Minor League Ball Gameday Discussion, March 28

Good morning prospect watchers. It will be 60 degrees today in Lawrence, Kansas...the snow is melting quickly, thunderstorms are on the way this weekend, and one might detect a faint bit of spring in the air. Best of all, Opening Day is almost here. But for now, spring camps are still open and final roster decisions are being made, so here is today's daily thread for prospect discussion.

For your reading pleasure and work avoidance:

***Charlie Drysdale at PurpleRow, SB Nation's Colorado Rockies blog, wrote up an informative piece about Pacific Coast League park effects, including the handy graphic below. He notes that Colorado Springs installed a humidor last year, and that the Albuquerque Isotopes are doing the same this season and the instigation of the Dodgers' player development department.

***The Detroit Tigers sent projected closer Bruce Rondon down to Triple-A Toledo this morning and will go with the closer-by-committee plan.

***The Texas Rangers returned Rule 5 pick Coty Woods to the Colorado Rockies, and received Rule 5 pick Chris McGuiness back from the Cleveland Indians. See MLBDailyDish for details. Woods had a good spring and seems like he has a future as a middle reliever somewhere. McGuiness didn't and seems likely to be little more than upper-minor slugger insurance for the Rangers.

***Is game theory the next frontier for baseball analysis? Lance Rinker at Beyond the Boxscore interviews Matt Swartz, who gave a presentation on game theory and baseball at the recent SABR conference. I don't know what to think about that really; most of my knowledge about game theory ideas comes from guys like Herman Kahn and always creeped me out psychologically. At least baseball is a more palatible topic than nuclear war.