Here are your highlights from opening day in the minor leagues. The affiliates split, 2-2. In three of the parks the weather was cold so pitchers can get a mulligan. Some of the lower level hitters might ask for a mulligan too, they might never have experienced cold like that.

The minor leagues get going today on four fronts. Buffalo, New Hampshire and Dunedin start at home, while Lansing start on the road. Dunedin's home game is asterisk worthy as Dunedin stadium is being renovated so the Jays will play their home games at the Phillies old home in Clearwater. Because of conflicts at the "new" stadium, with other college and HS teams, the D-Jays will play a handful of their home games on the road this year. Buffalo play this afternoon, all others tonight.

Kevin Pillar was drafted in the 32nd round of 2011 draft. He was the 979th player taken.

The second place Baltimore Orioles trundle into town having taken two out of three games off the Yankees. With the Red Sox and the Yankees holding up the standings it is opposite day, or week, in the AL East.

The Blue Jays are assigning minor league players to their teams this weekend. The teams will travel to their home cities on Monday or Tuesday with the local teams announcing the rosters soon thereafter. Today I will look at where the top 30 prospects will be assigned and take my best guess. These guesses are not exhaustive, I am mainly looking to place the names you know who are prospects.

The 2019 season begins for the Toronto #LetsGoBlueJays.

Whoa. More than 300 comments? Strike another match, go start anew...

Seems I've found as many top 30 lists as I'm going to at this point without subscribing to a dozen services. Time to summarize them before the season gets going.

It's time for a fresh thread, and I want to alert one and all to Nate Silver's modest proposal to fix that which is broken. That thing being baseball, of course, which has been broken by an endless procession of ordinary pitchers wandering out of the bullpen to throw as hard as they can for no more than one inning. The result has been tedium, historic numbers of strikeouts (seldom the most exciting thing that can happen on a baseball diamond), and a game awash in mediocrity. Your modern dugout manager has found a way to actually weaponize mediocrity, and roughly a third of each team's active roster consists of these... mediocrities.

Yes, I'm an Old Fogey. And this isn't what I signed up for. You?

It has been a long, tough, ornery winter. But baseball is back, the Blue Jays play their first game of the year today.