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 …

Your browser does not support iframes.

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

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.  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

When you’re throwing strikes down in the zone, particularly with the sinking fastball, you’re more than likely going to induce weak contact. Even the Yankees’ four base hits were of the weaker variety, and only one of them came on pitches in the upper half of the strike zone. Gonzalez threw 64.7 percent of his pitches on the night for strikes, which is exactly his career average, but what made this pitches successful is that he rarely left the ball up. More than half of his 88 pitches — 53 percent — came in that lower half, and when he missed, even that seemed to have a purpose, as he pounded left-handed hitters inside or swept a curve or slider far outside to the righties.

As was the case last season, for Gonzalez to be effective he needs to locate, something that’s becoming an increasingly familiar theme this season with fellow veteran junk-ballers James Shields and Derek Holland on the staff. For pitchers without swing-and-miss stuff to find success, they have to be deceptive enough to keep hitters off-balance with both location and speed, and on Tuesday, Gonzalez did as such with the 76-mph curveball and 80-mph slider, mixing and matching that with his fastball-sinker combo in the low 90s.

It’s a fine balance to strike. That type of repertoire rarely allows a day of lost command without suffering a number of walks or a few dingers. But for one day, at least, Gonzalez had it all working.

2. We’re not yet to the point of the season where Avisail Garcia’s hot start can be considered more than a hot start, but every day in which he produces is a step toward him shutting everyone up, present company included.

Nine days ago when he was hitting .474 five games into the season, I looked back through five-game samples from a year ago and it didn’t even take me until the end of April to find a streak similar to the one he was on then. I did the same thing following Tuesday’s game and, well, it still didn’t take me until the end of April to find one similar. From April 25 through May 10 of last season, Garcia slashed .439/.489/.732 with two home runs, four walks, and five strikeouts in 47 plate appearances.

What Garcia has shown during this stretch, though, has been impressive. On Tuesday, he yanked one of Luis Severino’s few mistakes, a hanging slider, into the left field seats for a three-run homer that ended up being the difference in the win.

Garcia should get credit for crushing a pitch he should crush — good hitters do that to mistake pitches — but also for selling out and showing off good pull power, something he’s been unable to do with regularity throughout his career.

We’re taking baby steps with Garcia. I don’t know how long it will take for me, personally, to believe his hot streak is going to translate into a full season of success. But any progress is a good thing.

3. Jacob May didn’t play Tuesday, but is now 27 plate appearances into his major league career — 24 at-bats — without a base hit. The streak is the 12th longest hitless streak to start a career in major league history, excluding pitchers. For what it’s worth, May has seemed to be keeping a level head and is saying all the right things despite his struggles.

“If you keep looking at it as a negative, then it’s going to be a negative,” May said. “If you feel like there is no such thing as a negative, you can learn from any experience you are going through. It’s going to make me a better person, a better player, a better teammate. It is what it is. I can’t change those last at-bats. All I can do is show up today, get my work done and give my best effort. At this point, I’m going to keep attacking it.”

The odds of May becoming a major league caliber player were long to begin with, and to say they’ve gotten off to a rough start would be an understatement. In a nut shell, reacting to a 27-plate appearance streak isn’t the wisest decision. But every player is a unique case, and it’s entirely possible May’s lack of success is a sign he can’t hack it as a major leaguer. In fact, one could even say it’s likely that is the case.

4. I’ve repeated it twice in this post alone and many times during the first few weeks, but we’re still several weeks away from individual stats stabilizing to more normal levels, but it’s hard, even now, to ignore the rough starts by Tim Anderson and Jose Abreu.

Abreu went 0-for-4 on Tuesday, including an embarrassing sacrifice bunt attempt he apparently undertook on his own immediately preceding Garcia’s home run, and is now 8-for-51 with one extra-base hit and 14 strikeouts on the season. Anderson, coincidentally, is also 8-for-51 with one extra-base hit, one walk, and 13 strikeouts.

