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TUESDAY: While speaking with reporters (including Bill Shaikin of the L.A. Times) earlier today, Weiner said that the MLBPA is actively pursuing contingency plans for when he is no longer able to work. While Weiner declined to list specific candidates to be his successor, he did say that he doesn't expect Fehr to return.

FRIDAY: With executive director Michael Weiner's health in question, the MLB Players Association is contemplating the return of Weiner's predecessor, Donald Fehr, reports Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports. Weiner, 51, was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in August 2012.

Since stepping down as the MLBPA's executive director in 2009, Fehr has been voted the director of the National Hockey League Players Association. Passan reports that it's not clear if Fehr would return to the MLBPA in a senior management or adviser role.

Passan adds that Fehr has shown no inclination to leave the NHLPA and that the MLBPA is considering a number of names as it prepares contingency plans. Weiner is also heavily involved in the current Biogenesis scandal, as the MLBPA works to ensure that each player in the scandal is given a fair appeal. Weiner has issued a pair of statements on the Biogenesis situation, condemning the early leaks of names in the clinic's logs as well as voicing a desire to defend the players and uphold the integrity of the Joint Drug Agreement. Weiner is on his fourth round of cancer treatments, according to Passan's report.

Beverly Hills Sports Council is seeking $40MM in damages from former partner Dan Lozano, according to Liz Mullen of SportsBusiness Journal (subscription required).  Lozano left BHSC in 2010 to form MVP Sports Group, taking many prominent players with him including Albert Pujols, Joey Votto, Jimmy Rollins, Michael Young, and Brian Wilson.  Mullen notes that MLBPA rules say agents must resolve disputes under a confidential arbitration process, and this case will be heard starting October 28th.  Lozano filed counterclaims against BHSC partners Jeff Borris, Dan Horwits, and Rick Thurman.

Mullen's sources say BHSC claims Lozano violated a partnership agreement upon leaving.  As Mullen notes, Lozano has done huge contracts for Pujols and Votto since his departure.

July is typically known for the flurry of trades that will happen in the final days of the month and, to a lesser extent, the barrage of international signings that will take place after the July 2 international signing period begins. However, some teams do make sure to focus on retaining their existing talent this time of year. With an assist from MLBTR's Extension Tracker, here's a look at the July extensions from the past few years…

2012

• Cole Hamels — The Phillies silenced months of speculation regarding the size of a potential free agent deal for Hamels and weeks of trade speculation by locking him up to a six-year deal worth a guaranteed $144MM. It was the second-largest deal ever for a pitcher at the time. Hamels has seen a surprising decline in 2013, but his velocity remains the same, and FIP, xFIP and SIERA indicate that he's been better than his 4.58 ERA.
• Edwin Encarnacion — The Blue Jays locked up Encarnacion to a three-year, $29MM contract in the midst of his breakout season, and a year later it looks like a bargain. Over the past 365 days, Encarnacion has hit .269/.371/.537 with 43 home runs in 156 games.
• Carlos Quentin — The Padres faced a decision with Quentin, whom they acquired in the 2011-12 offseason. Quentin was hitting .273/.389/.525 with nine homers in 40 games after returning from the disabled list, leading to trade speculation. The Friars elected to lock up the San Diego native, however, inking him for three years and $27MM.
• Huston Street — The Padres could have used Quentin and Street as prime trade chips, but they locked Street up for another two years and $14MM. Street had allowed just three runs in 29 2/3 innings to that point, but the Pads might prefer a mulligan on his deal. He's been injured again in 2013 and has just a 4.61 ERA with a career-worst 4.9 K/9 rate.

2011

• Jaime Garcia — The Cardinals locked up some more of their young pitching by giving Garcia a four-year, $27.5MM contract. He's been effective while on the field since that time, but the left-hander has battled significant injury problems and will miss the remainder of 2013 following shoulder surgery.
• J.J. Hardy — After pilfering Hardy from the Twins, the Orioles received a career-year from the 28-year-old. He was hitting .278/.335/.490 with 13 homers in 65 games when news of his three-year, $22.5MM extension broke and finished with 30 bombs. Hardy had a rough year at the plate in 2012, but his defense remained strong. He averaged 3.5 fWAR from 2011-12 with the O's.

2010

• Kurt Suzuki — Suzuki signed a four-year, $16.25MM contract with the Athletics and eventually found himself traded to the Nationals in 2012. He was never able to rediscover the three-fWAR form he showed from 2008-09 with the A's, though he was solid in 2010 and 2011, and the modest price tag made it a worthwhile risk.
• David Ross — Ross signed a small two-year, $3.25MM extension with the Braves to continue backing up Brian McCann, and he was terrific from 2011-12. Ross hit .259/.327/.439 with 15 homers in 367 plate appearances in those two seasons before signing with Boston this past winter.

