When Alex Gordon got injured on Wednesday night, it was a big blow to the Royals, who have lost their best player for the next two months of the season. But with Detroit struggling — and having lost Miguel Cabrera themselves just a week earlier — and the Twins probably unable to keep playing as well as they have in the first half, the Royals will probably still be able to hold on to their division lead, even with Gordon on the shelf for the next few months.

However, Gordon’s injury does create a pretty significant hole on the American League All-Star roster. No, it’s not that Gordon is really that much better than Adam Jones, who will replace Gordon in the starting line-up, but that Gordon brought one unique skill to the American League’s offense: he bats left-handed.

With Jones replacing Gordon, all nine American League starters will bat from the right side of the plate. Let’s take a guess at what Ned Yost’s starting line-up might look like.

1. Lorenzo Cain, LF
2. Jose Altuve, 2B
3. Mike Trout, CF
4. Albert Pujols, 1B
5. Josh Donaldson, 3B
6. Nelson Cruz, DH
7. Adam Jones, RF
8. Salvador Perez, C
9. Alcides Escobar, SS

There are some pretty great hitters in the middle of that line-up, and guys like Trout have historically hit right-handed pitching just fine. But at both the top and bottom of the order, you have some guys on the team primarily due to their defensive abilities, and hitting right-handed pitching isn’t really their strong suit.

And the National League has loaded up on right-handed pitching. Of the 13 pitchers already on the NL roster, 11 of them are right-handed; only Madison Bumgarner and Aroldis Chapman are lefty hurlers on the NL’s squad. Johnny Cueto is likely to join that group via the Final Vote, which would push the NL up to 12 RHPs, many of whom are death to right-handed hitting.

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With the trade deadline 22 days away, we’re starting to reach the point where deals could come together pretty quickly. The standings are beginning to sort out the contenders from the pretenders, and teams have mostly completed their internal evaluations of what they need for the stretch run. Over the next few weeks, the focus will turn to getting deals done, and for every team looking for a big deadline upgrade, two names will be at the front and center of those discussions: Johnny Cueto and Cole Hamels.

They’re not just the two best pitchers on the market; they’re probably the two best overall players as well. Both are high quality starters with long track records of success, and each could upgrade an acquiring team by something like a couple of wins over the remainder of the season, plus the upgrade of adding a frontline starter to their postseason rotation. Both players are going to be in high demand, and will likely return a significant haul for their organizations.

But which one should a team prefer? Let’s compare the pros and cons of each, and look at whether contenders should be willing to pay more for either pitcher.

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The trade deadline is 25 days away, and with so many teams bunched up in the middle of the standings, there could be a serious shortage of talent available for teams looking to upgrade. In particular, available hitters seem to be particularly scarce, as the few sellers that exist in the market are mostly going to be selling veteran pitchers. Between Cole Hamels, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija, some pretty good arms will likely change teams in the next few weeks, but for teams like the Pirates and Cardinals — who could use a bat far more than another arm — the pickings are beyond slim.

Right now, in fact, it appears that the best hitter likely to change teams before the deadline is Brewers first baseman Adam Lind. Yes, the same Adam Lind who was traded for Marco Estrada over the winter, because the Blue Jays didn’t really want to pay him $7.5 million to DH for them. Lind wasn’t exactly a hot commodity during the off-season, and given his track record, it’s not hard to see why teams weren’t exactly falling all over themselves to add him to their line-up. Here are Lind’s seasonal wRC+ marks by year since he broke into the big leagues.

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It’s safe to say that the first half of 2015 hasn’t gone the way the Padres would have hoped. After making a number of surprisingly aggressive moves over the winter, the organization expected to contend for a playoff spot, but after another loss last night, the team now stands at just 37-42. Entering July at five games under .500 puts them closer to rebuilding teams like the Braves and Diamondbacks, and they’re only barely ahead of the Reds, who are widely expected to start moving some of their best players as the trade deadline draws near.

Over the next month, General Manager A.J. Preller and his staff will have to make some tough decisions. For instance, Justin Upton is a free agent at the end of the year, and a return to San Diego seems unlikely, so if the Padres don’t trade Upton before August 1st, they risk letting him leave for nothing more than a single draft pick as compensation. In a trade market with few sellers, and even those who are selling lacking impact hitters to sell, Upton could fetch a nice return, perhaps bringing back a decent approximation of what Preller sent to Atlanta to get Upton in the first place.

But despite the fact that we currently estimate their odds of making the playoffs at less than 10%, I don’t think the Padres should sell Upton, or any of their other players who would be attractive chips on the trade market. Even with the odds stacked against them, I think the Padres should keep this group together and hope for the best.

