Jose Bautista and Josh Beckett are the player and starting pitcher of the month for ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark. Here are Stark's latest rumblings from around the league:
- Barring a miracle, the Twins will be sellers this July, but they aren’t ready to trade anyone yet.
- One rival executive says they will eventually talk about trading prospective free agents including Michael Cuddyer, Jason Kubel, Jim Thome and Matt Capps. The Twins would have interest in re-signing some of those players after the season and could conceivably do so even after trading them (the Indians did that with Austin Kearns last year).
- Though Jose Reyes is the Mets’ most exciting player, the consensus is that the Mets are going to have an easier time trading Carlos Beltran, partly because they will feel the need to get more in return for Reyes.
- The draft could be significantly different under a new collective bargaining agreement (baseball’s current CBA expires in December) and one scouting director says MLB needs to make changes, including a possible worldwide draft. "The dollars that are being asked now in Latin America are a joke,” the director said. “And this is the only way to address it."
- One small-market official says a slotting system would hurt small market clubs, since it would prevent them from out-spending deep-pocketed teams on draft picks.
- One GM suggests moving the draft back to the All-Star break and making it more of an event.
