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Miguel Sano is currently under investigation for violating the league's domestic violence policy. At last report, he had been interviewed by MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred which is typically indicative that the investigation is nearing completion. Any announcement of a suspension should be coming soon. Is there any way to forecast the length of Sano's suspension? I will outline the prior cases and compare them to Sano's to see if there's any reasonable prediction.
 
Before we get too far, I want to state a couple of things for the record.
 
First, I'm assuming that the allegations of Sano's behavior are 100% true. I have no additional knowledge of the case beyond what has been published. I haven't interviewed Sano (or anyone else). I am presuming Sano to be guilty exactly as charged. (This is not a court of law.) I freely acknowledge there is additional information which MLB has collected as part of their investigation that will factor into the ultimate decision. I am merely stating that my guess here is based strictly on publicly available information.
 
Second, I will do my best to compare the cases based only on facts. I do not wish to make or imply any kind of judgement of the severity or impact of any of the alleged incidents. My purpose is not to make any moral equivalency - I'm confident that any kind of assault or violence is awful enough to experience that any punishment handed down isn't sufficient to balance out the physical or psychological damage. If you want to discuss whether the MLB punishment in this or any other case will deter or reduce the likelihood of future incidents, you're welcome to do it on your own. I'm only interested here in projecting how long the Twins may be without Sano's services - nothing more.
 
The policy against which Sano's actions are being judged is a joint policy of the league and the players association covering domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse. It was announced on August 15, 2015. The fact that the policy was jointly agreed to by both the league and the players association may partially explain why none of the previous suspensions handed down under the policy have been appealed. (An appeals process is defined as part of the policy, but has never been exercised.)
 
There have been five prior suspensions issued (all by Commissioner Manfred) under the policy. Besides Sano's case there is one additional case that is still under investigation (or at least has not yet resulted in any announced suspension).
 
Here are the prior suspensions, in chronological order:
Aroldis Chapman - 30 games
Jose Reyes - 51 games plus all of Spring Training
Hector Olivera - 82 games
Jeurys Familia - 15 games
Derek Norris - 27 games (technically none served as he had already been released, he forfeited his salary and was ineligible to be re-signed as a free agent)
Addison Russell - case pending - according to reports, the alleged victim(s) and witnesses are not fully cooperating with the MLB investigation

 
As you can see, there is no immediately apparent pattern to the length of the suspensions. This reflects the discretion built into the policy to allow the commissioner to address the unique circumstances of each incident. In other words, no two situations are going to be alike, so you can't have a fixed/formula suspension as with PEDs.
 
Aroldis Chapman, 30 games - Chapman was alleged to have placed his hands around the throat of his girlfriend's neck during an argument and of firing a gun eight times into the wall of the garage as his girlfriend cowered outside in the bushes. A police report was filed. Chapman was not arrested. Prosecutors ultimately chose not to press charges, citing conflicting accounts and insufficient evidence (due to incomplete witness cooperation). https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/sports/baseball/yankees-aroldis-chapman-suspended-for-30-games.html
 
Jose Reyes, 51 games - Reyes was accused of grabbing his wife by the throat and pushing her into a sliding glass door during an argument. Police were called and Reyes was arrested. Prosecutors pressed charges and a trial date was set. However, due to lack of cooperation from the alleged victim (Reyes' wife) the case was dismissed "without prejudice" which means they could bring charges again if the statue of limitations has not expired.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2016/05/13/rockies-jose-reyes-suspended-domestic-violence-mlb/83285122/
 
Hector Olivera, 82 games - Olivera was accused of assaulting a woman at the team's hotel. Police were called and Olivera was arrested and subsequently charged with misdemeanor assault and battery. He was convicted and sentenced to 90 days in prison (80 days suspended).
https://www.ajc.com/sports/baseball/braves-hector-olivera-charged-with-assault-battery/e8RSP5NIr2meEkUr3vJcFJ/
 
Jeurys Familia, 15 games - Familia was accused of domestic abuse in an incident involving his wife. Police were called and Familia was arrested. Charges were dismissed due to "not enough evidence". In announcing the suspension, Commissioner Manfred indicated that the evidence he reviewed "does not support a determination that Mr. Familia physically assaulted his wife or threatened her or others with harm…" He further stated, "Nevertheless, I have concluded that Mr. Familia's overall conduct that night was inappropriate, violated the policy and warrants discipline."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/sports/baseball/jeurys-familia-mets-suspended-domestic-violence.html
 
