Jose Abreu worked through some second-year turbulence and managed to avoid a dreaded sophomore slump.
The 28-year-old first baseman entered Thursday — he wasn’t in the White Sox matinee lineup against the Oakland Athletics — with 29 home runs, 93 RBIs, an .874 OPS and 3.3 fWAR. His production hasn’t been as good as it was during his 2014 Rookie of the Year season (36 HR, 107 RBIs, .964 OPS, 5.3 WAR) but he’s still hitting at a high level, which is encouraging for the White Sox moving forward with him under contract through 2019.
Abreu’s ability to successfully adjust to a league that has more than a full year of scouting reports and video on him means his trajectory hasn’t been thrown off, even if his numbers are merely very good in 2015.