So far so good.

Two things caught White Sox fans’ eye on the heels of the announcement:

1) The press release said it left the White Sox’ 40-man roster at 38 rather than the 39 fans counted.  The mystery was subsequently solved, as it was announced Ian Clarkin was claimed by the Cubs on waivers.  Clarkin was one of the supplementary pieces acquired in the Blake Rutherford deal with the Yankees.  He’ll turn 24 before the 2019 season starts, and between injuries and ineffectiveness he has yet to conquer Double-A after six years in pro ball, most recently posting a K:BB ratio just a shade over 1.00 in Birmingham.  A well regarded prospect once upon a time, it was understandable the White Sox would want to see if they could get him healthy and back on track.  The Cubs will have to see if they can pull it off.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a solid lefty reliever one day, but even if you knew he could be that in a year or two, just among lefty relievers on the organizational depth chart Clarkin would come in behind Jace Fry, Aaron Bummer, Caleb Frare, and Medeiros at a minimum.

2) A notable omission from 40-man protection was Spencer Adams.  Some outlets believed the White Sox had a steal when they took Adams in the second round of the 2014 draft, and the highly athletic prep arm has climbed all the way to Triple-A, pounding the zone relentlessly along the way.  Even if the control (i.e. not walking people as opposed to command) has been very good, and that has yielded some solid ERAs along the way, he has yet to show he can miss bats consistently, and scouts said he looked stiffer in 2018.  Still, this author, at the very least, thought he would be added to the 40-man roster, given that some were very excited about him not too long ago, and his proximity to the majors.

That said, the Rule 5 draft is an easy source of fear.  It plays on all of our concerns about losing talent for the low price of a 40-man spot, particularly if a player lost in such a way were to go off and become something significant.  But, the White Sox have been good about this of late.  Some began making concerned noises when Jordan Guerrero and Jake Peter were exposed to Rule 5 last year only for neither of them to get taken.  There’s a good chance Adams makes it past Rule 5 and just returns to Charlotte next season, and hopefully he takes a step forward and reaches his potential as a back end starter with the White Sox, or polishes himself up into a nice trade chip. Or, if he does get taken, there’s reason to believe the White Sox have a basis to decide it’s a loss they are willing to stomach.

And, this leaves room for them to make other additions, or even claim someone they like even better in the Rule 5 draft themselves.

Kopech didn’t have his best stuff — something he was up front about to reporters after the game — as his velocity was down a bit and his command of his breaking pitches wavered, but he still managed to induce 10 swinging strikes and most importantly didn’t issue a walk. His next walk allowed will be the first at the major league level and he hasn’t issued one at either level for the entire month of August.

The fact that he hasn’t allowed a walk is the most notable thing about Kopech’s eight major league innings. Evaluators have never doubted his stuff, but his ability to command each of his pitches is what many believe will be the difference between him living up to his potential as a starter. Even in Sunday’s uneven start, Kopech pounded the zone, throwing 61 of his 86 offerings for strikes. It was just the Tigers (a common refrain throughout this article) but it’s another passing grade for Kopech.

His next start is expected to come Friday and be a much tougher challenge — the league-leading and his former franchise Boston Red Sox.

2. Is it time to start believing in Lucas Giolito again?

Saturday’s 6-inning, 1-run performance against a moribund Detroit Tigers team might not be enough to convince you just yet, but the White Sox young starter turned in perhaps his best start of the season in a 6-1 win. It was his seventh quality start in his last nine outings and the fifth time in his last six starts where he induced 10 or more swinging strikes. He’s lowered his ERA to a still bad but improving 5.85 in the process, and has seen a significant uptick in his velocity.

The fact that Giolito has survived in the rotation throughout the season is more a product of the White Sox place in the standings than anything else, but the ability to afford a young and important piece of the team’s future the opportunity to work through his struggles could prove integral in the long-term.

3. Another White Sox prospect has been shut down for the season. But this time, it’s OK!

Dylan Cease is almost undoubtedly the White Sox minor league pitcher whose taken the biggest step forward in his development this season. And that’s saying something for someone who was already generally considered a consensus Top 100 prospect in the game entering the season. Cease, who had never topped more than 93 innings pitched in any professional season, ended his minor league season a few weeks early at a career-best 124 innings pitched, flawlessly jumping from Advanced-A to Double-A without missing a beat.

