This is going to be similar to last week's. There isn't much on the winter sports end of things, there's very little from the Bears, and the Cubs and White Sox have had some things go on, but as a whole there wasn't anything as far as movement in the standings go. Still though, I'll make it worth it still with some extra content in there.
To start things off, we'll go with the Blackhawks. Another week after elimination and things are getting a little easier, but seeing the team they lost to in the conference finals does sting a bit, knowing that if just one more puck went in on several occasions, or if one more was stopped, the Blackhawks would probably be champions right now. Anyway, that's not what happened, and it is what it is. Anyway, supposedly the Blackhawks are the Vegas favorites to win it all next year, so that's something to be excited about right now. It just sucks that we have to wait another year for it to happen, of course, if it does, which is a huge assumption to make.
The Bulls have more of the same going on, trade talks are swirling about Kevin Love and the possibility of signing Carmelo Anthony is there as well. The draft, however, is less than 2 weeks away. I'd include draft information for the Blackhawks, but I really don't know a thing about their draft prospects right now, and the NBA draft is the next one up, so since the NHL draft happens literally the day after the NBA draft takes place, I probably won't be able to get much in about it before it happens. Anyway, nbadraft.net has the Bulls taking Jordan Clarkson, a 6'4" PG/SG type who is a bit of a do-it-all type of player. With the #19 player they have the Bulls taking Adreian Payne, a big and athletic PF with a bit of a jumper as well. On several draft boards, it looks like the Doug McDermott post-combine love is starting to fade, and the odds of him falling to the Bulls have increased to probably not instead of no chance. The same can be said about Nik Stauskas. Kyle Anderson, James Young, Glenn Robinson III, Cleanthony Early, Kristaps Porzingis, and Shabazz Napier are all among the possibilities as well.
Moving on the the White Sox, they won the first 2 games of the week against the Tigers, but they followed that up with 4 straight losses to finish the week at 2-4. However, the White Sox have signed 28 players now from their draft class, including 9 of their top 10 picks, with Carlos Rodon being the only player in the top 10 not yet signed. The White Sox also signed Olympic Silver medalist, Eddy Alvarez....that's a silver medal in speedskating. While I'll stop short of calling this a publicity stunt, it's certainly an out of the box type of signing. However, Alvarez did have a good college career as a shortstop, and he does have plenty of athleticism as well, which is far from everything in baseball, but it shows that he'll be able to play many positions in the field, so finding a spot for him, especially if he sticks at shortstop, won't be hard.
For the Cubs, they finished the week at 3-4, starting the week going 1-3 against the Pirates and finishing it going 2-1 against the Phillies. Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo both continue their rebound years, putting up good numbers. Both are hitting over .280 and have a combined 23 home runs. Rizzo is on pace to have the best year of his career, and Castro is on pace to finish right up there. Even when Castro has struggled he's still made good contact for the most part and just found a lot of bad luck, see his line drive rate if you want any proof. Either way, the Cubs seem to play their strongest ball during June (at least over these last few years), and at very least there may be good trade value created for a lot of players on the team including Samardzija, Hammel, Valbuena, and Bonifacio (despite his injury). Anyway, at this point with the Cubs it's not just about the big league team, first round pick Kyle Schwarber has been absolutely abusing short season A pitching at Boise. He made his debut this week and is currently 1/3 of the way through his third game and hitting .636 with 2 home runs and 7 runs batted in, and again, he's not even all the way through his third game. Something tells me that he'll quickly be in Kane County, and possibly all the way up to Daytona by the end of the season. He's clearly got an idea how to hit the pitching at that level.
Now for the Bears. The OTA's actually did end this week, and the veteran minicamp is about to begin. There really isn't much new going on right now with the Bears, no major revelations, good or bad this past week. So, instead I'll do more pointless speculating for the fun of it. What I'm going to do is look at the offensive and defensive starters for the team, look at last year's starters, and look at where they've improved, declined, or stayed the same. Anyway, here it goes:
Offense
The Bears are returning every starter this year, so there's no point in going position by position. However, I will say that the unit as a whole will improve this coming season. I believe Marquess Wilson will be a better option than Earl Bennett as the #3 receiver, maybe dropping a couple more balls, but at the same time making more big plays as well. The offensive line has had a season together under its belt, and if they stick with Garza at center, it will be the exact same group, and they will have even better chemistry together. Sticking with the exact same offense both in personnel and system is a luxury Jay Cutler probably never dreamed he'd have during his career in Chicago, and now he has it. If he can stay healthy, I expect him to have a huge year.
