White Sox: The rising kings of Chicago
By Bill Felber
Trending – position players
Improvement is a process, not a moment. That means one of the key indicators of future success is positive movement over the past several seasons. A team whose central cast isn’t proceeding on an upward tack is a team in trouble.
Here’s another table, this time comparing the change in performance over the past three seasons of each team’s six central position players for 2020. Again, the yardstick is WAR, specifically the change for each player from 2017 to 2019. The more positive the total, the higher of an uptick that team is on.
Cubs Trend White Sox Trend
Anthony Rizzo -0.3 Jose Abreu -2.4
Kris Bryant -2.5 Yasmani Grandal +0.3
Javier Baez +2.0 Tim Anderson +2.9
Kyle Schwarber +2.2 Yoan Moncada +2.9
Willson Contreras -0.8 Eloy Jimenez +1.4
Jason Heyward -0.2 Adam Engle +1.5
Total +0.4 Total +6.6
The data illustrates a fact Cubs fans probably won’t be eager to grasp. The production of their core is static. Worse than that, the centerpieces – Bryant and Rizzo – have both regressed since 2017, although in Rizzo’s case only marginally.
Contreras and Heyward are also static producers, meaning that most of the team’s positionak growth potential lies outside the core. Logically, that would be players we’ve already dissed – Happ, Almora or Russell –or possibly Nico Hoerner, the rookie second baseman-designate.
By contrast, the White Sox’ core is dynamic. With the sole exception of the recently re-signed Abreu, it’s young and development-oriented. Finally, as demonstrated by the bottom lines (+6.6 for the Sox, +0.4 for the Cubs), almost all of the position player growth dynamism rests on the South Side.