After dominating the lesser level for the first half of the season, Cease was even better upon his promotion to Birmingham, putting up a 1.72 ERA with 78 strikeouts against 22 walks in 52 1/3 innings at Double-A. The talent that made him one of the top pitching prospects in the Cubs’ organization despite a limited workload and one of the White Sox targets in their trade of Jose Quintana a year ago is starting to be realized, and the 22-year-old has positioned himself well to perhaps be in line for a major league call-up by late 2019, if things continue to go as planned.

4. Omar Narvaez now has about half of a season’s of plate appearances worth of significantly above-average offensive production. In 248 plate appearances, his 126 wRC+ entering Sunday would be good for fifth best among catchers with enough plate appearances to warrant consideration, behind only Francisco Cervelli, Wilson Ramos, Yasmani Grandal, and J.T. Realmuto.

The problem continues to be his defense, at least according to some. Narvaez ranks dead last in BP’s FRAA_ADJ stat, which is a catcher-specific version of FRAA that takes into account framing. Because of this, WARP grades Narvaez as essentially a replacement level catcher (0.51, to be exact). It’s a pretty significant difference from versions of WAR that judge defense differently — bWAR has him as worth 1.4 wins and fWAR has him at 1.7.

The biggest surprise offensively for Narvaez has been his power. While he’ll never be mistaken for prime Mike Piazza, his six home runs are double his career output entering the season, and his .430 slugging percentage entering Sunday is 90 points higher than last year.

What the White Sox believe they have in Narvaez will obviously depend on how much their internal numbers regarding his defense and framing match up with the numbers we have. Either way, the catching position is an interesting one to watch, particularly with Welington Castillo’s suspension ending. The White Sox transferred Castillo to the disabled list last week and he’s currently rehabbing in Charlotte, and he’ll presumably rejoin the team once rosters expand next week. Castillo is also under contract for the next two season (2020 is a team option) so one would assume the starting position is his for the foreseeable future.

Still, Narvaez’s offensive breakout gives the White Sox options they likely didn’t envision having entering the season. And while the performances of both Zack Collins and Seby Zavala this season are reasons for optimism about the future of a position the White Sox have struggled to find production at for a long while, the combination of Narvaez and Castillo give them present production much more serviceable than expected.

Lead Photo Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports

• Dylan Cease continues to add to his breakout 2018 season, as he has now thrown 40.2 dominant innings in Double-A after coming into the year having never pitched above Low-A.  Although Cease had some things in common with Kopech–elite fastball velocity, potentially wipeout breaking pitch–Cease’s issue had been staying healthy and on the mound more than Kopech’s bugbears of command and control.  That’s not to say Cease is Greg Maddux, exactly, but he does not boast Kopech’s musclebound build and had never thrown more than 93.33 innings in a pro season before this year.  On the other hand, he hasn’t gone totally walk crazy the way Kopech has from time to time either.  He’s now up to 112.33 innings in 2018 and judging from his stat line he’s showing no signs of fatigue.  Indeed, his last three starts have been triumphs, combining to 19 shut out innings with 28 strikeouts and only three walks.  One suspects he’ll start 2019 in Double-A again, but this is what he needed to do to make up for his time lost to injury and has thoroughly revived his chances to actually stick as a starting pitcher.
• The Winston-Salem Dash of High-A have lost Micker Adolfo to injury and Luis Alexander Basabe to promotion, and their lineup is still loaded with talent.  Blake Rutherford continues his bounce-back 2018 campaign, continuing to hit for contact and improving his power numbers with a .305/.352/.450 line.  On Tuesday, Luis Robert returned from his most recent injury and went two-for-four.  He joins Rutherford and Luis Gonzalez, the 2017 third-rounder who is posting an identical .850 OPS in High-A as he had in Low-A while working with Aaron Rowand to try to stick in center field.  From the outfield, all three can look in to see Nick Madrigal on the dirt who, unsurprisingly, has been a fast mover.  After 19 pro games, Madrigal finally had his first strikeout, but he has hit for average and gotten on base as advertised.  If they play well down the stretch, all four of these are candidates to start 2019 in Double-A.
• Ian Hamilton and Ryan Burr have been reunited at Triple-A Charlotte, as Burr has  joined his brother in history puns.  While the Mets have devoted a lot of resources without a lot of results to replenishing their organizational right-handed relief depth–this was essentially their only return for their sell-off last trade deadline, for example–the White Sox may have found a brace of setup men or even closers via trading international pool money (Burr) and the use of an 11th round pick (Hamilton).  Burr hasn’t skipped a beat in his first three innings in Charlotte, as he has yet to allow a run, and Hamilton keeps cruising along with an ERA in the low 2.00s and peripherals to match.  As fun as it is to see Matt Davidson’s surprising success in his relief outings, it seems likely these two will arrive sooner rather than later and take up some of the innings that have gone to lesser talents of late.