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Yesterday, we tackled the National League’s 34 most deserving candidates, so today, we’ll do the American League. When it comes to picking players, I lean very heavily towards in-season performance, as I tend towards the camp that sees the game as a reward for the players more than a showcase for the fans. It is both, of course, and trying to serve both masters can make for some tricky decisions, but I’d rather reward a deserving player for a big first half than simply invite the same players every year based on their legacy. I know others see it differently, and that’s fine; I personally just find it more interesting to recognize performance than name-value.

In putting this together, I broke the 34 roster spots into 21 position players and 13 pitchers, and I also held to the rule that every team had to be represented. Injured players were not considered, so while Andrew Miller will likely be picked and then replaced, I didn’t bother with that formality. And while the only stat listed is a player’s WAR, it’s just there for reference; I didn’t select the players based solely on their WAR totals. Oh, and for pitchers, the WAR listed is a 50/50 blend of FIP-based and RA9-based WAR.

Okay, on to the team. We’ll go position by position, with the starter listed first.

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We’re two weeks away from the 2015 All-Star Game, and fan voting ends this Thursday, so I figure it’s probably about time to put my ballot together. When it comes to picking players, I lean very heavily towards in-season performance, as I tend towards the camp that sees the game as a reward for the players more than a showcase for the fans. It is both, of course, and trying to serve both masters can make for some tricky decisions, but I’d rather reward a deserving player for a big first half than simply invite the same players every year based on their legacy. I know others see it differently, and that’s fine; I personally just find it more interesting to recognize performance than name-value.

In putting this together, I broke the 34 roster spots into 21 position players and 13 pitchers, and I also held to the rule that every team had to be represented. Injured players were not considered, so while Giancarlo Stanton will almost certainly be picked and then be replaced, I didn’t bother with that formality. And while the only stat listed is a player’s WAR, it’s just there for reference; I didn’t select the players based solely on their WAR totals. Oh, and for pitchers, the WAR listed is a 50/50 blend of FIP-based and RA9-based WAR.

Okay, on to the team. We’ll go position by position, with the starter listed first.

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Over the weekend, the Diamondbacks made a pretty controversial trade, selling Touki Toussaint to the Braves in exchange for $10 million in salary relief. I wrote up my thoughts on the deal on Monday, noting that while it’s certainly possible that the Diamondbacks have more information about Toussaint than other teams, it still seems like they simply misread the market value of a prospect in making this deal.

If you didn’t think that’s what happened a few days ago, you can be sure of it now, because in Ken Rosenthal’s latest column, Stewart says some things that, for a baseball executive to say publicly in 2015, are absolutely remarkable. And should scare the crap out of Diamondback fans.

Per Rosenthal’s column, here’s the entire text of what Stewart said in regards to trading Toussaint.

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Over the past 365 days, Paul Goldschmidt has been the best hitter in baseball, posting a .331/.458/.610 line that is good for an absurd 184 wRC+. Do you know who the second best hitter has been over the past year? It’s not Bryce Harper: He’s third, at 167. And Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera are tied for fifth, each putting up a 161 wRC+ during that span. So who’s the mystery man who has put his name among this elite group of hitters?

Dodgers infielder Justin Turner. Yes, the same Justin Turner who began the year as LA’s second-string utility guy, as he wasn’t even the team’s top infield reserve. Despite a very strong 2014 season of part-time work, the Dodgers glut of infield talent put Turner behind not only the starting trio of Howie Kendrick, Jimmy Rollins and Juan Uribe, but also saw him slide in behind Alex Guerrero for playing time at third base. Turner didn’t get his first start of 2015 until April 22, the Dodgers 14th game of the year.

But just as he did a year ago — when he’s been placed in the line-up — Turner has done nothing but hit. In fact, while his 157 wRC+ a year ago looked like a total fluke — given that he’d put up marks of 96, 98 and 99 the the three years prior — he’s actually hitting even better this season, cutting his strikeout rate while also hitting the ball in the air more frequently and with more authority, leading to a 169 wRC+ in the first few months of 2015.

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Turner’s breakout, of course. He didn’t have his first above-average hitting season as a big leaguer until last year — when he was 29 — and even dating back to the beginning of 2014, Turner has only hit 503 times, less than most players get in a full season. Most of Turner’s track record suggests that he’s not really a great hitter, but a guy with good contact skills and some power who is on the hot streak to end all hot streaks. It’s also somewhat telling that the Dodgers watched him destroy opposing pitchers last year, but still weren’t interested in expanding his role for 2015, then also went out and spent $63 million to sign infielder Hector Olivera this spring.

But while there are plenty of reasons to not believe in Turner’s breakout, it’s not like this career arc is entirely without precedent. For some historical context, here are five recent hitters who were, like Turner, essentially useless at the big league level through age-28, then turned into quality big leaguers later in their career.

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