mqr

What I'm saying is if they were extremely concerned with his service time, they would have waited until May of last year to call him up. I would say my cut off for willing to call a guy up vs wait til next year is right around the end of July/ beginning of August

Eloy would fall under the cornerstone prospect. He's a guy that may one day be looking for a mega-contract (now unlikely after his extension). I don't foresee Madrigal being a 100 million dollar FA so I'm more inclined to maximize his present value than want to control future value, if that makes any sense.

I'm often inclined to want to ignore service time considerations, but I at least get it when it comes to super duper athletes, corner stone type players. I really don't think Madrigal is that type of guy so I'd really push the 'when he's ready' angle. If you can bring Yoan Moncada up at the end of July, you can bring up Madrigal. That being said I have no idea what to make of his development so I'm probably not going to get to a point where I'm actually calling for him to come up.

It's possible that they've become so efficient in their way of thinking that they ignore other development paths, sort of how Billy Beane ignored player development in a lot of ways because he was so good at acquiring ready made talent. "Well if our plan didn't work, then certainly there is no hope" I'd put the odds on the Sox outsmarting the Astros in any way extremely low, but it's not impossible for the Astros to be wrong.

I'll always wonder if he'd be better served to have just pushed through the struggles or if it would have ended up with him never getting out of A ball

You're right, but there's something nice about seeing your guy in the fancy jerseys, on a national stage with guys you know are great that an all-MLB team wouldn't capture.

Remember when everyone was whining about how bad White Sox development was becuase Collins couldn't produce with a new swing and went back to his old one and started producing? Well this is why they wanted to make that change.

I saw that Robert is going to be wearing 9 in charlotte. Do minor leaguers have much say in the number they are given? It often doesn't seem so, but this feels like a nod to Minnie.

I disagree with your Robert timeline, but even still, Madrigal, Vaughn and Kopech technically would float the system were Robert to graduate this year somehow.

He is a guy that I forget exists as soon as he's not in the lineup. Just a massive pit of indifference.

Yes, but at some point his presence will be an active hindrance to those goals. That could be as early as next year.

In what world do the Sox have a bottom half farm unless your talking about like 14 months from now?

Yeah, once Robert comes up, I get the feeling they're going to get real aggressive with the two college guys. Should be game on at that point.

Right, I'm just saying there is some room for error that didn't appear to be there 4 months ago.

Alen Hansen falls into this same category no?

My man you can think it all you want, but don’t say it. Leverage baby.

FWIW, they appear to have a lot more talent to supplement than they did in 15-16.(or at the very least more evenly distributed talent) You can have bums but only a couple. There are probably going to be a lot fewer holes to fill with Melky Cabreras and Mat Latos's and James Shields's and JB Shucks and Jimmy Rollins's..you get the idea.

I'm not sure what to make of Burdi, because they were clearly taking a risk with that pick. But every team has two or three year spaces of nothing. Hell, the Astros whiffed completely on two straight number one picks, and the one they hit on was the underslot play. Everyone talks about how great Theo did drafting, but all he did was draft a no brainer and a bunch of below average outfielders. The Yanks have produced one decent 1st rounder since 2006 (Granted the 1 is Aaron Judged and he is more than decent) TA was an absolute win, Rodon has had unfortunate injury luck but was/is a solid major leaguer when healthy, Madrigal looks like he'll be a major leaguer. Chris Sale is a gd hall of famer. The Sox have problems, but first round picks isn't one, or at least not a huge one.

AJ Reed is going to to fill the Yonder sized hole in all of our hearts. Interested how long it takes for us to never want to see him again. Palka lasted about 3 days.

Yeah seems like a redundant use of resources to me.

That's how it works for most teams. One or two guys make up the lions share of value.

Sample size, maybe other variables at play. If he can't or won't DH I don't want anything to do with him for more than one more year.

It is a smidge high, but he's on an absolutely tear so of course it looks that way.

Point being, they feel the need to bring in a nobody instead of letting Collins play more than once a week

He cut down his k's 6% and his walks 3%, so he's putting an extra 9% of his at bat's in play. That's a huge deal for someone who hits the ball as hard as anyone. The trade off on walks was a smart play.