Derek Norris, 27 games - Norris was accused (via a social media post) by his former fiancé of physical and verbal abuse that occurred in 2015 (approximately two years prior to her post alleging the behavior). No police report was filed. Norris denied the allegations but did not appeal the suspension. He was a free agent at the time, having been released by the Rays shortly after the allegations came to light. He forfeited his salary and was ineligible to play had he been re-signed.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2017/06/07/derek-norris-ex-fiancee-alleges-she-put-chokehold/102601262/
 
Reviewing Sano's case, we know that the allegations were published via social media quite some time after the incident occurred and that no police report was filed at the time. (Again, this is not to call into question the veracity of the victim nor the severity of the alleged assault - merely as facts which can be related to other previous cases.) To the best of my knowledge, no criminal charges are pending though the appropriate Minnesota authorities have not indicated they have closed any pending investigations.
 
There are clear parallels with the Norris case - social media as the vehicle, time of allegation compared with the alleged incident and the absence of a police report. The absence of a police report is particularly significant because there are no contemporaneously gathered statements or evidence to guide the investigation or against which to compare any recollections by any witness.
 
There are also clear differences between Sano's case and those of Chapman, Olivera and Reyes. There was no arrest of Sano, no prosecution/charges (at this time) and no alleged use of weapons as with Chapman's case. (Manfred stated the use of a weapon was a contributing factor in his assessment of Chapman's case and his determination of a suspension.)
 
The Familia case is interesting in that police were called but ultimately no charges were filed. Media reports at the time indicated that the incident may have merely been a verbal altercation and that evidence of physical assault may have been due to other causes. Nonetheless, the commissioner determined the conduct was "inappropriate" and "warrants discipline".
 
The other pattern I discern in the suspensions is that other than Chapman's (the first case investigated under the policy) and Familia's (the shortest suspension levied) all of the other suspensions were 'time-based' - that is they were defined to expire as of the first of a month. I believe this is a significant indicator.
 
Given the above, it is my conjecture that Sano's suspension will be approximately one month, set to end on or about the first of the following month. Since the MLB investigation is nearing its conclusion (by all reports), it would seem likely that Sano would be suspended before the start of the season through April to be reinstated on or about May 1. If he were eligible to return on May 1, that would translate to 28 games (assuming no rainouts).
 
On May 1, the Twins are at home. Further, they plan to recognize the Minnesota Lynx for their championship that night. I can't help but think that all parties would recognize the bad optics of promoting the success of women's athletics on the same night an accused offender is returned to the field. The Twins also play at home the next night, May 2 before going on the road.
 
Thus, my final projection is that Sano will be suspended at the start of the season for 30 games. Starting with opening day, 30 games would carry them through May 2, at least (the entire home stand) and allow him to return to action on the road. If a game or two in April is rained out, they'll still be on the road, since they start a 10-day road trip on May 3.
 
It's unclear whether the suspension would allow for any concurrent minor league rehab starts while he is suspended. If not, then it makes sense for the suspension to end May 1 - the Twins could send Sano down to Rochester for a few games to avoid any awkwardness of a home debut (particularly on MN Lynx Day).
 
Sano can also expect to spend some time in sensitivity training, community service or similar activities to demonstrate his commitment to a better understanding of acceptable social interaction. Also, look for the Twins to donate any forfeited salary to a domestic violence-related charity. All that is as it should be, just not germane to my objective in this post.
 
Ultimately, we won't know until the Commissioner speaks. As noted above, no suspension under this policy has been appealed and I would expect the same outcome here. I would guess we'll see Sano on the field about the same time we see Santana - early May.
 
Note: Yasiel Puig was investigated under this policy for an incident involving his sister that occurred in a nightclub in 2015. After MLB completed its investigation, it issued a statement that Puig would not be suspended because their investigation did not uncover any witness who supported the allegation of assault.

Max Kepler, being a German, seemed like quite an exception in baseball history, so I had to do some research. Bleacher Reports was so fascinated by his story that they published http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2568511-max-kepler-the-german-baseball-player-who-spurned-soccer-for-mlb-dreams. The article included this Max Kepler quote – "Soccer is the No. 1 sport in Germany," Kepler said. "Baseball was barely poking its head out the window at the time. Being one of the best [soccer players] in my school, people frowned about it and they were just surprised that I would take baseball which is kind of a long jump."
 