July extensions certainly aren't plentiful, but there have been at least a couple in each of the past three years, so history suggests that a few trade candidates or impending free agents may find themselves signing long-term rather than seeking out a new uniform.

FanGraphs is loaded with fantastic MLB statistics and related tools, and one of my favorites is the ability to create custom leaderboards.  With trade season around the corner, I created three leaderboards to allow you to sort the stats for all the MLB players I currently consider viable trade candidates.  You can see which available first baseman has the best walk rate, which available starting pitcher gets the most groundballs, which available reliever has the biggest strikeout rate – the possibilities are endless.  Please note that the player selections are subjective, and some are much more available or movable than others, and use the leaderboards as a framework or starting point.  They consist of reasonably-available veterans from the Astros, Brewers, Cubs, Mariners, Marlins, Mets, White Sox, Angels, Dodgers, Phillies, and Twins, with a few players on contending teams sprinkled in.

Position Player Trade Candidate Leaderboard

Starting Pitcher Trade Candidate Leaderboard

Reliever Trade Candidate Leaderboard 

The Major League Baseball Players Association has officially certified Jay-Z as an agent, according to ESPN's Darren Rovell (on Twitter). Liz Mullen of the Sports Business Journal adds that two other executives from Roc Nation Sports — Jay-Z's startup agency — have been certified to negotiate player contracts. She adds that Jay-Z is now certified to negotiate both MLB and NBA contracts (Twitter links).

Jay-Z's desire to work his way into the world of sports representation was first reported back in April. The rapper/entrepreneur merged with CAA Sports to create Roc Nation Sports, with an eye on negotiating a contract extension between Robinson Cano and the Yankees. Cano left the Boras Corporation in early April in order to hire Jay-Z and CAA agent Brodie Van Wagenen as his representatives.

MLBPA director Michael Weiner said back in April that the MLBPA would consider Roc Nation's applications for certification, but they first needed to determine if there were conflicts based on his interest in the Brooklyn Nets.

An explanation of the many ways to enjoy MLB Trade Rumors:

• If the main site doesn't load perfectly on your cell phone, try the more mobile-friendly mlbtraderumors.mobi.  It's a simple page that shows you just the headlines and lets you click through to what you want to read.
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• If you want only the hard news in the form of transactions, our transactions page is the ticket.  You can also get only the transactions via Twitter or RSS. 
• To return to the main page at any time, just click on the title or the Home button on the navigation bar below the title. 
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I'm putting my fantasy baseball reputation on the line.  DraftStreet is offering $2000 in cash prizes for an exclusive "beat the expert" MLBTR/DraftStreet league using Friday night's MLB games.  The entry fee is $11, but DraftStreet is raising the pressure on me (Tim Dierkes) by offering $5 back to anyone who beats my team, separate from the regular prize pool.

The beat the expert contest is for Friday night's games (the afternoon Cubs-Pirates game is not included), so you have until 6:00pm central time to create your team.  However, there are only 200 slots in this league, so sign up early.  

You're given a $100K salary cap, and each player is assigned a price by DraftStreet.  For Friday, Cliff Lee is considered the most valuable player since he starts against the Brewers, but he'll cost you over $19K.  Your roster will cover these positions: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OF, 2 utility, 2 SP, 1 RP, 1 P and 2 Reserves (14 starters).  You get points based on how your team performs Friday.  For example, you'll get 0.75 points for each strikeout Lee racks up and 1.5 points if he gets the win.  The teams with the most points get the prize money.  You can apply all kinds of strategy in building your roster, but since we're in direct competition this time I won't divulge all my secrets.  I do like Jose Fernandez, who has great numbers and stuff without the name value of a Matt Harvey.  And I always try to grab five-category contributors like CarGo.  You'll have to check the scoreboards to see the rest of the team.  Here's my roster in the beginning stages:

Be sure to sign up as soon as possible, before the 200 slots are all taken.  DraftStreet has raised the stakes by challenging you to beat me; are you up to it?

This is a sponsored post from DraftStreet.

If you're a regular MLBTR reader, you'll be familiar with our chats, Week In Review posts and Baseball Blogs Weigh In feature. Here's some more detail on when you'll see our weekly features and exactly what to expect from them:

• MLBTR Chats - Join Tim Dierkes every Tuesday at 2pm CDT to chat about the latest trades, signings and rumblings around the Major Leagues.
• Baseball Blogs Weigh In - Every Friday, I feature some of the best writing from baseball blogs around the web. Whether it's opinion, stats or something else entirely, you can connect to the best of the blogosphere once a week on MLBTR. If you want to submit a post of yours, you can reach me at: zachbbwi@gmail.com.
• Week In Review - It's remarkable how much happens in seven days. Every Sunday night, MLBTR summarizes the week's biggest stories in our Week In Review posts.
• MLBTR Originals - Edward Creech gathers all our original analysis and reporting in one place every Sunday night.

