MLB

Psst, may I have your Delta frequent flier number before we begin, please?...

1. Of Emails, One-Way Flights and Fredi Gonzalez & Friends

Knives are never sharp enough when the suits decide to ax the manager, but what the Atlanta Braves did with a painfully dull piece of cutlery last week was major league awkward.

It seems as if Opening Day was only a few weeks ago, but here we sit, with Memorial Day fast approaching and nearly two months of baseball's regular season already behind us. Time flies, whether you're having fun or not.

Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig was removed from the team's 8-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds Tuesday night, and a perceived lack of effort was the reasoning provided by manager Dave Roberts.

We're nearly two months into the 2016 MLB season, and several under-the-radar offseason moves have paid huge dividends beyond reasonable expectations.

With the way clubs spend for top talent, a star free agent will virtually never become a bargain. Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija are pitching like aces after shaky 2015 seasons, but the San Francisco Giants paid them accordingly.

Aledmys Diaz has already done one thing that's hard to do in today's MLB: emerge as a surprise star.

Now all he needs to do is prove this is for real. 

Matt Harvey, the one they call the "Dark Knight of Gotham," has become a riddle in need of a solution.

For the New York Mets, that should involve taking him off the mound. At least for a little while.

Carlos Correa is going to get paid like a superstar. That much we can stipulate.

The only question the Houston Astros shortstop has to answer is, when and by whom?

It's official: Baseball's rumor mill is back in business.

We've seen a slew of rumors and speculation make the rounds over the past week, some of it driven by untimely injuries and some by a lack of production. Regardless of the reason, teams are realizing that they may not have the answers in-house and have begun scouring the market for reinforcements.

The players involved in this week's chatter run the gamut from those still in their prime to top prospects and veterans some of us may have forgotten were still playing. 

Not even the best young ballplayers can escape humility forever. For proof, look no further than the wall Corey Seager hit in his first April as a major leaguer.

But Seager must have gotten his fill of humility, because now he's looking more like the player the Los Angeles Dodgers and everyone else expected him to be.

The 2016 MLB draft is rapidly approaching, as the three-day even begins on June 9.

There's been plenty of talk about who the Philadelphia Phillies might grab with the No. 1 overall pick, and most baseball fans are well-acquainted with this year's crop of projected first-round picks, but there's a full 40 rounds worth of picks to be made.

Hitting on your first-round selection is paramount, but finding value in the rounds to come is equally important as teams look to bolster their farm system with the next late-round steal.