It's not that a whole lot has happened over the last almost 2 weeks since my last post, as far as Chicago sports go, but it's that I've been very busy myself. I had a busy work week last week that ate up almost all of my energy, followed by going out of town on Friday to visit family (with 3 kids there, it wasn't exactly relaxing either, but I love them all still), then a frustrating flight back out here while taking the week off of work. I've finally be able to catch up on everything, as I made sure to catch our Chicago teams when they were in action, and I've just generally been able to keep up on everything as far as that goes, so let's go!
In Cubs camp it's been more of a few wins here and a few losses there for the most part. Of course a tarp incident the night I got back into town really got blown out of proportion. The bottom line is that I've seen Cubs ground crews get everything perfect 1,000 times, and this one time there was an error somewhere. Something will go wrong if you do the same thing 1,000 times, no matter what you are doing. The reports of the Cubs ground crews being cut to save money seem to be totally bogus, so hopefully that dies down quickly as well. As far as on the field goes, the Cubs won the tarpgate game, although that was the only game they won in that 3 game set. That's after they split a 4 game set with the Mets, and they also won today's series opener against the Orioles. Javier Baez has finally started drawing some walks, and he looks like he may start to get settled in pretty soon, as he's not trying to kill every last pitch, although he still swings at plenty of balls he should be watching.
On the other side of town, the White Sox have had it pretty rough lately. They just got swept by the Orioles, and on top of that they just had to say goodbye to one of their teammates, likely getting less in return than they could have just a few weeks ago. The White Sox traded Gordon Beckham to the Angels yesterday in exchange for cash and a PTBNL. Now, we don't know who the PTBNL is right now, but they're rarely anyone who turns out to be a huge piece unless they're part of a huge trade. Also, given Beckham's anemic offensive game, even though he is a great defensive second baseman, I don't expect the White Sox to get anything better than maybe a flawed prospect or a low level MLB type of guy, maybe a bullpen guy. If this deal was done before the deadline, then I could have seen the White Sox get back something more, as those deals are usually a little bit more favorable to the team trading away the MLB guy, which is obvious given the circumstances around waver wire trades. Still, we don't know exactly what the return will wind up being, so we'll see before we totally condemn the White Sox. Either way, it's sad to see Beckham's White Sox career end this way. He was a hugely touted prospect when he was rushed through the White Sox system after being drafted. Despite being rushed, he performed very well during his rookie year, tailing off a bit near the end of the year, but being a huge boost to the team when he first came up. However, once pitchers made their adjustments to him, he never was really able to adjust back. Outside of a few spurts, he just never was able to get back on track over several years.
This is something that kind of worries me about other White Sox prospects. The White Sox like to get their bigger names up as quickly as possible. While this is fine for some prospects, it really isn't great for others. In the case of Beckham, I wonder what could have happened if the White Sox took an extra year on him, allowing him to fail a little bit at the minor league level, or at least go into a slump, and figure out how to work his way out of it down there without having to force the issue in the bigs. They tried to rush Courtney Hawkins up a couple of years ago, and it caused him to struggle heavily last year. He's picked it up a little bit this year, getting his average into the .250's without sacrificing too much power, but he still has a long way to go. This year will be the third season in a row he finishes at high A Winston-Salem, but I expect him to be in AA next year.
This brings me to the other big White Sox news. They're doing the same thing with Carlos Rodon. However, it's not like they're rushing him through A to high A, to AA, to AAA or anything like that. They started him in the Arizona rookie league, skipped low A (Sox don't have a short season A team, just 2 US rookie league teams) and pitched in high A, then skipped AA and went straight to AAA. Supposedly they would like to see him up with the White Sox once rosters expand. Now, I just don't understand what they are trying to do, other than make a desperate attempt to get fans to go to the park. Rodon has been good at every level (except in Arizona), but not great. He's getting good strikeout numbers, and has a good ERA, but also has a slightly above average WHIP so far of 1.277, 1.333 in AAA. Again, he's been good, but it's not like he's set any level on fire. I don't think he's a guy who will need to spend a lot of time in the minors, but I'd say that finishing this season in AA would have been wiser, but the White Sox seem to love to rush those bit prospects as much as they can. Hopefully this doesn't do any damage to Rodon. As I've said before, every player is different, and many can afford to be rushed, but it's risky to do so. Looking at White Sox first round picks from 2006 to 2011, Chris Sale was able to be rushed and become dominant, but then you also have Josh Phegley, who was rushed to AAA, and has barely played in the big leagues, struggling or being just a bit above average for most of his time at AAA. Aaron Poreda was rushed and didn't do a whole lot, although he was solid in 10 relief appearances for the White Sox before being traded to the Padres in the Peavy trade.