Last week we looked at some areas of need for NL contenders.  Using weighted on-base average, let's identify the weakest offensive production by position in the AL today.  Since they're all within 6.5 games of the division lead, we're going to loosely call all AL Central clubs contenders.

• Catcher: White Sox (.275), Orioles (.277), Tigers (.278).  The Orioles might prefer Matt Wieters get on base at better than a .297 clip, but most likely they're content with his production.  The team's catcher production has been dragged down by backups Chris Snyder and Taylor Teagarden, who have soaked up about 14% of the ABs and have offered nothing.  The Tigers have used Alex Avila and Brayan Pena, the latter of whom has actually been decent.  It's looking like more of a timeshare at present.  It doesn't seem like acquiring someone like John Buck or Nick Hundley would help the situation.  Tyler Flowers hasn't done much as A.J. Pierzynski's replacement in Chicago, but giving Josh Phegley a look makes more sense than an acquisition.
• First base: White Sox (.284), Royals (.290), Twins (.305).  The Royals have been suffering through another subpar season from Eric Hosmer.  The White Sox are hoping for Paul Konerko to pull out of it, while the Twins have to hope Justin Morneau rediscovers his power stroke.  Corey Hart and Carlos Pena could be available this summer, as first basemen go.  
• Second base: White Sox (.235), Orioles (.237), Royals (.246).  Jeff Keppinger has done much, but the White Sox reinstated Gordon Beckham from the DL today.  The Orioles have used Ryan Flaherty, Alexi Casilla, Yamaico Navarro, and a few games of Brian Roberts before he suffered a hamstring injury.  They might as well wait to see if Roberts really does return in mid-June, and then see if he can still hit.  The Royals have mainly gone with Chris Getz and Elliot Johnson.  Perhaps when Chase Utley returns from his oblique strain in mid-June, the Phillies' chances in 2013 will have tipped the scale one way or the other.  The second base trade market offers little otherwise; perhaps Rickie Weeks or Darwin Barney.
• Shortstop: Yankees (.256), Royals (.263).  Derek Jeter is recovering from an ankle injury, and it's unknown when he'll make his season debut.  The Royals seem locked in with Alcides Escobar.  The trade market appears barren anyway, unless perhaps the White Sox make Alexei Ramirez available.
• Third base: White Sox (.265), Royals (.268), Angels (.282), Yankees (.284).  Have you noticed the Royals get no offensive production out of their infield?  Mike Moustakas is the culprit here.  Conor Gillaspie has been OK at third for the White Sox, and should eat into Keppinger's playing time.  Alberto Callaspo and Luis Jimenez haven't given the Angels much production.  The Yankees have Kevin Youkilis back, plus the possibility of Alex Rodriguez down the road.  Aramis Ramirez, Chase Headley, Mark DeRosa, and Juan Uribe could be available.   
• Right field: Athletics (.252), Royals (.262), Yankees (.280), Angels (.282).  The A's hope Josh Reddick, back from the DL on Friday, will start hitting.  The Royals can't expect that from Jeff Francoeur.  The Yankees have tried Ichiro Suzuki and Brennan Boesch, and now Lyle Overbay is getting a start in right field as the team waits for Curtis Granderson to return to their outfield.  For the Angels, Josh Hamilton at least showed some power in May.  Thinking about the trade market?  Giancarlo Stanton, Andre Ethier, Nate Schierholtz, Alex Rios, and Mike Morse are the commonly speculated-upon names.
• Center field: Twins (.257), White Sox (.292), Tigers (.303).  Rookie Aaron Hicks had six home runs for the Twins in May, so maybe things will continue getting better.  The White Sox have been using Alejandro De Aza and Dewayne Wise, and perhaps should just use less of Wise.  The Tigers await the return of Austin Jackson.     
• Left field: White Sox (.293).  Dayan Viciedo hit 25 home runs last year, but has just four so far this year.  The team has also been using De Aza in left.  Josh Willingham, Jason Bay, Raul Ibanez, Carlos Quentin, Alfonso Soriano, and Melky Cabrera could be on the market, in a general sense.
• Designated hitter: Tigers (.263), White Sox (.284), Orioles (.308).  Big commitments to Victor Martinez in Detroit and Adam Dunn and Konerko in Chicago hamstring this clubs at DH.  The Orioles may want to see what Nolan Reimold can do when he returns later this month, but they should be flexible toward upgrades involving many of the aforementioned available hitters.  As far as pure designated hitters, Kendrys Morales and Adam Lind might be out there. 