Lead Image Credit:  Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

All that said, I’d be remiss to not give a nod, on the rare occasion that it’s warranted, to the major league team when things go right. Sunday’s 8-7 win over the Rays gave the White Sox their first four-game winning streak of the season and first road series sweep since early 2016 in Toronto. The four wins coming against the Royals and Rays isn’t exactly the stiffest of competition to be beating one’s chest over, but positive production for any period of time more than a day or two is noteworthy during a time when that hasn’t happened all that often.

1. In his first start since I wondered allowed if he had “figured it out,” Carlos Rodon lowered his ERA to 2.94 with six shutout innings in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Tampa. He also walked six. Rodon admitted after the game that he didn’t have as good of a feel for his fastball as he would have liked, but was able to wiggle his way out of trouble enough to stay in the game thanks to sharp secondaries. That he allowed just three hits and induced 16 swinging strikes is a testament to how well his stuff can play even when he’s not fully on, but against a better hitting team he may not have been so lucky, and the start just further illustrates how integral fastball command is for Rodon.

2. For players with the age and skill set Jose Abreu possesses, any prolonged slump brings with it worries that the end of his time as a productive player is near. Abreu entered the All-Star break in the midst of the worst slump of his otherwise remarkably consistent career, but has since looked once again like the Abreu of old. Prior to Sunday’s game, Abreu was hitting .357/.438/.768 in 15 post-break games and went 2-for-4 in Sunday’s 8-7 win. He’s raised his OPS by 69 points during that span.

3. OK, so I lied. We’re still going to talk about prospects quite a bit. Kopech rattled off another impressive start Sunday, striking out nine and walking zero in seven innings of work. In the link at the top, of this post, James Fegan goes into detail about both the mechanical and mental adjustments he has made to break out of a midseason slump, and the results have shown in the form of 41 strikeouts against just 4 walks in 31 IP across his last five starts.

4. While the clamoring for a Kopech promotion will only grow louder as he continues to dominate, Dylan Cease has not ceased to impress even after his late-June promotion to Double-A. After Saturday’s 6 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB,  9 K performance, he’s now tossed 40 2/3 innings since his promotion with a 1.99 ERA, 58 strikeouts and only 13 walks. The buzz around Kopech and Jimenez is real and warranted, but Cease has been the most pleasant surprise of the White Sox minor league season. Jumping levels is one thing, but he’s also already soared past his career-high in innings pitched at 112 and counting.

5. Speaking of Jimenez, there was a bit of buzz on White Sox Twitter Sunday evening when he was scratched from the lineup in Charlotte right around the same time the White Sox announced that Leury Garcia left Sunday’s game with left hamstring soreness. It turned out to be a false alarm, as Jimenez was reportedly kept out because of flu-like symptoms. The hand-wringing continues.

Lead Photo Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports

1. It would be apt to describe Yoan Moncada’s first half as a roller coaster — albeit probably one with more drops than climbs — but he enters the All-Star break on one of those stretches of play that make it easy to see why he was and continues to be so highly regarded. As Nick addressed Sunday, his most significant funk can be traced back to a hamstring injury that kept him out for 11 days in mid-May, and his OPS dropped from .868 to a low-water mark of .683 at the beginning of July during that stretch. Sunday’s 3-for-4 effort, which included his 12th homer of the season, lifted that OPS up to .737, and he’s now reached base at least once in 12 straight games. Of his 16 hits during that span, seven have gone for extra bases.

