MLB Bullets went shopping

My long week is almost over. I thank everyone who has been reading my work this week. I apologize for any incoherent sentences I wrote (or said on Sara and Andi’s podcast). I’d blame fatigue, but to be completely honest I can write like that fully rested.

• With the draft over, we knew the two remaining free agents would sign. I suspect you already know where Craig Kimbrel has signed, but the Braves landed pitcher Dallas Keuchel on a one-year, $13 million deal.
• Jon Tayler believes that the Braves waited too long to sign Keuchel.
• One reason Braves ownership has always given for not signing free agents is that the team is stuck with a poor television deal. But as Tim Tucker reports, the Braves are making a lot more on their TV deal than previously believed. (h/t Hardball Talk.) Maybe not as much as a team with as large a fanbase as the Braves should be getting, but at least in the middle of the pack as far as TV deals go.
• Ken Rosenthal says several teams that could have signed Kimbrel passed for one reason or another and now we’ll find out how much losing that opportunity will cost them. (The Athletic sub. req.)
• Mark Townsend has the winners and losers from the Kimbrel and Keuchel signings.
• David Schoenfield has some suggestions for deals that NL Central teams should make to keep up with the Cubs.
• Now that all the free agents are signed, it’s open trade season. Ryan Divish reports that a deal that would have sent pitcher Mike Leake to the Diamondbacks fell apart at the last minute. (h/t Hardball Talk.)
• Buster Olney thinks that it will be a buyer’s trade market this summer. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• Richard Justice suggest seven trades he thinks makes sense.
• With outfielder Andrew McCutchen out for the season, R.J. Anderson suggests some trade targets for the Phillies.
• The Phillies are actually down more than one outfielder as Odubel Herrera is on administrative leave following an arrest on domestic violence charges. Mike Oz praises the way the Phillies are handling the situation with Herrera.
• Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco is “stepping away from baseball activities” because of recently diagnosed blood condition. As Craig Calcaterra notes in the article linked, anything that vague is going to sound ominous. However, the Indians do say they expect him to return to pitching sometime this season. Here’s hoping Carrasco comes back strong.
• Tom Verducci believes that the success or failure of Red Sox season is going depend on how their starting rotation performs.
• In another excerpt from their new book, Ben Lindberg and Travis Sawchik explain how Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts changed his swing and became an MVP. Also a lot on Dodgers infielder Justin Turner doing the same with the “fly-ball revolution.”
• Alden Gonzalez looks at how Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger has transformed himself into the best hitter in the league this summer.
• Bradford Doolittle has one good surprise player and one bad surprise player for all 30 teams this season. (ESPN+ sub. req.)
• The entire Minnesota Twins roster is pretty much a good surprise, and Sung Min Kim notes that you may not have noticed that Jason Castro has been one of the best-hitting catchers in the game this season.
• Then there’s Twins outfielder Max Kepler, who snapped an 0 for 21 streak yesterday with a three-home-run game.
• Michael Baumann has a list of some of the more obscure players who are hitting a ton of home runs this year. Hey! It’s Daniel Vogelbach!
• Keith Law has a great oral history of how 21 teams missed on Mike Trout in the draft ten years ago. Heck, even Eddie Bane, the Angels scouting director at the time, admitted he had Trout second on his draft board behind Stephen Strasburg.
• Pitcher Brock Begue was never even supposed to walk after suffering strokes and seizures shortly after he was born. Yesterday, Begue was taken in the 11th round of the draft by the Brewers. This is a great story.
• Stephanie Apstein has a feature on all the rules that rookies are supposed to follow when they reach the majors. Hazing has been banned, but there’s still a lot of “you go for the coffee” and “you get on the early bus” stuff.
• Coley Harvey notes how much the Yankees miss outfielder Aaron Judge . . .off the field.
• One of the running stories this season has been bees. Yesterday, the Athletics couldn’t take batting practice because of a swarm of bees at Angels Stadium. This is the third “bee-incident” this year.
• Angels manager Brad Ausmus made the Japanese media very happy when he said that Shohei Ohtani would start against Mariners left-hander Yusei Kikuchi on Saturday.
• Mets broadcaster Keith Hernandez charged his Tesla on the SNY Broadcast truck. Nothing bad happened, although there were fears something might.
• And finally, check out this play from Korea’s KBO. A popup bounced off the head of Lotte Giants shortstop Shin Bong-gi and right into the glove of left fielder Jeon Jun-woo for your run of the mill P-6-7 putout.

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