Minor League Ball Gameday, Wednesday, March 22nd

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to the Minor League Ball Gameday thread for Wednesday, March 22nd, 2017. Here are some baseball reading items worthy of your attention today.

****MLB Spring Training Scoreboard

****World Baseball Classic Scoreboard

****New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi has named Greg Bird as the Opening Day first baseman, a completely logical move.

***Houston Astros prospect Derek Fisher hit a home run yesterday in the 2-1 Astros victory over the Miami Marlins. This brings his spring line to .276/.389/.483 in 29 at-bats with seven steals. It remains uncertain what kind of batting average Fisher will provide down the line, but the power/speed combination is legit.

****Milwaukee Brewers farmhand David Denson, the only openly gay player in professional baseball, has announced his retirement.

****At Beyond the Boxscore, Kazuto Yamazaki tells us about five Japanese hitters with major league potential.

****At Fishstripes, JJ Brands looks at two non-roster spring training invitees who could appear in the majors later this year with the Miami Marlins: pitcher Dillon Peters and first baseman Tyler Moore.

****Travis A. Barnett at Bucsdugout says that new Statcast data confirms the Pittsburgh Pirates decision to move Andrew McCutchen to right field.

****Ben Badler at Baseball America has a list of the top 50 signing bonuses for international players in the 2016 signing window.