What I found out follows - https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/History_of_baseball_in_Germany Baseball Reference says that in a 1796 book by a German, Johann Guts Muths, rules for a game called "English base-ball" appeared and as you might imagine it was a little different than what we play today. Then in 1936 Germany hosted an exhibition of baseball in the Olympics. Baseball was played by American prisoners of war in the notorious Nazi prison camps. http://mopupduty.com/baseball-in-germany-091412/ Following WWII the GIs that were occupying Germany introduced the sport again on their bases.
 
The military men followed their American examples and set up a league that included - Frankfurter Black Knights, Mannheimer Tornados, Münchner Broncos, and Stuttgarter Hawks. The Tornados – an all-black team was the best and the most popular. These teams had many Negro League and Major League players, but as service representation diminished Germany set up its own league – “In 1951, the first season of Baseball-Bundesliga was played, the first German championship.” Eventually they became part of a European baseball association that helped spread the sport through the Continent.
 
Now Max Kepler came out of this history, but he was not the first German player in the majors. Baseball Reference has this to say about the history of German’s in the American League and interestingly it is not Max Kepler who is the noted Minnesota Twins German: “The first Major League players from Germany were David Lenz and Marty Swandell who both debuted from May 7, 1872 for Brooklyn Eckfords. Swandell had played for the club since 1863, while Lenz was a 21-year old catcher who played the opening four games of the season with the club before being replaced by William Bestick. Over the next twenty years another eight players played in the majors, but only two played more than forty in their career - the most successful of which was pitcher Charlie Getzein who won 145 games. From 1893 through 1897, there were no Germans in the majors, but then until the American entry into World War I another twelve players played in the majors.
 
Of course, Germans were part of American history since the beginning so many players in the early years were still recognized by their home country and there have been 41 players who were born in Germany, including Max and Gardy - http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/birthplace.php?loc=Germany Check out the list.
Only three Germans played in the Majors between the two World Wars, a single player (Heinz Becker) played in the World War II-era, and during the 1950s and 1960s no Germans played in the majors. Thirteen players have debuted from 1972 onward, most of whom were the children of American service members stationed in the country. When Ron Gardenhire became the manager of the Minnesota Twins in 2002, he was the first German skipper since Chris von der Ahe in 1897.”
 
Germany’s domestic league – the fifteen team Bundesliga – reformed in 1982 and continues to play to this day. Baseball in German website says that from this league baseball started to sign players like Mitch Franke in 2000, and then Rodney Gressman, Donald Lutz, Max Kepler, Tim Henkenjohann, Simon Guhring, Kai Gronauer, Ludwig Glaser and Jennel Hudson with Max leading the way into the majors.
 
In the book – Beer, Brats, and Baseball – the author Jim Merkel writes about the 1860’s when many Germans, including some of distant uncles – settled in St Louis where the brewed beer and started a local baseball club – not the Cardinals – while joining the Union and helping preserve Missouri as a free state. This coincides with the official advent of Baseball in the US.
 
Baseball history is also filled with “Dutch” nicknames like Hubert Benjamin "Dutch" Leonard, (April 16, 1892 – July 11, 1952) was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who had an 11-year career from 1913 to 1921, and 1924 to 1925. He still holds the record for the lowest ERA ever – 0.96 in 1914. But he was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Lots of nicknames were based on the players ethnic backgrounds.
 
Should you want to see how German born players did in baseball careers – Baseball Reference provides this summary of statistics https://www.baseball-reference.com/bio/Germany_born.shtml You will be happy to know that Gardy is the greatest German born manager in history! Glenn Hubard is the best career hitter, and Edwin Jackson is the greatest German born pitcher. And Max – three years, two full years in the majors – his line is 239 – 310 – 422.

Following his one-out appearance on September 30, Glen Perkins found himself in tears. He came on to throw three pitches in the Minnesota Twins 161st game of the season. Asking Kennys Vargas for the ball as he walked off the diamond, Perkins likely knew the answer to the question Twins Territorians found themselves wondering, "Is this it?" As the club heads to the Wild Card game against the New York Yankees, Perkins isn't on the roster, but this game is as much for him as it is anyone.
 