I feel like every week in this space we’re writing some variation of “Moncada is struggling” or “Moncada is showing the goods,” but during an otherwise tumultuous first half, it’s certainly nice to end things on the latter.

2. Discussing Lucas Giolito of late has felt like defending your little brother who you just know has good intentions despite always putting himself in a position to make bad decisions. You’re grasping at any sign of optimism that maybe, this time, he’s turning over a new leaf. Giolito’s results have certainly been better of late, including 6 1/3 shutout innings in Sunday’s win over the Royals, but there’s still plenty of evidence that you should err on the side of caution in terms of hope for him putting it all together.

The six strikeouts, tied for his third most in a start this season, are nice, but he also induced just five swinging strikes against a very bad Kansas City lineup. And while he’s seen his ERA drop from 7.53 down to 6.18 over his last eight starts, Sunday’s start was only the third such occasion where he struck out more batters than he walked.

Finding the good and reaching for optimism during a half-season of mostly moribund results is certainly understandable, particularly when it comes to a player who came into the season with as high of hopes as Giolito. But while things are certainly looking better than they were the first two months of the season, consider me skeptical that he’s fully turned things around just yet.

3. During a first half where very few White Sox prospects made it out unscathed, Dylan Cease and Luis Alexander Basabe were two of the obvious bright spots. Cease, the second piece in the trade that sent Jose Quintana to the Cubs, and Basabe, the third piece in the deal that sent Chris Sale to Boston, elevated their prospect stock over mostly successful first halves, both jumping levels in the process, and both earning spots in Sunday’s Futures Game in Washington.

Basabe started in center field and hit lead off for the World team, putting him smack dab in the spotlight. After fighting off multiple high-90s fastballs from top Pirates prospect Mitch Keller in his first at-bat, he struck out on a curveball. In his second at-bat, against young Reds’ flamethrower Hunter Greene, he saw a slew of 100+ mph fastballs and , well …

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Basabe also recorded an outfield assist in the first inning, gunning down Nate Lowe with a dart to second base after the Rays prospect tried to take advantage with a brief bobble on a single to center.

As for Cease, we didn’t see all that much but what we did see was good. He threw only eight pitches in recording two outs in his ninth inning appearance, striking out Rangers prospect Leodys Tavares before inducing a fly out against a Padres prospect you may have heard of.

Cease gets Tatis Jr. to fly out and the White Sox somehow simultaneously win the Quintana trade and the Shields trade.

— Collin Whitchurch (@cowhitchurch) July 15, 2018

It wasn’t much, but BP minor league editor Craig Goldstein was in attendance and liked what he saw.

Dylan Cease looked real good for two batters. 97-98, plus looking curve at 78. Also flashed a slider.

— Craig Goldstein (@cdgoldstein) July 15, 2018

4. BP’s lead prospect writer Jeff Paternostro was on the latest episode of The Catbird Speaks with Nick this weekend to talk White Sox minor leaguers on the heels of the release of our Midseason Top 50 Prospects list. The two discuss a lot of prospects including the command issues of Michael Kopech. Give it a listen!

Kopech has had an up-and-down season at Charlotte, as he’s battled control issues and struggled to go deep into the game more often that one would hope. On Saturday, though, he had perhaps his best start of the season, striking out 11, walking just one, and giving up just one run in six innings of work. Given how undeniably advanced his stuff is, at this point for Kopech the focus should be on him proving he can consistently command his pitches. That’s proven difficult for a good portion of the season, but Saturday’s performance showed exactly what he can do when everything is working.

5. It’s starting to become difficult to ignore another much less heralded White Sox minor leaguer. 2016 fifth rounder Jimmy Lambert earned a promotion to Double-A late last month after a strong first two months in Winston-Salem and has continued his solid level of play in Birmingham, the latest being a seven inning one-hitter on Saturday in which he walked two and struck out 10.

