MLB Bullets Needs A Break

Just as I'm ready to get back to baseball, they hit pause on the season.

• Yesterday they played the Futures Game, and Javier Baez and Joey Gallo impressed people with their power.
• Looking at Baez and other prospects, Jorge L. Ortiz says that Puerto Rico is once again becoming a major source of baseball talent.
• Craig Calcaterra wants the All-Star week schedule altered so that the Futures Game doesn't take place in the middle of a busy Sunday sports schedule. It was especially bad this year as the World Cup final was still going on when the Futures Game started. But even in other years, there is usually a full slate of games going on during the Futures Game. My solution would be have the Futures Game be the Sunday Night Game of Week. That or cancel the Home Run Derby, but that's not happening.
• We found out at the Futures Game that Arizona and New Mexico switched names while you were sleeping. Personally, I'm against it.
• Gabe Kapler explains what he meant when he said it was "poetic justice" that Jonathan Lucroy will start in the All-Star Game because Yadier Molina was injured. Cardinals fans were less than pleased.
• Had Bodley remembers the two previous All-Star Games in Minnesota.
• Mike Bates has a list of ten players who won't be traded this season.
• Jay Jaffe evaluates which high-priced free agents have and have not been worth the money so far.
• Jon Heyman thinks the Phillies will look to trade pretty much everyone.
• Ken Rosenthal thinks that the Mariners ought to pay the price for David Price.
• Jonathan Bernhardt thinks the Rockies have no reason to trade Troy Tulowitzki, unless he demands a trade. Then, they'd better start looking for the best deal they can.
• Rockies owner Dick Monfort has apologized for telling unhappy fans to not come to the games and saying that Denver might not deserve a team. It's too bad an owner can't be fired. But it seriously looks like Monfort is not up to the job.
• The Padres are still looking for a GM and now A.J. Hinch is the sixth candidate to remove himself from consideration for the job. Someone is going to take that job, but you'd think one of only 30 GM jobs would have people falling all over themselves to get. You'd think wrong, apparently.
• Will Carroll says that it's mechanics, not the splitter, that caused Masahiro Tanaka's elbow injury. (h/t Gammons Daily)
• Tanaka, for his part, has apologized to the Yankees and their fans for getting injured. This is one of those Japanese customs that sounds odd to us.
• Jon Paul Morosi writes that even if Tanaka is only out for six weeks, that's still a death blow to their playoff hopes. He suggests that trade for Cole Hamels.
• Paul White thinks that even with Tanaka, the Yankees aren't a playoff team.
• Jeff Sullivan, however, thinks the Yankees, Cardinals and Reds are built to survive their injuries.
• The Reds are fortunate to still be in the playoff hunt after all their injuries.
• The Reds also think that Joey Votto will be back by mid-August.
• Skip Schumaker went on the 7-day concussion disabled list.
• Jordan Zimmermann exited his start with a "right biceps cramp."
  
• Jayson Stark has a list of the five weirdest injuries of the season so far. No one has been injured running from imaginary spiders though.
• Dirk Hayhurst says pitchers of years past got injured just as much as those today do.
• Buster Olney (ESPN Insider Only) agrees and says that teams have the financial incentive and the medicine today to treat injures properly rather than just telling the pitcher to "suck it up" until their arm falls off.
• Geovany Soto was arrested for marijuana possession. The Cubs should have traded him to the Rockies, in retrospect.
• The Braves suspended Dan Uggla for yesterday's game, reportedly for being late. Really Dan. When your team is only keeping you around because they don't want to pay you for not playing, don't give them an excuse to not pay you for not playing.
• Yasiel Puig (PUIG!) got a new haircut for the All-Star Game, and then got ejected for arguing balls and strikes.
• Cliff Corcoran thinks the Brewers recent slide has thrown the NL Central title up for grabs.
• Christina Kahrl argues the Brew Crew are still the favorites.
• Truly sad news for the Brewers. Jean Segura's nine-month old son has died.
• Marty Noble thinks the future is bright for the Mets. Isn't that cute?
• The Red Sox are still optimistic that they can make a playoff run.
• Yesterday for the Giants, both Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner hit grand slams. It the first time ever that a pitcher and his catcher both hit grand slams in the same game.
• Henderson Alvarez has one funky delivery. He only uses it for the first pitch of each start, however.
• We now know Billy Hamilton's secret: He's Neo!
• And finally, if there was any doubt that Munenori Kawasaki is the best interview in all of baseball, this one should end that debate. Bananas.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.