Sitting at his locker and discussing the moment with Perkins, I couldn't help but to latch onto the comment he made about his contributions this season. The former closer suggested that he "wasn't really a part of this" and while that may be true in the literal sense, it couldn't be more false in the grand scheme of things. For the past 12 years, Minnesota Twins baseball has been as much about Glen Perkins as he has been about it. As Paul Molitor takes this 25 man group into the Bronx, the moment is for you too Glen.
 
A first round draft pick out of the University of Minnesota in 2004, Perkins made his debut just 2 years later. Working as a starter through his first three big league seasons, he didn't find his footing in the organization until a shift to the bullpen brought out his true colors.
 
From 2011-2015, Perkins pitched over 313 innings in relief for Minnesota. He compiled a 2.84 ERA across that span, and owned a solid 9.8 K/9 to go with a 2.1 BB/9. Taking over as closer in 2012, he compiled 118 saves, putting his career mark at 120. That number is good enough for 3rd in Twins history, and puts him behind only Joe Nathan and Rick Aguilera. The hometown kid had gone from failed starter, to solid reliever, and eventually one of the best closers in team history.
 
For all of Perkins' accolades on the field though, it's almost equally fair to define him by his career off of it. A true Minnesotan in every sense of the definition, Perkins embraced the state as much as humanly possible. Both he and his wife Alisha have been absolute pillars in the community, and have been involved in many more aspects than simply the game of baseball. Both have displayed giving hearts and have worn their emotions for the organization and the state on their sleeves.
 
Over the years, we've gotten to see so many sides of the Twins man in the 9th. From the emotion of closing out a big game, to the candidness on the radio or a postgame interview, Perkins has been as real as it gets. I can't imagine that no matter what is next, we've seen the end of what contributions Glen Perkins has for Twins Territory. Whether it be more Fifteen's 5 K's or amazing Twitter interactions, I think we can count on plenty more from someone who's seemingly always been about others first.
 
So, when the Twins take the field at Yankee Stadium for the American League Wild Card, Glen Perkins won't be trotting out to the bullpen. That fact changes nothing however, this is absolutely about him too. This is about a ballplayer that worked himself back from a devastating surgery to pitch at the highest level. It's about a hurler that stopped at nothing to contribute for this club. Heck, it's about a man that wanted nothing more than to give every last ounce of himself to this game, and with that in mind, it's fair to say all of that has been accomplished.
 
We won't hear his closer music any time soon, but Glen Perkins this game is as much for you as it is anyone else. On behalf of Twins Territory, than you for your hard work and dedication to return for this club, and thank you for 12 years of some really incredible baseball. No matter what is next, thank you for everything that has already been.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

In his second start of the 2017 Major League Baseball season, Jose Berrios looked like some sort of well tested veteran for the Minnesota Twins. Not only was he taking on one of baseball's best teams in the Colorado Rockies, but he thoroughly and completely dominated them.
 
Sure, there was the 11 strikeouts. Yeah, he lasted into the 8th inning, working 7.2 IP. And economical, definitely, as he needed just 106 pitches to get that work in. More than the surface numbers though, Berrios' results were punctuated by some truly exceptional moments.
 
Over the course of his outing, he got 20 swinging strikes. To put that into context, he threw 72 strikes in total. That means 28% of the pitches he threw for strikes had Rockies batters swinging right through. Truly an incredible amount, it's not all that surprising given the movement on his pitches. There was the frisbee of a curveball that he tossed to Ian Desmond. The Rockies first basemen was quoted postgame suggesting that Berrios reminded him of the late Jose Fernandez on the mound.
 
It wasn't just the curveball that Berrios had working though, his fastball has some seriously incredible move. In this pitch to Raimel Tapia, that turned into a strike em' out, throw em' out double play, Berrios' fastball gets more movement than anything I've seen since Ubaldo Jimenez's magical season with Colorado. The ball starts on the edge of the plate, and Tapia literally has no chance as the ball casually darts away from his bat.
When looking at what it was that cause Rockies hitters to swing and miss, Berrios didn't discriminate. He was generating whiffs on three of his four pitches (excluding his changeup) and the curveball consistently was getting batters to chase way out of the zone.
 
That bender is something Berrios is obviously confident in as well. He threw it in a handful of different counts, and the 36 curveballs he tossed accounted for 34% of his total on the night. In fact, Berrios virtually operated with a two pitch mix. His fastball (which he does throw both a four and two seam) was used right around 50% of the time. That curve was really his only other offering, as he used his changeup on just six different occasions.
 
