Minor League Ball Gameday: March 30, 2018

Good day everybody and welcome to the Minor League Ball Gameday discussion thread for Friday, March 30th, 2018. Yesterday was Opening Day for Major League Baseball as you may have noticed. The minors don’t get started until April 7th but we still have some cool stuff to talk about here.

*****The St. Louis Cardinals gave rookie right-hander Jordan Hicks his first taste of the major leagues yesterday with an inning of relief work against the New York Mets. He gave up one hit and no runs, fanned Jay Bruce, and averaged 100.4 MPH with his fastball.

*****In other prospect news Miami Marlins rookie Brian Anderson went 2-for-3 with a walk, a run scored, and two RBI. Kansas City Royals rookie Brad Keller, a Rule 5 pick from the Arizona Diamondbacks system who made the 25-man roster, threw a shutout inning of relief work against the Chicago White Sox.

*****At Fangraphs today, Sheryl Ring looks at the problem of concussions in baseball and wonders if MLB will have a lawsuit on is hands eventually. She notes that New York Yankees outfielder Clint Frazier has yet to fully recover from a concussion suffered early in spring training. Frazier described the headaches and thought confusions resulting from the concussion in late February in this ESPN article, along with the frustration of the slow recovery process

I know how he feels. As long-time readers may remember, I suffered a concussion back in the fall of 2013. You can read about the recovery process in this series of articles called The Concussion Chronicle. It took nine months before the symptoms fully abated and even now I feel like I permanently lost something from the injury.

STUFF IN THE WORK QUEUE

****Sleepers from the American League West, National League East, National League Central, and National League Central. The AL East is here and the AL Central is here.

****2018 MLB Draft reports beginning with Brady Singer.