Minor League Ball Gameday, Wednesday, April 8

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Minor League Ball Gameday thread for Wednesday, April 8, 2015. It looks stormy here in the Midwest with a chance for severe thunderstorms with tornadoes and hail the next couple of days. Watch the skies!

****Tomorrow (Thursday) is the second Opening Day: the minor leagues get going. Or I suppose it is actually the third Opening Day of the year if you count college baseball. However you look at it, there is more quality baseball being played now than ever before in my opinion.

I know that football and basketball still draw away many of the best athletes, but my hope is that the increasing awareness of the serious dangers of playing football will steer kids in the baseball direction. I don't know what to do about basketball but the RBI Program continues and hopefully that will continue to show steady benefits. There is so much money flowing into MLB right now that one hopes some of that cash can be used for long-term investment in the game at all levels.

****Miles Wray at Fangraphs has an article up today reminding us that the Los Angeles Angels held back Mike Trout to open the 2012 season. I don't think many people remember that. Nobody will remember this Kris Bryant thing three years from now either.

****Bluebirdbanter has a solid post explaining how options and outrights work using the Blue Jays roster as the current example.

****Nick Melotte will get the Gameday threads going in a couple of days once the MiLB season begins with his new extensive tracking system for prospects.

****In the works I have articles about Dalton Pompey, a "who is that guy?" rookie list, and the promised Prospect Retros for Drew Pomeranz and Lance Lynn, both by request. Please feel free to suggest other topics.

****I am supposed to hear back from the printer tomorrow about the status of the print copies of the 2015 Baseball Prospect Book. The PDF goes out every night to both PDF orders and hard copy orders. If you have ordered the book and have NOT received the PDF within 24 hours, please check your spam filter. If it is not there, email me directly at JASickels at aol dot/com and I will make sure you are taken care of.

Editor's Note: SB Nation is hosting a $6,000 one-day Fantasy Baseball league for MLB Opening Day on FanDuel. It's $5 to join and first place wins $1,000 and four tickets to a game. Enter now!