MLB Trade Rumors and News: Its time to buckle up and get ready for the 2019 MLB Draft

The MLB Daily Dish is a daily feature we’re running here at MLBDD that rounds up roster-impacting news, rumors, and analysis. Have feedback or have something that should be the shared? Hit us up at @mlbdailydish on Twitter or @MLBDailyDish on Instagram.

• We continued our draft preview series with a look at some of the infield prospects, both high school and college, that you may want to keep your eye on during the draft next week.
• Baseball has had a an issue with waning interest and participation from younger fans and athletes for some time now. Our own Andersen Pickard took at look at some ways that baseball could make itself more appealing to younger generations.
• Baseball has seen its fair share of weird injuries with players hurting themselves sneezing or repairing their drones, but Carlos Correa’s may end up being among the weirdest. The young phenom is headed for the injured list after he fractured a rib during....a massage.
• With the draft approaching, here is a rundown of the needs of each team in the NL Central for their respective farm systems.
• The All-Star voting process is getting a bit of a makeover as MLB announced some changes that shift the process to a two-phase vote among other things.
• Not every player that is selected in next week’s draft is going to come from a big time Division I college program or a high regarded high school showcase circuit. Our own Cristiana Caruso took a look at some of the top D2 and JuCo prospects in this year’s draft.
• Phillies center fielder Odúbel Herrera was arrested on charges of domestic violence in Atlantic City on Monday night, continuing a disturbing and inexcusable trend around Major League Baseball. He’s the second major-leaguer arrested on domestic violence charges this season (Julio Urías was the other), and he’ll be the 13th player investigated for such reasons since MLB enacted a domestic-violence policy in August 2015.
• The catching crop in this year’s MLB Draft figures to be pretty good — at least at the top, as their are two backstops with legitimate chances to be selected within the top 10. Read up on five of the most highly-regarded catchers in this year’s draft class.
• Here are the areas the NL East teams need to prioritize as they seek to boost their farm systems during this year’s draft.
• Dustin Pedroia’s knee has given him all sorts of problems in recent years and he has tried numerous different procedures to get it fixed. Now, it is looking more and more likely that he will have to call it a career after he announced Monday that he was going to take an indefinite leave of absence from baseball.
• The Mets have signed Matt Kemp to a minor-league deal. The veteran was released by the Reds earlier this season after starting the year off with a .200 batting average. Can he reinvent himself in Queens and become the Kemp of Dodgers past? (You know, when he slashed .310/.352/.522 in the first half of last season.)
• We continued our ongoing draft coverage with Cristiana highlighting five high school pitchers in the draft you should keep an eye on.
• Our draft coverage is cranking up as we preview each division’s farm system needs. Here’s a look what each of the AL Central teams need in their minor league systems.
• The Mets have not had the best luck when it comes to wins and losses as well as injuries of late. That luck continued as Yoenis Céspedes, who was already out with heel injuries, broke his ankle at his ranch during non-baseball activities and will out for a while. I need several updates on the animal that did the deed and who paid it to do so. I smell an inside job.
• The Braves and Mariners made a quirky little trade where both sides are hoping for the “change of scenery” good vibes as the Braves received Anthony Swarzak in exchange for Jesse Biddle and the injured Arodys Vizcaíno. The Braves wanted to give a new arm a look and the Mariners have a GM in Jerry Dipoto that apparently is contractually obligated to make a trade at least every six weeks if not more. A match made in heaven.
• The 2019 MLB Draft is very quickly approaching and a new generation of baseball players are ready to take their crack at the show. However, this year the rules are a little different. Here’s now the new CBA affects how the draft operates.
• The Yankees have had a LOT of issues with injuries this season and it is frankly impressive that they have been able to perform as well as they have despite those injuries. Unfortunately, they got more bad news, as they learned that Miguel Andujar was going to have season-ending shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder.
• We’re just weeks away from the draft, and our Cristiana Caruso kicked off our coverage at MLBDD by putting together a composite mock draft, averaging out the projections from MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo and ESPN’s Keith Law.
• With Carter Stewart going to Nippon Professional Baseball League in Japan, the MLB talent pool is shrinking and Manfred should be taking these choices to heart. That now makes Stewart the second player to choose an entirely different league over MLB, and not even as a late-round pick with better options elsewhere. Stewart went eighth overall, but due to new CBA slot bonus caps, decided to leave America entirely for a baseball league that seemed to quite frankly give more of a damn.