It's been a pretty incredible two start sample size, especially considering how his first 14 career starts went. While it's unfair to assume this level of dominance as the norm going forward, we've now seen why Berrios has had such a long hype train following him through the minor leagues. He should safely settle in as a third starter for the Twins, and he has the ability and drive to push the envelope.
As he continues to take the ball every 5th day, the keys to focus in on will remain pitch economy as well as just how impressive the movement he gets on his pitches is. Short in stature, it is in that movement that hitters are deceived, and that will help to allow Berrios opportunity to stay ahead of opposing batters. The pitch plane isn't ever going to work in his favor, but when his ball darts the distance of the zone, even the best big leaguers are going to struggle.
 
May 18, 2017 was among the best starting pitching efforts ever recorded in a Twins uniform. For an organization void of strikeouts for so long, it appears Berrios will pile them up in bunches. If he's going to continue bringing a frisbee to the ballpark, this should be a lot of fun.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

Last June, Phil Hughes took a liner off the knee.
 
Because we have this kind of information now, MLB.com mentioned that the liner had left J.T. Realmuto's bat at 106 miles per hour. That's a little more than 155 feet per second, and Hughes' follow-through put him maybe 56 or 57 feet from where Realmuto made contact. In other words, Hughes had approximately one-third of a second to protect himself. The average blink of an eye takes 100 to 400 milliseconds. In this case, the cliche is correct: Hughes literally had the blink of an eye to react.
 
At the moment of contact, Hughes was balanced on his left foot, following through, with his glove tucked behind himself as part of his natural rotation. All he could manage, in that one-third of a second, was try to get his right leg in front of his left, a Sophie's Choice of a defensive mechanism made with an athlete's instinct to get something - anything - with a little more padding in front of the ball. As fast as his reaction was, it wasn't enough; the liner caught him on the inside of his left kneecap, knocking him to the ground in agony.
 
Testing revealed that the line drive had broken Hughes' femur, ruling him out for two months. Less than three weeks later, though, Hughes was discovered to have thoracic outlet syndrome, requiring surgery and ending his season; it's the rare upper-body condition, rather than the Realmuto liner, that will be remembered for cutting short Hughes' 2016 season.
 
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Phillip Hughes - yes, sometimes called Phil - had the same Australian verve that had been the making of so many other cricketers that had scaled the Down Under heights before him. He'd grown up in the country, learning to slash everything to his off side (in baseball terms: the opposite field) because he batted left-handed and, well, the house was on that side of the field. The kids that break the windows in the house don't get to bat very much, and Hughes very much wanted to bat.
 
By the time he'd broken into the New South Wales first team, he could hop away from any bowling to give himself room to fend it off, tennis backhand-style, away to the off side. It never won him prizes for technique, nor style, but it saw him break into Test cricket by the time he was 20 years old. That year, he became the youngest man to score two centuries in the same match, successfully thwarting South Africa's fast bowlers on the way to 115 and 160 in Durban. One Australian magazine put him on the cover under the headline "Little Don," referring to Don Bradman, the greatest batsman of all time.
 
The longer he played on, though, opposition teams began to work him out. The preferred strategy, for the opposition, was to simply bowl directly at him - to make him pull the ball, in other words. In cricket, this is a legitimate technique. Bowl directly at the batsmen's legs, and you cramp his style; you make him either turn the ball behind himself, or risk getting hit on the leg pads and potentially be called out by the umpire. For someone like Hughes, consistently backing up to give himself the room to whack the ball away from himself, this was bad enough.
 
Some bowlers, though, prefer to cut out the constant search for the batsman's legs, and instead bowl a "bouncer" - a euphemistic term for the ball that whizzes directly at the chest, or head. The technique is still the same, as a batsman; there's no place to put the ball but behind yourself. From the bowler's point of view, the bouncer has the side benefit of being completely terrifying. Imagine baseball, if throwing at the batter's head was considered not only acceptable but a legitimate strategy - that, rather than charging the mound throwing haymakers, the accepted response was to dust yourself off, even if you've just taken a ball off your collarbone at 90 mph.
 
Hughes was in and out of Australia's Test team for the next few years. For every big innings, he had another two or three ugly matches, and in November 2014 he was just fighting to get another chance. His last Test had come in July 2013, against England. Now playing for South Australia, he was rounding into form against his former team, New South Wales.
 
