MLB Bullets says there is no crying in baseball

Good morning. It’s snub-season!

• We’ve already covered who made the All-Star Game rosters and now it’s time to find out who isn’t on the roster and is “snubbed.” (For the record, no one is “snubbed,” they just didn’t get selected. But “outrage” words get people engaged, for better or worse.) So here’s Chris Cwik’s top ten All-Star snubs.
• Mike Axisa lists only eight snubs. L-A-Z-Y
• Only six snubs for Richard Justice.
• David Schoenfield assess the rosters and names Anthony Rendon the biggest snub.
• Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen is upset that Corey Seager and Justin Turner weren’t voted as All-Star starters and blamed Dodgers fans. First off, never blame the fans. Second, as Molly Knight Tweeted, maybe it’s the Dodgers fault for not actually televising their games in a way Dodgers fans can see them.
• Will Leitch names each team’s most unlikely All-Star of the 21st Century.
• Grant Brisbee tells us who he wants to see in the Home Run Derby.
• Jeff Passan gives out some end-of-the-season awards at midseason.
• Joe Sparacio names a “franchise” player for all 30 teams.
• Cliff Corcoran has one team from each division to watch in the second half.
• Yankees outfielder Dustin Fowler says that he’ll be back next season and that his injury will make his first major league at-bat “more special.”
• Replacing Fowler on the Yankees roster is another promising young outfielder, Clint Frazier. Frazier hit a home run in his first major league game that brought his mother to tears. See? There is crying in baseball! (More on this later.)
• Another great young Yankees outfielder is Aaron Judge, who was elected to start in the All-Star Game. But Chris Cwik says that a look at baseball history tells us that Judge is due for a big correction in his stat line. He’ll still be a pretty good player, Cwik notes, just not the MVP-level superstar that he’s been so far this season.
• Someone who probably is an MVP-level superstar is Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts, who tied a major-league record with 8 RBI out of the leadoff spot yesterday.
• Red Sox pitcher David Price got into it with broadcaster and Hall-of-Famer Dennis Eckersley. The Red Sox say that they are concerned with Price’s recent behavior. Price certainly wouldn’t be the first guy to leave Tampa and find it difficult to adapt to Boston. You almost think he’ll opt out of his contract after next season just to play somewhere else, even if it ends up costing him money.
• Pirates outfielder Starling Marte will play left field when he returns from his suspension in two weeks.
• Tigers ace Justin Verlander had a streak of 331 appearances with at least one strikeout snapped yesterday.
• Look. I don’t like umpire Joe West. You don’t like umpire Joe West. But there is absolutely no excuse to throw a baseball at him from the stands and hit him in the back of the head. Luckily, West was not seriously injured.
• Evan Davis wonders what the future holds for the career of Byron Buxton? The Twins outfielder was supposed to be the next Mike Trout. He’s not. He’s not a bad player because his defense and baserunning are so good, but what is he?
• Here’s the section of today’s links dedicated to former Iowa Cubs legends. Bradford Doolittle profiles pitcher Austin Bibens-Dirkx, who has pitched his way into being a fixture in the Rangers rotation.
• And then there is all-time I-Cubs saves leader Blake Parker, who has added velocity and become the closer that the Angels were looking for, writes Neil Weinberg.
• Kate Morrison asks what does it mean for the Angels future that they’ve managed to stay in the playoff hunt without Mike Trout?
• The Angels got Nick Franklin from the Brewers. Well, he’s not Mike Trout.
• The Rangers got Jason Grilli from the Blue Jays.
• Sam Miller thinks too many teams have an excuse why they can’t do a complete teardown and rebuild and that the Athletics are one of them.
• Tony DeMarco breaks down how the Rockies were built. Millions of years ago there were tectonic forces that pushed plates around . . .
• MLB sent a memo around to every team denying that the ball is “juiced.” The problem, as others have stated, is that the allowable variance in these balls is so great that they can be much livelier and still be within MLB guidelines.
• Michael Baumann uses the example of the Indians Jose Ramirez to illustrate the rise of the superstar utility player.
• Jerry Crasnick interviews Adam Dunn about home runs, strikeouts and the game today and the game when he played.
• Tracy Ringolsby talks with Rangers third baseman Adrian Beltre about approaching 3000 hits and the Hall of Fame.
• Mets GM Sandy Alderson admitted that no team scout recommended signing Tim Tebow so they listed his “signed by” scout as the team’s Director of Marketing.
• Matt Rothenberg has a history of baseball in Montreal, which predates the Expos by quite a bit.
• Filip Bondy reports on how the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) is dealing with an aging membership.
• Babe Ruth’s 1927 World Series ring and the contract selling him to the Yankees, formerly owned by actor Charlie Sheen, were each sold for over $2 million. WINNING!
• Sheen starred in Major League, which is a fine baseball movie. But a better one is A League of Their Own, which celebrated its 25th anniversary this past week. ESPNW has an oral history of the making of that movie. It was supposed to star Demi Moore. I like Geena Davis better.
• Katie Baker writes her own analysis of the movie, which she calls one of the best sports movies ever made. I’ll stick with The Bad News Bears (1976) and Eight Men Out as the best baseball movies ever made, but I’ll stick ALOTO up there with the best of the rest.
• Annie Zaleski explains why the film still resonates today.
• Some former players talk about what the film got right about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
• Minor league baseball honored the film with several promotions.
• Some wacky goings-on in Milwaukee this weekend. The Brewers complained that Marcell Ozuna had too much pine tar on his bats, so he ended up having to use one of Giancarlo Stanton’s. He hit a home run with it.
• And finally, in what is one of the great moves of the year, Brewers shortstop Orlando Arcia couldn’t reach a foul ball that went into the stands. He could reach one fan’s ice cream so he helped himself to some, while the fan was watching the ball.

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