So, draw your own conclusions on what the White Sox are doing, but the bottom line is that this is a lost season for the White Sox. They're not going anywhere, and they don't need Rodon in the lineup. Rushing guys up usually does more damage than good, so unless the White Sox feel like they're a Garcia and reliever away from being in the playoffs, I don't understand them taking the risk. Again, having Rodon in AA at the end of this season would make sense, given his experience and skill, then start him next year in AAA, and if he tears it up there, move him to the bigs midseason, but rushing him like this doesn't make sense. There's no negative, outside of a few extra butts in the seats, to holding him back a half season until he proves himself, but there's a risk to rushing him, so again, I just don't understand the White Sox doing this.
Next up is the Bulls. The big news with the Bulls is that Derrick Rose sat out an exhibition team USA scrimmage due to some soreness. Don't worry, something like this is normal when recovering from a major injury and surgery, he can workout all he wants, but he's still going to have to get back into game shape before he's ready, that's why I love him getting this team USA experience to get him back into that game shape. That way this won't happen when the regular season is underway. He just played tonight against Puerto Rico, and played well, making some great passes and putting a few points up as well. All in all, it's been successful for Rose so far.
Bleacher Report had an article yesterday that brought up a good question. How are the minutes going to be divided up for the Bulls? Of course we're going to have to wait a little over a month for the preseason to start, but it's fun to speculate, so I'll go over each player and give about how many minutes per game they wind up playing. Keep in mind, it won't add up to 240 minutes, largely because each player isn't going to play every game. In fact, most of the roster will play fewer than 80 games this season. When one guy is missing, other guys add minutes, which makes their total minutes played go up, so keep that in mind. Also, in blowouts some guys will get more minutes than in closely contested games, you'll see an effect from that, but those guys usually play in fewer games, so the averages will go up a little bit more for those guys than they go down for the other guys. Also, I'll go over positions. There will be games where they Bulls get into foul trouble, and that is where a lot of the percentages may put a Bulls player into a position they don't always play (along with injuries). Anyway, here it goes:
Derrick Rose - 32 mpg, all at PG
Kirk Hinrich - 18 mpg, 85% at PG, 15% at SG
Aaron Brooks - 14 mpg, 80% at PG, 20% at SG (offensively only, guarding other team's PG)
Jimmy Butler - 33 mpg, 75% at SG, 25% at SF
Tony Snell - 20 mpg, 75% at SG, 20% at SF, 5% at PG
Mike Dunleavy - 23 mpg, 90% at SF, 10% at PF
Doug McDermott - 24 mpg, 100% at SF
Pau Gasol - 25 mpg, 60% at PF, 40% at C
Taj Gibson - 24 mpg, 70% at PF, 30% at C
Nikola Mirotic - 20 mpg, 90% at PF, 5% at SF, 5% at C
Joakim Noah - 30 mpg, 100% at C
Cameron Bairstow - 8 mpg, 70% at PF, 30% at C
There are a couple of things to address after this. First is that there will be one more person added to the roster, the league minimum is 13 people, so by league rules the Bulls will have to add one more person. Rumors are surrounding Leandro Barbosa right now, but I really have no idea who it winds up being. An extra point guard, given the uncertainty for Hinrich and Rose's health would be a wise move, so Barbosa wouldn't be a bad choice, but I'd prefer more of a passing guard.
The other thing I would like to address is that you may have noticed that I have the minutes very low for some guys. Butler is the highest at 33, Rose is next at 32, and Noah is behind him at 30. Of course, if someone like Mirotic looks really bad early, the numbers go up for someone like Noah, as other center possibilities like Gasol or Gibson will have to spend more time at the 4. However, the Bulls limped into the playoffs each of the last two years. They need to be fresh going into the playoffs in order to have a chance. Right now the depth on their team should allow them to be plenty fresh, but Coach Thibodeau will have to actually use that to the team's advantage. Also, Rose will probably play more minutes as the season goes on, but I see it averaging out to 32. Still though, I know we'd love to see Noah and Rose playing a lot, given how good each is, but it's more important to have them able to play those bigger minutes effectively in the playoffs than it is in the regular season. I'm sure that I'll be off by quite a bit, especially since, as I said, the roster isn't even full yet, but it's just speculation on my part and more of what I would try to do in the shoes of Thibodeau.