He'd scored 63 runs in almost three and a half hours of batting, on his way to another century - potentially the one that'd get him the call-up to the Australia squad again. NSW had peppered him, as teams always did, with bouncers. Sean Abbott was bowling, following the plan. His fourth ball of the over jumped up, a little more than Hughes was expecting, and caught the young batsman in the side of the neck.
 
Hughes wobbled, for one second, then collapsed to the ground.
 
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I think a lot about the 2014 World Cup final, Germany versus Argentina, not for Mario Gotze's extra-time winner, but for a moment in the first half. German midfielder Christoph Kramer was involved in a collision with an Argentina defender that momentarily knocked Kramer senseless. Despite the obvious head injury, Kramer played for 14 more minutes before being substituted; later, referee Nicola Rizzoli said that Kramer had come up to him and asked repeatedly, "Ref, is this the final?"
 
In that moment of the collision, my wife - who is not a sports fan, but was being forced to watch the game by her ridiculous husband - had reacted almost excitedly, along the lines of WHOA LOOK AT THAT. Being Brain Injury Woke like so many "good" sports fans, I chastised her for her apparent celebration. Her response has had me thinking for the last three years.
 
"Don't get mad at me," she said. "You're the one that watches this stuff, not me."
 
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Here is what I am responsible for. I watch football non-stop in the fall, CTE be damned. I've never turned the channel during a hockey fight, even though bare-knuckle brawling is abhorrent on its own. I watch rugby despite the occasional skull fractures; I follow soccer closely despite the mounting evidence that heading the ball is leading to long-term brain injury for the participants. This is to say nothing of the countless non-brain injuries caused by these sports and all the others; in terms of human damage, I am only slightly above the ancient scoreboard-watchers who checked to see whether the Romans or the Lions were ahead.
 
Here is how I make myself feel better:
I do not watch mixed martial arts.
I refer to concussions as "brain injuries."
I make fun of people who say that Joe Mauer needs to "toughen up."

This is all I can say to reassure myself: If I stop watching, it won't make a bit of difference. I am a free rider. This isn't my fault, right? It's all of our fault, right? I'm only a very small part of this, right? People would make their choice to play these games whether or not I wear a jersey and plan my day around the games, right?
 
Please say yes.
 
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If you go down the list of popular sports, baseball is among the most blameless. Compared to football or hockey or rugby or any other contact-mandatory sport, baseball practically promotes old age. Career-ending injuries in baseball usually involve arm ligaments. Broken bones are rare. There is enough finesse and fine motor control involved in the game that the dark side of other sports- horse tranquilizers at halftime to kill the pain, and that sort of thing - are blessedly absent.
 
And yet, Corey Koskie. Look at Joe Mauer's stats pre-concussion and post-concussion, and try to tell me that a concussion won't be the thing that keeps Minnesota's greatest hitter out of the Hall of Fame. Pretending that baseball doesn't have its own dark side - of drugs, and steroids, and all of the things that we don't talk about because the grass is green and the beer is cold and baseball is fun to play - is to ignore reality.
 
To say nothing of Phil Hughes, or Brandon McCarthy, or of every single player at every level of baseball that stands in a batter's box or on a pitcher's mound, as the fastballs get faster and the line drives come back harder.
 
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We remember Ray Chapman, the answer to the macabre trivia question "Who is the only man to die as the result of an injury received during an MLB game?" Batting at twilight, against submariner Carl Mays, Chapman simply didn't see the dirty, scuffed-up ball that hit him; Babe Ruth, playing right field, said the crack of ball against skull was audible even that far away. The popular shortstop collapsed, blood streaming from his ear, and had to be carried off the field; he died later that night. His wife gave birth to their first daughter six months later.
 
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Following Phillip Hughes's death, there were some in cricket that called for the "bouncer" to be banned entirely. There have been rules in place since the 1930s, limiting the number of fielders that can stand behind the batsman - thus reducing the benefit of bowling at the batsman's body. After the West Indies and Australian teams of the 1970s and 1980s used repeated bouncers to scare the daylights out of opposing batsmen, the International Cricket Council limited them to two per over, or two out of every six deliveries.
This limited the potential carnage, but it didn't end it. Some of the best batsmen in history - Brian Lara, Justin Langer, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ricky Ponting, and on and on - have been bloodied, or knocked unconscious and hospitalized, by bouncers that they simply could not avoid. Skill has nothing to do with it; to bat is to accept the risk of the next ball being the one that kills you.
 