Lambert entered the season as essentially a non-prospect and kind of still is. The only national site that goes deep enough into the system to mention him is MLB Pipeline, and they currently have him at No. 28 in the White Sox system behind guys like Evan Skoug and Thyago Viera. He’s a low-ceiling kind of guy who, if everything clicks right, can probably carve out a career as a back-end starter. But right now he certainly seems on that trajectory, and finding major league contributors outside of the top few rounds of the draft or major J2 signings is a good and important way to supplement a roster when trying to build a contender.

Lead Photo Credit:  Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

BP’s prospect team released its Midseason Top 50 Prospects list on Friday (read the whole thing here), and the White Sox were about as well represented as you might expect, with Eloy Jimenez, Michael Kopech, Dylan Cease, and Luis Robert making the cut. That the two pitchers on the list are two of the White Sox prospects not befallen by injury this year is not surprising, nor is the inclusion of Jimenez or Robert, despite their injury woes.

There’s not much that can be written about Jimenez at this point that hasn’t already been said. After destroying Double-A for the better part of two months, he kept pace in Triple-A for a few weeks before being disabled for the second time this season with a strained left adductor muscle that isn’t expected to keep him out for a prolonged period of time. One can reasonable surmise that if it weren’t for that and the missed time during the first month of the season, he’d be ineligible for this list as he’d be in the majors already. Barring further setbacks, he’ll likely be in Chicago at some point this summer.

Kopech is another name that you might not have expected to be eligible for the Midseason Top 50 at the beginning of the season, but his command struggles have at least given some pause for a pitcher who still has No. 1 starter upside. Kopech has walked at least four batters in nine of his last 12 starts and failed to get through five innings in five of those. It’s both easy and foolish to scout the stat line, but those who watch him have expressed some concern about the fact that he hasn’t yet harnessed his command, as that will be the different between Kopech being the starting pitcher everyone hopes he can become and a pitcher whose stuff plays better in relief.

Today is the one-year anniversary of the White Sox trading Jose Quintana to the Cubs, and while Jimenez remains the prize of that trade, the continued progress of Cease has been perhaps the biggest bright spot for the White Sox farm system this year. After pitching a combined 162 innings in his first four years as a pro and never topping 93 1/3 in any single season as the Cubs handled him extremely carefully following Tommy John surgery in 2014, not only is Cease already at 88 1/3 innings in early July, he dominated High-A and hasn’t missed a beat in three starts since a late June promotion to Double-A. Pure stuff has never been the question for Cease, it’s been a question of both mechanics and command. He’s passed every early test the White Sox have given him so far and is starting to serve notice.

Robert is the biggest enigma of the group, just as he was before the season. After spending all of 2017 after his signing in the Dominican Summer League, he’s been limited to fewer than 100 plate appearances between Low-A and High-A this season, but has shown enough of why the White Sox gave him a $26 million signing bonus despite the limited action for him to remain one of the top prospects in the game.

BP’s lead prospect writer, Jeffrey Paternostro (who is doing a Q&A on the list at 2 p.m. CT today, follow along and ask questions here), has said on a number of occasions that the midseason list is constructed from scratch and not based on the Preseason Top 101 at all. Still, it’s tough not to compare the two. In the White Sox case, the most notable difference is with Alec Hansen, who checked in at No. 40 in the Preseason 101 and was omitted from this iteration. This makes sense if for no other reason than because Hansen hasn’t pitched much since that preseason list was constructed. He made just one appearance in the Cactus League before being shut down with a forearm muscular issue that wound up sidelining him for three months. He’s made five starts since his return and hasn’t quite returned to the form that shot him up the rankings a year ago.

Beyond Hansen, there aren’t a lot of players you could’ve expected to see. Luis Alexander Basabe is definitely trending up despite a rough start at Double-A, and Dane Dunning was likely close despite an injury that will sideline him likely through the end of the season. Blake Rutherford and Zack Collins are both having fine seasons and if this were a Midseason Top 101, might have made the cut.

Lead Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

1. Jose Abreu was voted as the starting first baseman for the AL All Star team, the first White Sox player voted to start the game since Frank Thomas in 1996. Ironically, it comes as he is having the worst year of his career, but given that there aren’t really any other standout years of consequence, it’s perfectly fair to give the nod to the steady and much-loved Abreu.

