It's been over a month since my last post. I've come to realize that I'm just insanely busy around this time of the year. Anyway, a lot has happened since my last post. The baseball season is over in Chicago, but the football season is in full swing, and the Blackhawks just got started up as well with the Bulls in preseason right now. While the baseball season went out with a whimper, there's a lot of hope still around for the three teams that are currently active, and there's still a chance to keep up with your favorite Cubs prospects.
Baseball season ended pretty uneventfully. Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks continued to look good for the Cubs, and Felix Doubront looked good at times, but other than that the only bright spots for the Cubs were with Jorge Soler and the usual suspects, minus Castro. Possibly the biggest disappointment for Cubs fans was Javier Baez's finish to the season, striking out seemingly every at bat. In fact, in 229 plate appearances, Baez struck out 95 times. That's 41.5% of the time, a record for anyone with 200 or more plate appearances. One conclusion we can probably safely draw about Baez right now is that he'll strike out a lot throughout his career. That's beyond just being a young player. He still may wind up being great in every other area in the game, but the strikeouts will always be there.
If you haven't had enough of the Cubs prospects, well don't worry, the Arizona Fall League started fairly recently, and on the Mesa Solar Sox this year are Cubs prospects like Addison Russell, Gerardo Conception, Dan Vogelbach, CJ Edwards, Jacob Hanneman, Zach Cates, Ivan Pineyro, and Bijan Rademacher. It's early in the season, but so far things have been very so-so for them.
Between the two Chicago baseball teams, they had an identical record of 73-89, which is a very good step forward for both teams. Over the last two seasons, the Cubs have improved by 13 games. While you don't want to celebrate a 73 win season, it's still another step forward for the team. They both had reasonable finishes to the season, and both have reasons for optimism. The White Sox will have a year of experience under Abreu's belt, and hopefully a full year of Garcia. Oh, and Chris Sale is Chris Sale, no matter if he acted silly during his last start or not. With the Cubs they'll have a full offseason to see what Javier Baez needs to work on with his swing relative to major league pitching, same with Arismendy Alcantara. Also, Jorge Soler looked good during his time up and will have a full season with the Cubs. Of course, Kris Bryant.
Moving forward, football season got started. The Bears have been very up and down. They started off underground after losing a game to the Buffalo Bills that they had no reason losing. They then went on a sharp incline by beating the 49ers in San Francisco for the first time since I was in diapers, in a game they had no business winning. After that there was a win against the Jets, but it was closer than it should have been. That was followed by two disappointing losses in a row, the first to the Packers, then another to the Panthers, in another one that they should have won. This past week they won a convincing game against the Falcons, really turning it on in the second half, where they had previously given up games. The game against the Falcons saw the Bears play probably their most complete game since the 2007 NFC Championship game against the Saints. Cutler was very sharp, and despite only having 1 touchdown, was a key piece. The offensive line protected well, and the defense was outstanding, including the three unheralded linebackers that played. All three looked outstanding against a good Falcons offense.
While it has been disappointing more often than not, a season can turn a corner at any time. Supposedly Cutler had a bit of a meeting with his offense where he really burned on them as well as his own self and said, more or less, that they needed to all play better. Brandon Marshall is also going to be healthy for the first time since early week 1, which will also give the Bears a great new dimension on offense, and Marquess Wilson is probably going to be back after the bye week, which isn't far off either. While it hurts having Tillman out for the season, Fuller has been outstanding in his place, and the Bears probably don't even realize how good he is without that injury. Still, Tillman has been a huge help from the sideline. A lot of people have this team as an 8-8 team, but I can still easily see them pulling off 10 or more wins at the end of the season. They play Miami at home this weekend, then go to New England before the bye week. I say they're 4-4 at that point. After that they have 8 games left. They start off going to Green Bay, I think they pull that one off. I see them winning both games against the Vikings, and beating the Bucs (already at 8 wins right there). Outside of those games they have a home and away against the Lions, the Cowboys, and the Saints. I'm going to call it a split with those 4, as the only one of those on the road is one of them against the Lions. That's 10-6, and it should be enough for the playoffs, although that's not guaranteed.
