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Collins and Detwiler would be the most obvious choices, but I honestly have no idea what the plan is with Collins and Detwiler probably earned himself another start or three. I for one would like to see if they stumbled into a Rich Hill situation.

I would imagine minimizing the wire being in peoples sight was a consideration. That's why I was bigger on just going to the poles rather than like an extra 30 feet or something. It's almost certainly overkill from a safety perspective, but I think it's better from a viewing perspective. The most annoying seats (rather the only annoying seats) are the ones right on the edge and 108 and whatever the other corner is have the pole in their way anyway.

I’d rather it take up my whole field of vision than part of it tbh. Easier to tune out that way.

Then you're no Ron lol

So what did he do to make you dislike him on a personal level

The best hitter on the team is very clearly Moncada right now. Followed very closely by McCann, but I wouldn’t expect that to continue.

Some view the acquisition of Reed as an indictment of Collins

This was what I felt was the only really valid concern, so good to see that they addressed it.

I knew there'd be some consternation about Collins, but man this is something.

Obviously if you guarantee production, I'd be in. But you can't. I don't dislike Jose and I appreciate the tiny bit of sanity he's provided over the last 5 and half years, but the team needs to be careful in assessing this situation and shouldn't be handing out, idk, 40 million dollars for feels. If Moncada and Jimenez and whoever else can't survive their friends leaving the team, assuming it's on good enough terms, they're in trouble.

The fact that he's coming off a shoulder surgery as well has to increase that number no?

Cease should be full go by next year, at least he should be expected to be able to go 180. I would guess kopech gets skipped here and there and gets pulled early if the team scores a bunch of runs.

Thinking emotionally like this is how you end up trading away Gleyber Torres and Eloy Jimenez instead of Kyle Schwarber.

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?