2. Dylan Cease and Luis Alexander Basabe were also selected for the Futures Game. Basabe has cooled off somewhat in the weeks before his promotion to Birmingham, and continued to scuffle in Double-A.  Still, he is an exciting athlete who got off to a good enough start, and one can easily imagine him putting together a highlight or two in the game itself.  As for Cease, five more innings and he will match his single-season career high in pro ball.  After being brought along very cautiously by the Cubs, Cease carved through his first look at High-A and has gotten off to a strong start in Double-A.  That Cease is putting himself in the picture for a big league arrival in 2019 is a pleasant surprise, particularly given how many other White Sox prospects have been derailed by injury.

3. Between James Shields always pitching at least six innings a game and the White Sox losing so much on the road, their bullpen is still only 17th in the majors in innings pitched. Still, as the season has gone on, Rick Renteria has leaned more and more heavily on Jace Fry and Xavier Cedeno.  They’ve acquitted themselves well, but Bruce Rondon, Chris Volstad, and Hector Santiago have struggled.  All of this brings me to Ian Hamilton, as the 2016 11th round pick continues his march to the majors.  After 25 dominant innings in Double-A, he has yet to allow a run in 6 2/3 Triple-A innings, boasting a K:BB ratio of 9.00. As much as I appreciate the White Sox giving run to a loyal organizational soldier like Volstad, Hamilton and others not far behind him may squeeze him out before we get to September.

4. After 2016, we thought we had a good idea of who Avisail Garcia was. Then in 2017 he went nuts and challenged for the batting title and seemed to cash in on his massive potential, although he did so in a different shape than we’d thought, as his raw power indicates a classic corner outfield masher rather than an off brand version of Tony Gwynn. So 2018 was a chance to get an answer to the question: Who is Avisail Garcia? We may still not know! He was horrible and then hurt … and then since he got back from the DL he just started hitting for all of that massive power we knew was in there but seemed inaccessible. Coming into Sunday’s game, Garcia had hit .333/.348/.803 with eight home runs in his 16 games post-hamstring strain. Sure. Why not?

5. Omar Narvaez has also thoroughly broken out, following a June where he hit .391/.440/.522 with a scorching start to July as well. Unfortunately, our framing metrics still have Narvaez as one of the worst in the majors, but this is the most power he has ever shown (a low bar, but still) and he’s coming up on 600 PAs as a .273/.360/.352 hitter. Neat trick for a catcher. Maybe he can pull a Welington Castillo and randomly fix his framing in his late 20s. Not the steroids thing.

Lead Photo Credit: Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports

1. An uptick in velocity and command of his breaking pitches were the main fuel behind a month where Dylan Covey seemingly transformed from Rule 5 afterthought to a legitimate candidate for future rotation consideration. A Friday night in Texas where he struggled to command anything and left quite a few changeups high in the zone showed just how small his margin for error is, as Covey was tagged for eight earned runs in just 2 1/3 innings in a start that more resembled his forgettable 2017 than the pitcher we saw for the majority of June.

Covey didn’t show any ill effects of the groin injury that forced him out of his previous start early, but was routinely beat around during a second inning in which he allowed three of the four home runs the Rangers hit off him on the day. The fact that he walked three and struck out zero — he induced just four swinging strikes on the evening — only further illustrated how badly he was locating throughout his 74-pitch outing.

Covey showed enough during his hot stretch to earn more opportunities on a team going nowhere in 2018. But he’s now on a three-start stretch where he’s walked 12 against just three strikeouts, so while optimism regarding the 26-year-old is obviously higher than it was even just a month or so ago, it will be interesting to see how he adjusts and if he’s more like the pitcher we saw for the majority of June or not.

2. Carlos Rodon certainly has more margin for error than Covey in any given start, but the Rangers jumped all over his first sign of command issues and what started out as a dominant start ended earlier than expected. Rodon retired the first seven Rangers he faced, including three strikeouts, but hung a fastball to Joey Gallo in the third inning for a solo home run and lost control in the fourth when a single and a pair of walks came home on a Robinson Chirinos bases-loaded double.