The bouncer hasn't been banned, of course. Australia's plan of attack against India, in the Test series that just concluded, included bowling bouncer after bouncer at the Indian batsmen, trying to put them off their games.
 
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It's Opening Day for the Twins, and I'm excited about the season, of course I am. Not about the Twins' chances, necessarily, but about the return of baseball - nightly games, and listening on the radio while I drive somewhere, and reading the game score in the paper, and catching a couple of innings on TV before going to bed.
 
My attention helps sell advertising; that advertising funds baseball; players put themselves at physical risk as a result. This is as true in baseball as it is in any other sport.
 
Phil Hughes is back in the Twins' starting rotation.
 
I would like to ignore all of this.

The Twins medical staff is under fire again for yet another misbegotten medical decision, and according to sources, some of the doctors on staff are starting to question the team's long-running practice of relying on Yahoo! Answers for medical advice.
 
"We've long been believers in Yahoo! Answers, which has been our go-to repository of cutting-edge medical research," said a source, who's intimately involved with the team's medical staff. "Unlike traditional journals, which can be months, even years behind the time, we've found Yahoo! Answers to be constantly updated and responsive to changing the medical needs of our age. That said, when reviewing outcomes from our decisions, we've yet to see an improvement, and so we're beginning to wonder whether the research is truly up to snuff."
 
The Twins have long relied on the medical advice of researcher "xxx_legday_xxx", whose groundbreaking theories about using weight training to cure both partially and fully torn arm ligaments have long been among the top Google results for the search "how to heal elbow without surgery." After Twins outfield prospect Alex Kirilloff became the latest Twin for whom the research failed, though, several members of the Twins staff started checking into his background.
 
According to the source, the team found that the cutting-edge researcher had also advocated long-disproved medical theories like bloodletting and trepanning, as well as offering a wealth of ill-considered advice about sexual health and making thousands of dollars per month by working two hours a week from home.
 
Despite the team's long-held assumption, investigation was unable to unearth any documentation of what the team assumed was Yahoo! Answers' strict peer-review process, or any sort of vetting process of any kind to ensure that answers were indeed provided by experts.
 
"We're just starting to wonder about this whole thing," said the unnamed medical staffer. "But why would they even put it on the internet if it wasn't true? Who has that kind of time?"
 
At press time, the source was investigating another online journal called "WebMD," but had gotten sidetracked by the looming possibility that his occasional headaches were in fact a sign of brain cancer.

A year ago, the Minnesota Twins had a glaring hole in the middle of their infield. While their were some concerns as to what might happen behind the plate with Kurt Suzuki being a regression candidate, it was a shortstop that bigger answers were needed. Danny Santana was given the starting role out of spring training (a move I agreed with), and he hung onto it for far too long. Then Eduardo Escobar emerged.
 
Following just under 100 games of Santana accumulating errors and failing to make plays, Paul Molitor turned the role over to former utility man Eduardo Escobar. Forever tied to Francisco Liriano for the Twins, Escobar was more than ready for the main stage.
 
In 2014, Escobar played 98 games at shortstop before going into 2015 spring training as the underdog. A year ago, he ended up starting 71 games at short, and has erased any doubt that he belongs there in the year ahead. Behind a strong offensive output, Escobar gave the Twins production they had not been capable of since J.J. Hardy owned the position.
 
During his 2015 campaign, Escobar slashed .262/.309/.405 on the season. He followed up his 35 doubles in 2014 with 31 last year, and set a new career high with 12 homers (doubling his previous best). His 58 runs batted in and 28 walks were also new high water marks. There were a few hot stretches that bolstered the Venezuelan's overall numbers, but it was consistency that got him through the year.
 
With his glove, Escobar may have made even bigger strides. In over 700 innings during the 2014 campaign, Eduardo was worth -6 DRS (defensive runs saved). He improved that number to a positive 2 mark in over 600 innings during 2015. Escobar also set a new career best UZR improving from 21 in 2014 to 2.6 a season ago.
 
There's some reason to believe that things keep happening for the Twins shortstop as well. His .301 BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was down more than 30 points from where it was a year ago. His 13 point average dip from last year took the brunt of that difference. It's somewhat of a curious change as his hard hit rate stayed relatively the same a season ago (28.5% as opposed to 29.2% in 2014). Arguably, the biggest deficiency Escobar saw in his contact was a near 5% dip in line drives. With that number falling, it's easy to see why the average followed suit.
 