On the first of May, MLBTR's Steve Adams took a look back at 2012 to see what sorts of transactions might be anticipated over the coming month. With May in the books, we'll do the same with respect to June of 2012. If last year is any indication, we could see some fairly substantial trades occur as teams look to get a boost well in advance of the non-waiver trade deadline (which is July 31 this season). As MLBTR's Transaction Tracker reflects, these were the most important moves made last June (in rough order of magnitude):

Extensions

• The Dodgers and Andre Ethier agreed to a five-year, $85MM contract extension.
• The Twins and Ryan Doumit agreed to a two-year, $7MM contract extension.
• The Diamondbacks and David Hernandez agreed to a two-year, $3.5MM contract extension.

Trades

• The White Sox acquired third baseman Kevin Youkilis from the Red Sox in exchange for pitcher Zach Stewart and utilityman Brent Lillibridge.
• The Orioles acquired DH Jim Thome from the Phillies in exchange for prospects Kyle Simon and Gabriel Lino.
• The Indians acquired righty Esmil Rogers from the Rockies for cash considerations. After Rogers finished the season strong, Cleveland flipped him to the Blue Jays over the offseason for infielder Mike Aviles and backstop Yan Gomes. With Aviles playing well on his two-year extension, and Gomes exhibiting surprising power, this series of transactions has turned out quite nicely for the Indians.
• The Orioles acquired first baseman/outfielder Steve Pearce from the Yankees for cash considerations.
• The Twins acquired minor league righty Shairon Martis from the Pirates for future considerations.
• The Blue Jays acquired minor league righty Sean O'Sullivan from the Royals for cash considerations.
• The Braves acquired minor league lefty Cole McCurry from the Orioles for cash considerations.
• The Nationals acquired minor league catcher Kris Watts from the Pirates for cash considerations.
• The Braves acquired minor league utility player Ruben Gotay from the Blue Jays for cash considerations.

Waiver Claims (in reverse chronological order)

• The Yankees claimed Chris Schwinden off of waivers from the Indians. Schwinden began the month with the Mets, but was claimed by the Blue Jays and then the Indians before ending up back in New York. The circle was not fully completed, however, until July 5, when he returned to the Mets via yet another waiver claim.
• The Brewers claimed Hector Gomez off of waivers from the Rockies.
• The Indians claimed Vinny Rottino off of waivers from the Mets.
• The Pirates claimed Oscar Tejeda off of waivers from the Red Sox.
• The Yankees claimed Danny Farquhar off of waivers from the Athletics (who earlier in the month had claimed him from the Blue Jays).
• The Padres claimed Mark Hamburger off of waivers from the Rangers.
• The Pirates claimed Drew Sutton off of waivers from the Rays.
• The Rays claimed Brooks Conrad off of waivers from the Brewers.
• The Blue Jays claimed David Pauley off of waivers from the Angels.
• The Cardinals claimed John Gaub off of waivers from the Rangers.
• The Cubs claimed Jairo Asencio off of waivers from the Indians.

International Signings

• The Dodgers signed Yasiel Puig to a seven-year, $42MM Major League deal.
• The Cubs signed Jorge Soler to a nine-year, $30MM Major League deal. 

(Of course, these high-dollar international signings were made in anticipation of a rule change that imposed significant caps on international spending. June 15 serves as the end of the 2012-13 international signing period this year, but don't expect any deals like those handed to Puig and Soler. At this point, international prospect watchers have turned their attention to July 2, the date that the 2013-14 signing period begins.) 

Major League Signings

• The Rockies signed lefty Jeff Francis to a Major League contract after he opted out of his contract with (and was released by) the Reds. Francis ended up throwing 113 innings for Colorado, posting a 5.58 ERA, and re-signed this offseason on a one-year, $1.5MM deal that also includes $1.5MM in incentives.

Notable Minor League Signings (players who ascended to big league club)

• The Orioles signed Nate McLouth to a minor league deal after he was released by the Pirates. McLouth helped the O's to win a Wild Card by slashing .268/.342/.435 and contributing seven home runs and twelve stolen bases over 236 plate appearances down the stretch. He has carried that success over to this season after signing a one-year, $2MM deal to stay in Baltimore. With a current line of .297/.376/.440 to go with four long balls and seventeen swipes, McLouth stands alongside Jacoby Ellsbury, Kendrys Morales, and Mike Napoli as baseball's 58th most valuable position player (according to Fangraphs).
• The Braves signed Ben Sheets to a minor league deal. Sheets successfully returned from a long injury layoff to end his excellent career in style. He threw 49 1/3 innings of 3.47 ERA baseball and helped Atlanta to overcome the loss of Brandon Beachy and grab a Wild Card berth.
• The Padres signed Ross Ohlendorf to a minor league deal.
• The Brewers signed Livan Hernandez to a minor league deal. 
• The Astros signed Hector Ambriz to a minor league deal.
• The Phillies signed Jason Pridie to a minor league deal.