It was the first truly bad start of Rodon’s five since returning from injury on June 9, but what’s prevented him from truly living up to his potential during his three-plus years in the majors has been an inability to consistently command from start to start or, like Saturday, inning to inning. The good news for Rodon is that he seems completely healthy after being plagued by injury for the better part of the last year and a half, but we’re still waiting for Rodon to put together a complete and consistent performance like we know he’s capable of.

3. The White Sox weekend woes were not limited to the poor starts by Covey and Rodon. The bullpen was overburdened and allowed eight earned runs in 8 1/3 innings between Friday and Saturday, although a large chunk of that can be attributed to Bruce Rondon, whose ERA has ballooned up to 8.31 after allowing five earned runs while retiring just one batter on Saturday. Similarly, the White Sox committed a pair of errors in each of their two losses and five for the entire weekend, which is only part of the story of a weekend where a team that already wasn’t exactly known for its smooth fundamentals appeared to lose control of it entirely

Things like this are going to happen when a team rosters a handful of borderline major leaguers or young players still getting their feet wet, but while we’ve somewhat gotten used to the White Sox losing more often than they win, one thing you’d prefer they shore up is on that side of the ball. It’s easy to excuse a rebuilding team playing, say, Adam Engel when his bat isn’t up to snuff,, but when players who are already limited extrapolate things by failing to communicate, missing the cutoff, or some other mental miscue, it becomes much more difficult to excuse. Those are aspects of the game within their control, and while mental errors costing the White Sox wins is hardly detrimental to the immediate future, it’d at the very least make watching the losing more aesthetically appealing, and one would hope they get under control if and when they have eyes on contention.

4. The White Sox did win a game this weekend, as Reynaldo Lopez threw 6 1/3 mostly successful innings in a 10-5 win on Sunday, allowing just two earned runs with three walks and six strikeouts. Most notable in the win, and over the weekend as a whole, was Jose Abreu busting out of his slump and Avisail Garcia putting together a nice post-injury streak. Abreu, who hit was in the midst of a .188/.233/.325 slump from June 5 through 26, is 6-for-20 with a home run, a triple, and three walks since Wednesday, hardly world-mashing numbers, but a vast improvement coming out of one of the worst slumps of his career. Garcia went 4-for-5 on Sunday and is hitting .333 with six extra-base hits in 42 plate appearances since returning from the disabled list on June 22. He’s still hacking away at an absurd rate — zero walks in 118 plate appearances overall this season — but if he can start making solid contact again like he did in 2017, it would be a great sign.

5. A mostly unsuccessful weekend was also felt at the minor league level, where Luis Robert was placed on the seven-day disabled list and Eloy Jimenez left Sunday’s game with an apparent leg injury (the severity is not yet known). The arms fared better, as Michael Kopech tossed six innings on Saturday, giving up just three hits and striking out eight, although he also walked four. Dylan Cease continues to be the biggest bright spot in their stable of prospect arms, rebounding from a rocky debut at Double-A to toss seven innings on Sunday, allowing just one earned run with seven strikeouts and two walks. Alec Hansen has yet to get completely acclimated to the same level since returning from injury, however, as he turned in his third straight rough start on Thursday, giving up three earned runs with five walks and four strikeouts in just 3 2/3 innings.

Lead Photo Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

1.  Michael Kopech has generally continued to force the issue, although he hit a stumbling block on Sunday.  While he won’t be mistaken for Carlos Silva any time soon, 2018 has seen the retention of his second half 2017 progress in terms of limiting walks while pitching against Triple-A competition.  He’s done so while deliberately throwing his change-up as much as he possibly can.  For the hyper-competitive Kopech, it is probably difficult to maximize the use of your third best pitch, but he and the organization are clearly on the same page that this is the limiting reagent for him taking the next step to ace-dom.  If he had shoved again on Sunday, it may have been difficult to keep him down in Charlotte, but even with the poor outing, he is still definitely knocking on the door.  Whenever he is called up, he will still have work to do, as fully harnessing this arsenal will be a career-long endeavor.  However, as he still has high-90s with life to get out of any jam he’s in, he may need to be facing major league hitters to make further progress.