Defense
LDE - Lamarr Houston - Improvement - Last year they started with Wootton as their left defensive end, but he had to quickly move to the inside as a tackle as the tackles on the team kept going down with injuries. Therefore the Bears were then forced to go with Shea McClellin as the left end, and as we all figured out, the defensive line is just not where he's meant to be, hopefully he's better at linebacker. Anyway, if something happens to one of the defensive ends, the Bears now have Willie Young as their third defensive end, and possibly even Israel Idonije if he makes the team. Beyond that there's guys like David Bass and Cornelius Washington. Sure, one of those last 3 might get cut, but that's the depth they have.
RDE - Jared Allen - Improvement - Julius Peppers just did not have a great year last year. He finished with 7 sacks, but when you consider how often he disappeared without even being double teamed, you realize that it was time for him to go. Jared Allen may also be on the wrong side of 30, but he was much more effective for the Vikings last year than Peppers was. Also, if he gets hurt, you have Houston to move over and Young to fill in on the right side. That's some nice depth there.
DT - Stephen Paea - Improvement - If Paea is able to stay healthy, then this is an improvement. I'm really interested to see how he does with Ratliff next to him for a full season. Anyway, even if he does go down, the Bears have more depth this year beyond him than they did last season.
DT - Jeremiah Ratliff - Same...kinda - Okay, Ratliff was with the Bears at the end of the season last year, but he had very little practice with the team before he played (remember, he was still injured for about a month before he finally started to play with the Bears, after he signed mid-season). Anyway, Ratliff may be on the wrong side of 30, but he still can be effective or even very good, maybe even still a Pro Bowl DT. Either way, like what I said with Paea, having more depth means that at least the Bears won't be caught extremely short handed at DT again this year.
WLB - Lance Briggs - Improvement - Same starter as with last season, only this season I'm going to assume good health for him.
MLB - DJ Williams - Improvement - Same with Briggs, I'm going to assume health here. Bostic wasn't ready to come in and play in the middle last year. If Williams can stay healthy, the middle of that linebacker group will be greatly improved.
SLB - Jon Bostic/Shea McClellin - Decline - This can easily change to an improvement if either Jon Bostic shows improvement over last season or if Shea McClellin shows a great natural ability to be that linebacker. Heck, if both of those happen we could see another position improve even more or, at very least, the overall linebacker depth improve drastically. If Khaseem Greene shows any sort of improvement, then that will be a huge help for that group too. Still, going to take it slow and just say that for now, I'm not sold that either of those guys can be better than James Anderson was last year, as he was one of the few good things to happen to that linebacker group last year.
CB - Charles Tillman - Improvement - He's an improvement in the sense that I expect him to have better health this coming season than he did last year. I feel like he can still be an elite corner, even if he is a year older. His speed was never his calling card, and he'll also have some value in what he can teach to rookie Kyle Fuller.
CB - Tim Jennings - Same - While Jennings is a bit older, he's not quite at the age where he should see a sharp decline.
S - Ryan Mundy - Improvement - The safeties should improve both by not having Major Wright there and by having a better defensive line. However, Mundy is a safety that has proven to be very good against the run, something Conte and Wright were horrible at last year.
S - Chris Conte - Same - I guess there might be the same improvement that he gets by having a better defensive line there, but that's not really him improving as a player. I'm really hoping Vereen can work his way into the starting lineup, but for now I think it will be Conte there. Hopefully he can play off of his better teammates this year and at least not be a sore thumb.
With the defensive unit as a whole, I'm going to say that the defensive line is going to be greatly improved, which is where it all starts. The linebacker group will be improved with health alone, but could wind up being very improved if certain things fall in the right places. The defensive backs should be much better this year just due to health alone, but also the improvements in other places should be very helpful to them. As a whole, I think the defensive unit will be greatly improved.
Maybe I'm just being a homer, but I don't see any way this team is any worse than they were last year. In fact, I think they should improve by at least 3 games this year, 11-5 is my prediction solely based on the improvements they have made.
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