Abreu and Anderson couldn’t be more different in terms of their age, stature, and profile, but each player’s performance is worth monitoring for different reasons. With Abreu, like Garcia, it didn’t take me to the end of April 2016 to find a streak similar to this one, but the fact that he’s an immobile slugger now on the wrong side of 30 and is apparently in his own head enough to attempt something like that bunt provides at least some reason for concern.

Anderson’s case is completely different. The concern for him lies more in the fact that he’s to this point more unproven than proven as a major-league hitter. After a fine rookie season, there remains quite a bit of hope that he’s able to take another step forward in his development with a full season as the team’s starting shortstop, but 430 successful plate appearances does not a star make (Gordon Beckham had one fewer plate appearance than Anderson in his rookie season and a virtually idential OPS+).

Again, not yet time to worry about Abreu nor Anderson, but it’d be pretty cool if either or both broke out of their funks sooner than later.

5. Old friend and compatriot James Fegan has been traipsing about North Carolina all week, getting a first-hand look at the prospects in Winston-Salem and Charlotte. Among his work is a Q&A with Dash manager and the guy who scored the game-winning run in Game 4 of the 2005 World Series, Willie Harris, a look at the progress Zach Collins is making at catcher, and a profile of young outfielder Luis Alexander Basabe. They are worth your time.

Lead Photo Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

Depending on whom you ask, Moncada is somewhere between the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball to anywhere down to 10ish or so.  He has massive tools — power, speed, etc. — but has had barely any time at Double-A or Triple-A, so I would hope the White Sox give him most of 2017 in the minors. He’s been playing primarily third base, but his natural position is at 2B, where he was blocked in Boston.  Nothing is blocking him in Chicago.  There is a non-zero chance Moncada turns into a world-eating MVP candidate, which would be very cool, although Sale was already a world-eating Cy Young candidate.

Kopech is a flamethrower in the low minors who sits touching triple digits and has popped 102-103. His change has evidently improved to go along with his low-90s slider that may be a plus pitch. The question here is “starter or reliever?” because the guys who throw this hard are overwhelmingly unable to hold up as starters. Our prospect team has him as a reliever.

Basabe is a toolsy outfield prospect who played 2016 as a 19 year old in low-A and acquitted himself well without dominating. Evidently he has contact issues, particularly from the right side as he is a switch hitter.  There are worse profiles than “possible switch-hitting center fielder” but he’s a long way away.

Overall, our prospect team had this trio at Boston’s Nos. 2, 5, and 6 prospects, respectively,  and you can read more about all three of them here.  Jeff Paternostro had a quick hit on Diaz as well.  He’s a 22-year-old reliever who spent all of 2016 in A-ball but apparently he’s a velocity guy.  In sum, a lot of this seems to turn on whether Kopech is a starter or a reliever, with Kopech kind of needing to be a starter for this package to be “worth it.”

There are a lot of general principles that apply to this trade that are cause for concern.  “Don’t trade a superstar to Dave Dombrowski for prospects.”  “Pitchers who sit at 100 mph basically never stick as starters.” “The White Sox have no idea how to fix a prospect’s contact problems.” “Why wasn’t Rafael Devers included for Chris freaking Sale?” etc.

It is also problematic to think that if this organization couldn’t win with Chris Sale on the cheap, what makes us more hopeful for the next crop of good young players when they arrive?

Emotionally, this removes the most fun thing about the White Sox. No matter what happened, watching Sale every fifth day was a treat over the past few years, and any given start he could eviscerate his opposition in breathtaking fashion and put on a show all by himself. That’s gone.  And as my fiancee said, “But now Chris Sale is going to pitch for the Red Sox and that’s horrible.” There’s that, too.

But hey, at least the agony is over, a direction has been picked, and Sale gets to pitch for a team that will score runs and play defense for him, and White Sox fans have some cool new prospects to dream on.  Given this return, it seems clear the White Sox cannot push their chips in for 2017, and so it would only make sense for Melky Cabrera, Todd Frazier, Brett Lawrie, and even David Robertson to be on the block this winter or as the season progresses.  The more interesting question becomes whether they also deal Adam Eaton and/or Jose Abreu and/or Jose Quintana.  That would signal whether they intend to try to win again in 2018 or further beyond.

Lead Photo Credit: Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports