Minor League Fantasy Draft-Round Two- Edward Cabrera

And minutes after I posted last night's news- we move to part two with the NCAA canceling all winter and spring sports, the NHL suspending their season, and Major and Minor league baseball delaying their season for the first two weeks of the year.

I'll have a post soon on the XFL ending their season, but declaring that they aren't closing up shop and plan on playing the 2021 season.
We'll see about that, but with no sports for the next few weeks at least I'll be writing some special posts on Forgotten Superstars and other subjects that time doesn't always permit with different topics in the news, so if you like those types of posts this will be a time that you may enjoy.

Sunday morning, our annual minor league fantasy draft began and I wasn't likely to select anyone.
That's because I had somehow won my first championship in 2019, so my pick was last in the round.
When my pick rolled on Monday, my "Akron Rubber Ducks" were called upon by Corey Cunningham and his "West Virginia Power" and asked if I was interested in moving my first-rounder.
I had a large number of players that I was interested in, but none that stood out above the rest so I was interested in talking deal.
Corey had used his pick at four and he owned another first-rounder at eleven, but he couldn't decide between two players that he wanted badly.
In the end, I traded the final pick in the first round and a fourth-rounder in the 2021 draft (in our league, you cannot trade picks for the next draft until the draft has started) for the Power's first and second-round picks in the 2021 draft.
I wasn't too unhappy as it now sets me up to have five picks in the first three rounds of next year's draft and possibly completing my draft in three rounds.
Corey made a nice pick with his newly acquired choice in Orioles right-hander Grayson Rodriguez, who was one of the players in my queue but was not the player that I would have selected as I gambled a player from the bunch would tumble to the final pick of the second round.

Four of the dozen had been selected by my pick and it didn't take me long to make my selection with the highest-rated player on the board- Edward Cabrera, a right-handed pitcher in the Miami Marlins system.
Cabrera will turn 22 in a few weeks and was tremendous in his breakout season last year as Cabrera pitched for High A Jupiter and AA Jacksonville in 19 starts.
Cabrera finished with a 2.23 ERA between the two levels, hitters batted only .190 against Cabrera and Cabrera struck out 116 batters in 96 innings.
Cabrera walked only 31, so control isn't a problem for now and he has an excellent curveball to pair with a fastball that can touch 100 mph and sits in the mid-90s.
Cabrera added a changeup to his toolkit last season and when you can change speeds with a player with a fastball such as his, one can imagine the difficulty for hitters against him.


At 6'4 and only 175 pounds, Cabrera has some filling out to do and he's very projectable as a potential front-end starter.
Cabrera made nine starts for AA Jacksonville, so he's likely to start with the Jumbo Shrimp again to start the season, but he might not be there for very long if he performs as well as he did last season.
AAA Wichita should see Cabrera early in the year and the Marlins could bring him to the majors at some time during the second half of the season.

My third-round pick will be earlier than usual as I moved up in round three after an earlier trade.

Corona

It's hard to summon up a topic to write about at a time when the world is suffering from all the pain and hysteria from the Coronavirus (Covid 19).

Take Wednesday as an example of a day that might be remembered historically under certain conditions and yet could very well be just another ripple on the pond before this can be corralled and controlled.
In one day, the World Health Organization declared Covid to be officially declared a pandemic, the President spoke from the Oval Office with a policy that will heavily restrict travel from other countries for thirty days, arguably the nation's most loved actor and his wife (Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson) announced that they are in quarantine after testing positive for the virus, and the NBA released a statement that their season is being suspended indefinitely after a player has tested positive (reportedly Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz) with the five teams (including the Cavaliers) that Utah has played in the last ten days being placed in self-quarantine.
And I didn't even touch the plans for the NCAA Tournament being planned to play in arenas without fans or the potential issues with Major League Baseball and their opener in just two weeks.

That was only one day.
Who knows what today or next week etc will bring and it's about more than sports, although it's hard to tell just how much damage could be done to various sports.
When anything is gone for a while, people realize that anything can be replaced.
You find other things to occupy your time, other things to collect, and you learn to move on and away from what once brought you joy.

I'm wondering just what the impact will be on the baseball, NBA, and NHL seasons.
The main impact on the NFL will likely be moving the draft to a quiet indoor environment and considering the craziness that hosting the draft brings anymore, I actually like that idea.
Baseball will likely lose much of April at a minimum and this might give Rob Manfred the opening he needs to really rip up the minors in the manner that he chooses.
The results of this pandemic will likely at least reduce the playoffs in the NBA and NHL, if not eliminate them completely and who really can see how boxing, UFC, golf, etc will deal with these issues as each of those have their own interests involved without a league structure for the most part.
Golf has the PGA Tour, but all four major tournaments are held outside the auspices of the PGA and you have to think of the Masters in only three weeks' time.

