Minor League Ball daily notes, April 29, 2016

Good morning everyone and welcome to the April 29th, 2016 edition of Minor League Ball daily notes. Here are some baseball news links for your edification and amusement.

****Nothing amusing about the whole Dee Gordon PED suspension. There's a wide range of coverage at FishStripes worthy of your attention, with commentary on Gordon's character as well as the impact it will have on the team.

The violators keep saying they don't know how this stuff gets into their system. What kind of "supplements" are these guys taking? Is GNC selling this stuff mislabeled as protein powder or something? It has to drive the clean players nuts as much as it does the fans. There's talk that the union may be open to stiffer penalties in the upcoming labor negotiations. Even as it stands, 80 games is a pretty tough suspension: that's half the season, a long stretch for a team to lose one of their star players. If the peer pressure to not cheat doesn't stop it, what will? Voiding contracts? 162-game suspensions without pay for the first offense?

Someone please make this issue go away.

****Not a fun season so far for the Minnesota Twins, but at least Joe Mauer looks like his pre-concussion self these days. Shawn Brody at Beyond the Boxscore gives a rundown, including a quotation from Mauer about how his vision has only now returned to normal, more than two years after the concussion.

****Caitlin Rogers at Pinstripe Alley asks if the Yankees use too many defensive shifts.

****Carson Cistulli at Fangraphs discusses the terrifying Tarantula Hawk Wasp in his weekly Fringe Five prospect column. There's some baseball stuff there too.

****Bed Badler at Baseball America weighs in on Cincinnati Reds prospect Cody Reed and his devastating tarantula wasp slider.

****I'm going on a scouting jaunt this weekend, probably to get rained out, but you gotta start somewhere.