2. Dylan Cease has generally sat behind Alec Hansen and Kopech on prospect lists as the furthest away and most volatile of the three top pitching prospects.  The second piece in the Jose Quintana deal is fairly straightforward: insane fastball, hammer curve, crazy fragile.  To wit, he has struck out 12 batters per nine in his minor league career, which, due to injuries, has only been 162 innings over three seasons of pro ball.  So far, 2018 has been a huge success, as he is now pitching at Winston-Salem, his most advanced assignment yet, and dominating to the tune of a 1.95 ERA over 32 1/3 innings with 42 strikeouts against only 14 walks.  The indication is he hasn’t had any of his stuff eroded by injury to date, and if he can make it to ~120-150 innings without injury he could put himself on the radar for a late 2019 call up and increase the odds he actually leverages his massive potential into a major league career.

3. Luis Alexander Basabe has continued his hot start, which he attributes to simply being healthy as contrasted to last year.  With a .299/.419/.598 triple slash so far in High-A, Basabe is making the case for a promotion to Birmingham sooner rather than later.  Such a promotion could be paired with a corresponding bumping of Eloy Jimenez to Triple-A.  The uber prospect has clearly knocked all the rust off after an injury-delayed start to the year, as a .481/.500/.852 line over the last week has raised him to .319/.347/.652 on the season.  There’s no real rush for either of these guys, but at a certain point with Jimenez, as with Kopech, one wonders if minor league pitchers at any level can provide him with sufficient challenge.

4.  Dane Dunning continues his ho-hum, clockwork excellence even after his promotion to Double-A.  The White Sox have taken it slowly with the relief-to-starter convert, as he was allowed to annihilate Winston-Salem in a second look for four outings to start the year.  One suspects they aren’t going to be in any rush with him either, but as a plus-pitch-ability/command prospect, he too may take his timetable into his own hands.  And, once you’re at Birmingham, you’re certainly within shouting distance of the South Side, and if he doesn’t hit an innings limit, may even wind up getting some relief appearances in September.

5.  Zack Collins is still getting rough reviews for his work behind the plate, but at least he is showing signs that his new swing may be paying dividends in terms of bat-to-ball.  His last seven games have seen him hit .381/.567/.524 with more walks than strikeouts.  It’s a small sample, but Collins really needs to rake in order to support what looks like a weak glove at catcher or the immense pressure which would be on his bat at first base.  The walks and power certainly look like a permanent feature of his profile, and if he has eliminated a flaw in his swing, a .260-.270 average could mean a potential plus bat at the major league level.

All of the above are small samples, but — Collins aside — they are largely consistent with what we know of these players in tandem with good health.  We all know in the abstract that a brighter future is ahead, but sometimes it helps to get some concrete examples of what that might be.

Photo credit: Joe Camporeale- USA Today

But no longer.  Despite graduating three players off the Midseason Top 50, the White Sox still lead all teams with eight players on the list.  Although the sequence of names was not a surprise, given that we’ve had the White Sox Top 10 list for weeks now, it was far from obvious as to how many on the back half of the org ranking would make it onto the global one.  Jake Burger, Dane Dunning, and Blake Rutherford all appear between 80-90, as Burger survived our prospect team’s (justified) skepticism of likely R/R 1B prospects and Rutherford’s underlying skills and draft pedigree overcame his poor results in 2017.

Jeff Paternostro will be doing a chat to answer any 101 questions you might have (or you can read the transcript there once it is over).

Still, I take the opportunity to remind you that, as fun as it is to see “White Sox” next to as many names as possible in the 101, the further down the list you go, the gaps between prospects shrink. The prospect team likely has a list of anywhere from 20-50 more names you could try to argue on to the 101, and the gap between, say, 50 and 75, or 75 and 90 could very well be within the error bars.

Given the bust rate on prospects overall, even the very highly regarded ones, volume is the exciting thing here.  Dylan Cease on his own is a risky proposition.  Alec Hansen on his own is a risky proposition.  Michael Kopech might not work.  Dane Dunning might not work.  Then again, all four of them could wind up being major league contributors, and a few of them could be of the impact variety.

It is a different world for White Sox fans than even a few years ago, but now the game becomes watching and waiting, seeing what becomes of this collection of talent.  And the season is rapidly approaching.

Photo credit Matt Marton