I'm not going to dig too deep into the political aspect of this other than two things.
One- The President seemed to be either subdued or overwhelmed (depending on whether you support or you do not) and had the look of a man that was facing something that he couldn't dismiss with a proclamation that something was "Fake" or a tweet or a nickname and he had discovered that the unraveling of a persona may have begun.
Two- I'm interested to see how the President and the Democratically-controlled house can work together on this issue.
Who will be helped the most- the people dealing with the illness or the various industries that will be affected by Covid 19?
I'm hoping that both sides can work together and do the right thing for everyone involved.

Running Uphill

I've been battling a bit of a cold/illness this week and even though I've been working through it, I haven't felt overly motivated to write.

There hasn't been a lot of news other than the damn Coronavirus, and certainly, nothing to carry its own post, so just to keep my writing chops semi-sharp- Here we go with a few thoughts.

The Cleveland Browns are apparently not going to re-sign Joe Schobert and will allow him to leave via free agency.
Schobert's representatives met with the Browns and couldn't come to an agreement with Schobert's wish to be paid around ten million per year more than the Andrew Berry-led front office was willing to pay.
I understand the Browns not wanting to pay that kind of money for Schobert, who is a good, not great linebacker, but if the Browns decide to keep the oft-injured Christian Kirksey at nine million per
year ( and at that price, I hope they release him as well), I would question this move far more than moving on from both players.
The Browns will be opening a hole at linebacker and I can argue that creating a space for a cheaper and lesser player will not help the Browns. but I can see why they could be moving away at the money that he is asking for.

The "Coronavirus" hasn't been around locally and hopefully, it will not find its way here, but it could have an impact on me even if it never shows up.
MLB has sent memos to all of their teams recommending that players refrain from signing autographs and contact with fans, due to the virus.
I understand the nervousness with their investments (although most people don't have the luxury of not being around people at their job.) but being around young players as minor league baseball is populated with, I think I know them a little bit and I'll say this- There will be players refusing to sign/interact long after the hysteria has passed.
It'll be a reason to avoid people that may be legitimate now, but won't be for the entire season.

Another thought on this.
Spring Training is in full swing, and teams in Florida and Arizona have already implemented this policy.
I would imagine that a major chunk of the people that go south for pre-season is going for the interaction with the players.
These visitors are not always autograph seekers, people that want to talk with the players, get a picture, etc. in an atmosphere that even the biggest stars are more relaxed and willing to engage with the ticket-buyers.
Those people that buy tickets, stay in hotels and eat in local restaurants could be less likely to return next season as they could be afraid that there could be another health scare that takes away the fun from the trip and the expense with airfare, hotel, food, etc.
It'll be interesting to see how exhibition attendance declines over the final few weeks of the spring (I don't think it'll be major as these trips are most already paid for), but I'll be really intrigued to watch next season's attendance.

A really interesting show that I watched the first two episodes is "Dispatches from Elsewhere" on AMC.
I've never even watched one episode of AMC's huge hits such as "Breaking Bad", "Mad Men", "The Walking Dead" or "Better Call Saul", but I was watching a movie on AMC, saw a promo for the show and I decided to give the first two episodes a chance.
Jason Segel, of Freaks and Geeks fame, is one of the two actors that I knew along with Sally Field and it's an interesting concept that's hard to explain with only two episodes to figure out the "rules" of the show.
Jump on board and give it a chance to see what you think.

Wrapping up with the new Topps Heritage Baseball card set.
Heritage is the only major league set that I buy each year and this year is the one that I have been waiting for as finally, it is the time for the set to emulate my beloved 1971 set!
If you've been here for a while, you may remember that I finally finished the 1971 set a few years back and it is cemented as a star of my collection.
In other words, short of the type of emergency that would be financially crippling, that set isn't going anywhere for a long time.
This year's Heritage set looks great, although Topps continues its habit of placing too many stars in their "Short Print" portion of the set.
I understand the argument that lesser players as the SP cards might make it less collectible, but there could be a better mix involved.
I usually buy a "base" set of 400 cards and only buy the SP's of the Indians, Giants, and Pirates players, but this year, I'm going to try to collect all the SP's- not just for the value, but because I like them so much!