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Minor League Ball Gameday, September 18

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Omaha Stormchasers defeat Durham Bulls for Triple-A National Championship'; Idaho Falls knocks off Helena in Pioneer League final series; Pittsburgh Pirates adopt new defensive ideas

By John Sickels
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Barmes and Walker
Barmes and Walker
Joe Robbins

Good afternoon prospect watchers. We will do one more "normal" gameday thread here today, then tomorrow we will start experimenting with an off-season format change, at least until the Arizona Fall League gets started.

***Good day for Kansas City Royals affiliates yesterday: the Omaha Stormchasers of the Pacific Coast League won the Triple-A National Championship behind the pitching of lefty Chris Dwyer, defeating the Durham Bulls of the International League by a 2-1 score. Meanwhile, over in the Pioneer League, the Idaho Falls Chukars defeated the Helena Brewers with a 6-0 victory to win Game Three of the finals series. This closes out the minor league season.

Again, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the daily threads with comments and game performance notes over the last six months. You guys made this work.

***There was a very interesting article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review this past Saturday, discussing the Pirates and their adoption of new defensive concepts. "We've played infield positions conventionally for years, but if you look at hundreds of thousands of balls put in play, data shows that we're actually off a little bit," (Pirates GM Neal) Huntington said. It's a combination of things involving alteration of player positioning on the field, plus an emphasis on pitchers getting ground balls with greater use of two-seamers.

I think this is a fascinating topic. We get some Pirates fans here: what do you guys (or anyone else who has seen the Pirates play a lot this year) think of this? What about other teams? How soon will it be until everyone is doing this?


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