Jesse Goldberg-Strassler

The Minnesota Twins have a long history of success. Unfortunately, it’s one that’s been marred of late by injuries to key players and various cases of underachievement. Luckily for Twins fans, their fortunes have already started to course correct in the form of superstar prospect Byron Buxton. Will 19-year-old Buxton eventually save the franchise?

A thoughtful minor league broadcaster and friend shared a theory this past week on why Major League teams don’t work as hard to develop talent in American inner-city communities as they do in the Dominican Republic or Venezuela and it got us thinking about how prospect development and the draft in general is handled by professional ball clubs. Jesse Goldberg-Strassler explains.

Between Jimmy Negrych and Chris Bootcheck, the International League’s most productive hitter and most effective pitcher, arguably, are non-prospects. This is far from unusual. In Triple-A, prospects are often outnumbered by journeymen, role players, veterans and free agents, floating freely between organizations, continuing to chase their own Major League dreams. The Majors are, after all, right there, one step above the International League! How do such circumstances affect the atmosphere in the clubhouse?

The Mississippi River has flooded parts of the Quad Cities stadium parking lot, encroaching on the ballpark and the downtown streets of Davenport, Iowa. This, not first overall MLB draft choice Carlos Correa, is the type of headline that’s dominated River Bandits media coverage for the past few weeks. Is baseball in April, unpredictable weather and all, worth it?

The actual fictional book edition of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” according to the inimitable Douglas Adams, “has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover. But there is no official Guide to the Baseball Season, and so panicking comes easily.