I have some concern that Escobar sudden power jolt may not be consistent. He'd never hit more than six homers in a season previously, and his home run to fly ball ratio pushed 10 last season, again nearly doubling the 2014 mark. Having hit just over 38% of batted balls in the air, Escobar could face some regression in the upcoming season. It was a 4% jump over his 2014 mark, and a new career high.
 
At the end of the day though, Escobar took the main stage and ran away with the starting role. The Twins needed someone to step up and hold down the role for the immediate future. Despite Engelb Vielma being a defensive wizard, and Nick Gordon being the presumed future, along with the signing of Wander Javier, Minnesota needed an answer now. Escobar provided them that and should continue to do so in the years ahead.
 
The way in which Francisco Liriano left Minnesota was less than ideal, but the return he provided continues to pay dividends.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

In a season which began with about as many ups and downs as can be imagined, our favorite MLB team has inexplicably soared back in to relevance, at least for the time being.
 
The offseason was as interesting as can be expected from a Terry Ryan-led club can be. A hometown Hall-of-Famer was brought in to captain the ship. A former fan favorite was brought back to mentor many young outfield prospects, to inject some life and passion in to a decidedly mild clubhouse, and also to finish out a good (if not great) career back where it started. A legitimately talented starting pitcher was brought in to further stabilize a shaky rotation. A surprisingly effective catcher was re-signed to hold the place that was once defensively occupied by a seemingly fading hometown hero.
 
Then the harsh reality that all we Minnesota fans know all to well came back to smack us in the face, earlier than expected. Whether it was stupidity or negligence, one single player was able to suck the life out of the fan base from within the organization. We, as Twins fans, have come to expect disappointment from our squad. That said, this season it happened far earlier than anyone expected.
 
The regular season began as expected, with the Twins floundering against a Tigers team that was the Goliath to the Minnesotan David. For casual fans, it was a time for eye-rolling and cheap jokes. For the die-hards, it was simply business as usual.
 
Then, something happened. I can’t say exactly what the catalyst was. Perhaps Torii punched someone. Maybe Molitor gave a fiery speech. Who knows? Somehow these Twins seem to have pulled it together. The starting pitching, if not stellar, has been sufficient. The bullpen, which by all accounts was the greatest question mark on the team, has come around. The offense has finally been producing at a level that we all expected and hoped it to.
 
As evidenced by recent stretch that has seen Minnesota score at least 5 runs in seven of its last ten games, this team can produce offensively. They can hit the long ball, and have enough speed to manufacture runs (if the baserunners will keep their wits about them).
 
The gates have opened to the string of highly-touted prospects being ushered up to the show. It began with Trevor May stepping in for the much-maligned Ricky Nolasco, who was placed on the DL (again). After a shaky late-season call-up last year, May beginning to show that he may actually belong with the big-league club.
 
Next, it was Eddie Rosario. And boy, did he make a grand entrance. I’m sure you’ve by now seen the video of him teeing off on the very first MLB pitch he saw for an opposite-field home run (and his family’s awesome reaction). With the obligatory small-sample-size caveat, he has followed that impressive first one-pitch at-bat with at least one RBI in all but one of his games thus far. Again, not jaw-dropping, but as Twins fans, we’ll take production however we can get it.
 
Who will be the next prospect in line? Byron Buxton, after a slow start at double-A, has roared to life recently. Miguel Sano hasn’t is following in the same vein on the same team, and there is little doubt that he can drive a pitch he likes all the way to the Minneapolis Farmers’ Market when given a chance. Jose Berrios may well have passed up the floundering Alex Meyer who seems to be trying to stay in AAA as long as possible. As of May 11th, Berrios has a 3.25 ERA, with 45 strikeouts to just 13 walks at AA.
 
With plenty of reinforcements preparing to offer support when needed, and the promise of Ervin Santana returning from suspension to make his Twins regular-season debut (although he wouldn’t be eligible for postseason play, if the Twins somehow made a run at a playoff spot), could this unfamiliar level of acceptable play be sustainable? Time will tell.
 
The good news, my friends, is that this team is fun to watch again. At least for now.
 
(Follow Marc on Twitter: @marcosMN)