here, before my tangent, is that Cutler simply hasn't had any help throughout his entire career with the Bears until very recently. People kept asking how long we were going to make excuses like the offensive line or lack of receivers for Cutler, and the simple answer was that people like myself would keep going to those reasons (not excuses) until those problems were fixed. Those reasons don't just go away with time, they go away when they're fixed. Anyway, now they're fixed. Now Cutler is in his second straight season with the same offensive system, and a good one at that. Cutler is very familiar with Marshall and has plenty of familiarity with Jeffery now as well. He's getting that familiarity with Wilson, which should be in full swing by the second half of this next season. The offensive line wasn't only good last year, but now they have familiarity with each other. Once the season is underway everyone should be healthy (Slauson and Mills have had injuries) as long as no new injuries pop up. So Cutler has at least a solid offensive line, a good group of receivers (and great tight ends and running backs), a familiar system, and no excuses. However, does he even need the excuses anymore? When you consider that Cutler probably shouldn't have played in a couple of the games he did last year, he was right around a 4,000 yard 30 TD passer last year if he stayed healthy. The interceptions were still high, but a quarter of those were in one game. If he's able to bring some consistency and stay healthy, he'll put up his best numbers as a Bear.

So here's the most exciting part, baseball. Jose Abreu is especially hot once again (he's never not hot, just sometimes he's warm, right now he's hot). He's been hitting balls out of the yard at an alarming rate lately. I still think that he'll start to see his numbers decline as the season goes on, but when the season ends his stat sheet will still be very impressive. Remember that the scouting on him is still weak. Pitchers are just now finding out where to throw it to him, but he's still jumping all over every mistake they make. They'll eventually learn how to make their mistakes on him, but right now it looks like you just don't make mistakes on him if you're a pitcher. Also, he's never played in a league that's had as many games as the MLB does, so he'll likely wear down, but then again, I thought that the scouting would have already caught up to him by now, so you never really know, but either way, while the White Sox are at about the same place as the Cubs right now (in an easier division, so they still have a much better chance at making the postseason, but still very little chance), but still, it's something to be excited about. Chris Sale is always another player to be excited about, but he's old news, right?

Now to the other side of town. The Cubs have actually looked mediocre over the last month, and Anthony Rizzo, in a different way, has been just as good as Jose Abreu this year. Rizzo's game has less power (but still a lot of power) and is more well rounded, as Rizzo is a gold glove level fielder who is getting on base about 40% of the time he comes up. Castro has been very good as well, with one of the highest OPS's of any NL shortstop. He is also sporting the highest fielding percentage of his career and has made very few mental errors this year. Both guys will have serious all-star consideration. The Cubs pitching has also been among the best in baseball since about mid-May, once they got Arrieta back and got the bullpen situation figured out. Edwin Jackson is still looking horrible, but at least Dallas Beeler had a nice debut.

That leads into the next part. The Cubs minor league system is trending upward very sharply right now. Javier Baez continues to get his numbers up from the dreadful levels they were at the start of the season. He's nearing .240 with his average, and he's up to 22 walks on the season now after not walking much at all the first month or so of the season. This will set well with Theo. Kris Bryant seems to be comfortable now in AAA and is tearing the cover off of the ball now. Despite going 0-4 today, his average is still a .317 and he's hit 5 home runs in 41 at bats there. I expect him to be a starter on opening day next season, I can't see how he won't be, there won't be any all-star game to start him at AAA for. As for the other 2 of the big 4, Albert Almora has seen his bat come back to life, and he's working that average back up. He's right around .260 now after seeing his average dip to the low .200's. He still only has 8 walks on the year, but that's up from the 0 he had for close to his first 100 plate appearances or so. He could still stand to be more patient, but he hasn't really been challenged before, so this is something he'll learn. Jorge Soler is back from his second tweaking of his hamstring (this time was the other hamstring than it was before), and the Cubs have worked to build habits for him that will take the strain off of them. When he's played, he's been scary good. He's in the Arizona Rookie League right now while he gets used to the adjustments, and he's hitting a decent .533 there.

I saw the issue brought up somewhere on Bleachernation this week, I don't remember where, but is it really a big 4 for the Cubs still? At this point Kyle Schwarber is tearing apart the pitching in Kane County, so I feel like it'd be safe to include him with those other guys, and Arismendy Alcantara has been outstanding this year. Right now he's got an OPS of .893, and 18 stolen bases (21 attempts). He's got 10 home runs, 10 triples, and 22 doubles on the year, he's looking great. Let's not forget about guys like Pierce Johnson and CJ Edwards, who have been disappointing this year due to injuries, but they're good prospects as well. There's at least 8 guys still in the minors to get really excited about. With Castro already on the big league club, a good, young bullpen, and what looks like 2 spots in the rotation for the future there, the big league club could be on the way up fairly soon. Assuming there's no collapse between AAA and the Cubs for any of these guys, the Cubs could have a starting lineup that features Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Starlin Castro, Javeier Baez, and Arismendy Alcantara at the start of next season. In a year or so after that Jorge Soler and Albert Almora may be ready, and Kyle Schwarber may be right there with them.

So what about if any of those guys wind up failing? Also, what about after that, once those guys are up won't the Cubs system be completely empty? Well, no, there's a lot of guys past those guys who will be ready before too much longer. Christian Villanueva was initially at AAA, but struggled at the plate. At AA he's back to really hitting the ball, and once Bryant is on the Cubs he'll be waiting in the wings. He's got one of the best gloves, period, in the minors. Dan Vogelbach isn't too far off, he had a slow start to the season at Daytona, but now looks like he'll get the callup to AA for next season. Matt Szczur isn't doing anything spectacular at the plate, but he's another amazing glove in the Cubs system and will probably be a good 4th outfielder before long. Stephen Bruno is another prospect who may make a good infield utility guy in the fairly near future, as he's had a good season in AA. At catcher, Charles Cutler has been very impressive. However, he's not young, as he'll turn 28 next month, so he's not a long term guy, and Wellington Castillo has been solid. 2013 22nd round pick Kevin Brown has also been having a solid year at AA so far, despite it being a very short time, as an outfielder. Let's go younger though. Erick Leal is a young pitcher (19) who is in Boise already. He's struggling this year, but he's way ahead of the curve, so that's understandable. Gleyber Torres and Eloy Jimenez are both in the Arizona rookie league as both are barely 17 years old right now. Jimenez mysteriously only has 1 at bat, but Torres has been playing well so far, although it's a very small sample size (30 plate appearances). Cael Brockmeyer has had a very solid year so far in Kane County. Jacob Hanneman has also been very good. He's a touch older, but he also has very little mileage, as he is a Mormon who spent a couple of years on his mission instead of playing baseball. He had a slow start, but is up to .262 with 5 home runs and 28 stolen bases in 73 games. Jen-Ho Tseng was a 2013 international signing who looks like he may really pay off. He's in Kane County, and very young for the league with an ERA in the low 3's. There are a ton more guys, but the Cubs system is absolutely loaded with talent right now. They have a massive number of guys who will be able to bring back large hauls in a trade for an established star, and they're going to have money to spend on a large contract or two this offseason. This is the most optimistic I've been about the team's chances to win in a very long time, the only catch being that I'm excited for 2016 or 2017, not 2014.