Chicago baseball: How does Jose Abreu compare to Anthony Rizzo?

Who ya got: Abreu or Rizzo?

First off, let’s not get this twisted here: both players are great and should be appreciated regardless of any comparison to one another.

And they both have unique aspects about their games that put them in the upper echelon of major leaguers.

The Defense

For example, Rizzo has an obvious edge over Abreu as a defender.

In fact, though Abreu has generally improved throughout his time in the states, he still hasn’t posted a season with a defensive wins above replacement (WAR) value over zero. His career number sits at -5.5. Not good.

Rizzo, on the other hand, has a far more solid 0.6 career dWAR and even won a Gold Glove in 2016. Objectively, of course, he doesn’t exactly have the greatest glove of all time over there, but he makes the plays he should make and has shown he can pull out a few spectacular ones too.

The Offense

But even despite all that, Abreu’s bat tips the scales in his favor even when accounting for his defense.

While Rizzo has a better OBP (.366 vs. .359 for Abreu) due to taking far more walks over a 162-game average (~78 walks a year for Rizzo vs. ~45 for Abreu), Abreu takes just about every other offensive category.

He runs away from Rizzo in batting average over their careers (.301 vs. .266), averages more home runs (33 vs. 29), RBI (108 vs. 95), and has a higher OPS (.885 vs. .849) because his slugging percentage sits more than 40 points higher than Rizzo’s.

From an offensive WAR standpoint, Abreu’s oWAR and Rbat (runs above average value as a hitter alone) over five years (19.3 and 141, respectively) nearly equal Rizzo’s over seven seasons in Chicago (20.4 and 139, respectively).

Also, as an aside, did anyone mention the fact that he’s destroying the ball right now and it’s not even summer time?

The overall

Overall, though, it’s that defensive that slides things slightly in Rizzo’s favor on the whole as predicted.

Abreu’s WAR over five seasons with the White Sox stands at 17.5, or about 3.5 wins above replacement a year. Rizzo’s WAR over seven seasons with the Cubs sits at 26.2, or 3.74 per season.

If you count Rizzo’s first season in San Diego in which he played 49 games (not too well, I might add), then Abreu sneaks past Rizzo (3.5 to 3.24). Take that how you will.

That’s not a huge difference either way, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

The other thing to note is that Rizzo is also still more than two years younger than Abreu; Rizzo will be 29 soon while Abreu just turned 31. As such, Rizzo still has time to push himself even further in his prime years. Abreu still has plenty of prime baseball before him, too, but he’s likely a fairly finished product at this point.

As such, who knows how this will ultimately shake out?

Next: Three priorities for Bears in first round

At this point, Abreu is clearly the better offensive player, but Rizzo’s all-around game does seem to give him the edge in the numbers argument. And assuming that Rizzo gets back on track, that story should remain the same after this season.

Then again, he’d better stay on his game, because Abreu’s right there with him. He’s certainly outplaying Rizzo by a good bit right now, though extenuating circumstances exist.

And as the White Sox transform, in theory, into a good baseball team, he could vie to steal the title of “Best First Baseman in Chicago” soon.