We're getting to the All-Star break in this Major League Baseball season. While it's not exactly the midpoint of the season, it's the symbolic midpoint of the season. So what's something that a lot of sites do? They review the season up to that point. Often you'll see a website grade every player on the team, or something like that. What I'll do is, for each team I will mention 3 positives and 3 negatives. While it would seem that with how poorly each team has played that there wouldn't be too many positives, there really are plenty.
White Sox
Positive
Jose Abreu - This was an obvious choice. Jose Abreu defected and came to the states after just destroying the Cuban league. While he isn't without his faults, his strengths are much, much, much greater than those faults. Going into today's game, Abreu is hitting .287 with a league leading 29 home runs. His slash line is .287/.338/.631. That's an OPS of .969, which is VERY good. The only weaknesses are that his defense isn't above average (he's also strictly a 1B/DH guy), and he strikes out a lot and doesn't walk much. Still, if a guy has an OPS of .969, it's easy to deal with that. Jose Abreu has been a great player so far this year.
Chris Sale - This is a bit more complex than just his play, but I'll start with that. Sale is having his best season as a starter so far in his career. His ERA creeps just slightly over 2, and his FIP backs that up. His WHIP is below .9, which is nothing short of phenomenal. However, with how he throws and how hard he throws, there's always the injury concern. Sale did go down for about a month earlier this year, but he continues to escape serious injury problems, and the way the White Sox are handling him has been very good. I'm starting to think that he may finish his career without any serious arm issues because of this, as long as he stays with the White Sox. Sure, he'll miss a few weeks a season, but many starters out there will. He'll still likely be a perennial Cy Young candidate.
Trade Pieces - I'll get more into this later, but if I'm Rick Hahn, I'm selling at the deadline. The White Sox have tons of pieces that should bring a lot back if they do. Alexei Ramirez has had a huge year this season, earning him an All-Star birth for the first time in his career. He is 32 though, and doesn't figure to be playing at a high level the next time the White Sox are ready to contend. Gordon Beckham is still a great defender, and despite his being fairly young, his bat may make him a guy that the White Sox don't want to have as their starter at second in the future, but he does have value. Dayan Viciedo may still be young enough that a team would be willing to give a good haul to take a chance on him. On the pitching side of things, John Danks may be a reasonable candidate to get a lot back as well.
Negative
Re-Tooling Isn't Working - I normally wouldn't want to give up on something so quickly, and maybe it was just a PR move calling it re-tooling, but it's not working. The White Sox are not much better than the Cubs right now, although being in a weaker division may give them a little bit more hope (though they aren't making the playoffs this year). The attendance is absolutely pathetic this year, which tells me that trying to hide a re-build by calling it re-tooling isn't working with the fans either. Even with Garcia in the lineup this team isn't going anywhere, one player doesn't make that big of a difference. Jose Abreu will come back down to Earth at some point, even if it doesn't wind up being this year, but will still remain an All-Star level player. That is why I think the White Sox need to sell some guys off in hope of getting some strong guys for their system. The only guys that are absolutely untouchable for me, if I'm Rick Hahn, are Chris Sale and Jose Abreu. Of course, many other guys would require a huge haul. Just be honest with the fans and call it what it is, it's a rebuilding phase that the White Sox are in right now.
Record Still Poor - Believe it or not, when you look around the rest of the league, the White Sox have been fairly healthy this year. This ties in with the above, but is more focused on their play on the field. I mention above that the White Sox are barely better than the Cubs this year. That being despite them supposedly trying to remain competitive. Injuries will happen every year, and the White Sox have had some, but the only major one is Avisail Garcia. If this team can't keep themselves at .500 without him, they're not going to be a contender with him. In baseball it takes a few players to make a big difference. This tells us that the White Sox are still a long way off from being a serious contender.
Young Players Struggling - While it's great to see Jose Abreu, Alexei Ramirez, and Chris Sale having great seasons, the only guy that is still considered young in that group is Sale. Abreu is fairly young, but at 27 he's becoming more middle aged in baseball terms, but again, is still fairly young. Ramirez is going to be 33 before the end of the season. However, the White Sox do have Dayan Viciedo, Adam Eaton, Marcus Semien, Avisail Garcia, and Matt Davidson. Well....Viciedo is having another disappointing season, which is starting to cast doubt on the rest of his career. Eaton has been solid, but doesn't look like he'll be any sort of major difference maker. Semien got some time in there, but it was largely disappointing, and Matt Davidson hasn't even made the team yet, and is having a disaster of a season in AAA right now. Given this isn't all doom and gloom. All of these guys still have time to improve their games, don't forget about that, it's just not looking great at the moment for them. Semien's season is a very small sample size. Garcia has just been hurt, it's very likely that he'll get back healthy, although this will slow down his development (he wasn't great when he did play, but wasn't bad either, just not up to the expectations of some fans). Davidson is one that I'm having trouble coming up with something positive on, but he's still 23 and can at least be a power bat. Still though, the results, as a whole, from the young players, even at the minor league level, can not be overly encouraging for the front office this year.
Cubs
Positive
Castro/Rizzo - The biggest thing that the Cubs should be happy about is the seasons Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo have been having. After absolutely miserable years last year (Rizzo actually had a solid OPS, believe it or not) on the offensive side of the field (Castro on both sides), both players have turned it around big time. Castro is having his best year as far as power goes, and is hitting well overall at the plate. He's on a pace that should see him set career highs in home runs, doubles, walks, and fielding percentage. With that, he's on pace to have a career low in errors. Rizzo continues to be a great defender, but has seen his power really break out as well as his hitting for average improve. A major plus has been how his hitting against lefties has improved so much. Both got their deserved All-Star births, Rizzo's first, Castro's third.
Minor League Bats - The focus of the Cubs organization right now is with the minor league system. Right now Kris Bryant is absolutely terrorizing pitchers at every level and will play in the futures game today. Javier Baez will as well. After a horrible start to the season, Baez has turned it around in a huge way and has been very solid over the last 6 weeks or so. First round pick Kyle Schwarber has come right in and terrorized pitching at every level, Arismendy Alcantara did great against AAA pitching and got his way up to the big league team. Albert Almora was another player who had a tough slump, but has worked his way out of it. Jorge Soler, when healthy, has been an absolute beast as well. The Cubs then added Billy McKinney and Addison Russell in the Samardzija/Hammel trade. The Cubs hold a very strong group bats in the minor leagues, which probably makes them the strongest system in baseball.
Future Becoming Now - I was going to make this one just Jake Arrieta, but he's really a small part of this. When I say the future is becoming now, I don't mean that the Cubs are going to be ready to contend this season, or even next season, but that the guys are starting to make their way up, or at least will be soon. Kris Bryant and Javier Baez may very well be up early next season, Arismendy Alcantara is up now, although he'll likely be sent back down shortly after the All-Star break, maybe before so that he can play in the AAA All-Star game. Not just that, but with the rotation, Jake Arrieta has been looking great as of late, and Kyle Hendricks and Dallas Beeler both had solid debuts recently. Hendricks did have a tough first inning, but settled down well after that. As for Beeler, he had a rough second start, but if you watched the game, he was still getting what he wanted, a lot of ground balls, but they were just finding the holes in the infield. Beyond that, Jorge Soler is tearing up AA pitching and should be up to AAA by the end of the season, and the AA club also has Addison Russell, who could be a huge part of the future. Remember that a year ago Arismendy Alcantara was at AA as well, so any of those guys could see the bigs within a year. The talent at the lower levels is outstanding as well, with both pitching and hitting, but it's that talent that is almost there that we are excited about.
Negative
Young Player Struggles - While there has been a lot to be excited about at the minor league levels, there has also been a number of disappointments this year. While Almora and Baez look to be broken out of their slumps, who's to say that they aren't just hot right now? True, their track record does say that they probably are more like what we're seeing now rather than what we saw a month or two ago, but there's no way to say for sure at this point. Beyond them though, Dan Vogelbach had a rough start to the year, and while he's since found his way, his power has seemed to be down quite a bit this year. CJ Edwards and Pierce Johnson have played well while in, but have both missed the majority of the season due to injury so far. Edwards looks to start this season over next year at AA unless he's able to make a quick comeback and pitch very well from here on out. Johnson has a shot at moving up for next year. Christian Villanueva had a very rough introduction to AAA ball, and never did break out of it until he was moved back down to AA. He still has that great glove, but his bat is becoming a bit of a question at this point, even though he's done well against AA pitching. Even at the big league level, Travis Wood is still fairly young and was seen as a guy to move forward with, but he's had an atrocious season so far. Welington Castillo isn't especially young, but he's a piece for the future, but he's already having his share of injuries, and his bat has taken a step or two back this year. Junior Lake got hot at one point, but as a whole has had a nightmare season, and Mike Olt, despite showing great power, has otherwise looked lost at the plate.
Edwin Jackson - Nobody thought Jackson was going to be a star player this year by any stretch, but maybe he could eat up innings with an era in the low to mid 4's or something? No, he's been absolutely horrible this year, and there are still another 2 years on his contract after this year. I don't know what the Cubs can do, but they really need to do anything they can to make sure that Jackson isn't on the roster to start next season, as he's been absolutely horrible and is eating up valuable money that could go to free agents this offseason.
Big League Team is Still Bad - While it looks like they'll avoid 100 losses once again, the Cubs big league team has not looked good. They did have a good run before the Samardzija trade, but before that run they were terrible, taking a month just to win a series, and since then they've been right back there. Despite having 3 All-Stars for the first half of the season, they were still hovering around 10 games under .500 for the season, that continues to show that it takes more than one or two players to make a difference on the team. There is more help on the way in the near future, but until it arrives, we, as Cubs fans, are going to have to suffer through another brutal second half to a season.
So it's not all sunshine and happiness for the Cubs or White Sox, but there are plenty of positives to look forward to for both teams. This season won't see a lot of success on either side of town, but there is a future for both teams.
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