The Blackhawks have started off strong. They started the season with an overtime win on the road in Dallas...well, shootout, the winning goal coming from a beautiful Patrick Kane shot. On Saturday they beat the Sabres convincingly, scoring 4 goals in the third period. There's a lot of buzz for them this year, and they're clearly a favorite to win the cup this year. On top of that, Hossa is currently 4 points away from his 1,000th career point, which is great, because that means that as long as he doesn't suffer a sudden injury, he'll get there this year, and he looked great Saturday. Really, everyone's looked pretty solid so far, I can't think of anyone that's looked bad yet. Even Carcillo has a goal already. I was a bit worried by how many shots Crawford faced on Thursday, but at the same time, that means that Crawford has been very good so far too.
The Bulls are 4 games into the preseason right now. They've won two and lost two. The good thing about preseason is that there are things within the game that matter more than preseason, and so far things have been encouraging. The biggest thing has been Derrick Rose, who looks every bit as explosive. The shot will come, that's not what two knee injuries will take first, it's the explosiveness. If the explosiveness is there, the shot will come along. He just needs to get himself readjusted, and there will be a month or two during the regular season where he will have fans worrying, but he'll be fine. Noah has looked a little slowed, but still looks good and like he's about ready for the season. He'll be fine pretty soon. Pau Gasol looks like he's suddenly learned defense (he could always be distracting, but was a little soft before), which would make him a massive upgrade over Boozer.
The biggest improvement for a current player may be Jimmy Butler. He wasn't a superstar during the first game, but since then he's been outstanding. His defense hasn't lost a step, and his shot is looking very good so far. He lost about 10 lbs during the offseason, and while I usually don't really care about those things, he does seem a bit quicker. Maybe he's just being more assertive and working harder at getting to the basket, but whatever it is, it's working. He's up for an extension, and I expect him to be making around $8-$10 million per season (taking into account the new NBA TV contract). However, if he can become a good offensive weapon, which in his case is getting to the basket and hitting open shots without turning the ball over much, then that's going to be well worth it for the Bulls when you consider a cap that will be much higher and his value on defense (as well as who he'll be surrounded by on offense).
My biggest worry right now is Tony Snell. He hasn't looked horrible during the games, but he hasn't been especially good either, even in garbage time. Gone is the assertive player we saw in summer league, and he's back to being hesitant, and he's really having a tough time trying to get into Thibodeau's rotation. Now, things can still change quite a bit before the start of the season in a couple of weeks, but he's not even being given all of the opportunities right now. He's a guy who can shoot the ball, and his length can easily be a defensive distraction for other teams, but he's going to have to get his chances and really do more to take advantage of those if he wants to get his minutes during the season.
Nikola Mirotic looks a little timid out there, but as a whole has shown quite a bit. He may take a month or two in the regular season to get comfortable, but once he finds his comfort zone he may be very good. He's shown more versatility than I expected to see, being able to spot up, come off of screens, take the ball to the hole, and he's even starting to show a bit of a post game, although it's obvious that it's unrefined. He's even looked good at times on defense. The only glaring weakness that I've seen with him is that he doesn't seem to be much of a rebounder, but that's something that can be taught.
With Doug McDermott it's also been largely encouraging. He has shot 6-14 from 3 so far (43%), and has shown a good ability to come off of screens, get to the basket, and get himself to the free throw line. His defense still can clearly use work, but he seems to be a willing learner and is starting to really look like he's going to be able to grasp the Bulls team defense concept. It also doesn't hurt that he's proven what I said about him after he was drafted then traded to the Bulls, that he's more athletic and quicker than he's given credit for. He looks like he'll be able to pick up the game pretty quickly. As primarily a shooter, he'll have his slumps, but he's been hitting most of his open shots, and once things are in full swing he should be pretty solid for the Bulls. This year's rookie class should wind up looking pretty strong, and there's a solid chance him and Mirotic could be in the top 5-7 of that group.
Ending the baseball season was a touch rough, but since then, despite the roller coaster ride the Bears have gone on, things have been looking up for the most part. Hopefully the Bears have turned that corner, but if not, the Blackhawks and Bulls both look like they'll be able to compete, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Blackhawks win another cup this year.
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