Now onto the Bears. We're in the third preseason game right now. I'm typing this with my eyes on the game and putting my faith in that my fingers know where to go. So far, while the Bears will have to punt now, the offense doesn't look terrible. Cutler looks incredibly sharp, and it's great to see that 2 of his 3 completions so far have been right at Richard Sherman, who, the play before the second completion, was barking at Alshon Jeffery, good to see him have to eat his words so soon after that one.
Since I've missed so much time with the Bears right now, only really analyzing the first game, so really only missing one game, but us being safely into the third game right now too, I'll just go with what I've seen so far this game and what I saw last Thursday.
Quarterback: Cutler has looked very sharp. In fact, if it hadn't been for a couple of dropped passes, the Bears would have had 7 in that first possession tonight. He has been right on throughout the preseason. As for the backups, while it hasn't been unbearable to watch, they haven't been great either. Right now I think Clausen has a slight advantage over Palmer, but it's not huge. I actually feel like Fales looks like the most accurate of everyone past Cutler. (Cutler just threw another completion right at Sherman where Morgan made him look bad)
Offensive Line: For the most part it has looked very good. There have been a few hiccups in the first unit, but for the most part they have been giving Cutler a ton of time to throw the ball. The second and third units have been okay, nothing special, but probably better than the first unit offensive line was a couple of years ago (not saying much).
Receivers: Despite a couple of quick drops, one from Jeffery, one from Marshall, those two have looked good. Jeffery has always had great hands, and Marshall has too long of a history to worry about. The third spot is still up in the air. The signing of Santonio Holmes has taken what looked like a sure thing from Josh Morgan. Morgan hadn't really done anything to lock in that spot, but based on career experience he was the guy that looked to be the sure thing there.
Running Backs: This has looked pretty ugly, as Forte was at -7 yards after the first two games, but it's Forte, and we all know he'll be fine for the season. The big issue is that none of the backups have stepped up. Carey has looked okay, I guess, but has a low average. Ford hasn't really shown me anything, Draughn has been good (so there's one), and Lynch hasn't really had the chance to show anything, and due to that he hasn't either. Anyway, I'm a little discouraged by the backup RB situation right now.
Defensive Line: The D-Line has been pretty solid. Tonight they've been doing a great job at getting to the backfield, and against most quarterbacks they would have been playing great. However, tonight they've been doing a terrible job of sealing off Russell Wilson, and he's been making throws on the run with ease against the Bears defense. Still, against most teams I don't worry.
Linebackers: Just to warn you, things go downhill from here. The Bears linebackers still look like they have a long way to go. Bostic looks better than he did during last season, but he's still not there. McClellin is making it obvious that he's making adjustments to being a linebacker. Lance Briggs has slowed down a couple of steps, but is still a good linebacker. Greene has actually impressed me quite a bit, but as a whole, the 2nd unit and beyond have not looked good.
Cornerbacks: The first unit has looked good, but past that it's looked rough. Kyle Fuller going down has obviously been a cause of this, and there is one other person (Wilson maybe?) who has looked good when I've seen him. Still, as a whole it hasn't been good.
Safeties: Well, I think Chris Conte is the safety that starts next to Mundy. None of the other guys have put on a performance that makes them look like they're any better than Conte was last year, and so far in this game Chris Conte has been the only player to stand out in a good way in the Bears secondary. I should say that Conte has looked really good tonight though.
The offense looks good, but the defense really doesn't. In fact, I think I make the defense look better than they really have been up there. I guess in the other two games they've been okay, but they have looked terrible tonight.
The special teams have been pretty bad. O'Donnell and Gould have been about the only things that have looked decent or better. The coverage on kicks has been horrible.
So things haven't been what I've hoped for the Bears. There's a ton of room for improvement, especially on defense and special teams. There are a lot of new guys there and McClellin is playing a new position, so it may take some time for them to gel. Remember that the Colts lost every game in the preseason before going on to win the Superbowl in '06/'07.
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