This has been dragged out for a while, but for players like Nelson Cruz and Jhonny Peralta, they’ve accepted a 50-game ban that starts immediately. A-Rod was banned for 211 games through the end of the 2014 season, but he’s fighting it so A-Rod is expected to play for the Yankees tonight.

It was hard to imagine a player who could be hated more than Barry Bonds, but Alex Rodriguez is doing his best to surpass him. That’s quite a shift from when many hoped that A-Rod could overtake Bonds in the home run record books.

Meanwhile, we’ll see how the Tigers and Rangers react to losing Cruz and Peralta. Cruz in particular is a huge part of the success in Texas and the Rangers are fighting for a playoff spot.

Here are five players that deserved a trip to Arizona’s Chase Field next week, but instead will have to watch a couple of less-deserving players take their spot. Now let’s everybody pile on Bruce Bochy like the rest of the Internet world. Just make sure you stretch first.

1. Andrew McCutchen, OF, Pirates
I don’t know who deserves more blame here, the players or Bochy. The players selected the Reds’ Jay Bruce (who has more home runs than McCutchen but is hitting an earth shattering .230) as one of the outfield reserves and Bochy chose the Mets’ Carlos Beltran, another player with a lower batting average and OPS than McCutchen and whose defense is significantly worse. Somehow McCutchen was left off the “Final Man� vote that is decided by the fans, so Major League Baseball deserves a swift kick to the groin here as well. Seeing as how McCutchen and the Pirates are shaping up to be the feel good story of 2011, the players, Bochy, and MLB dropped the ball badly by leaving the sparkplug off the NL roster.

2. Paul Konerko, 1B, White Sox
Apparently the AL players voted in Michael Young as a backup DH. Why would somebody feel as though a backup DH is needed for the American League roster? Outside of pitchers, THE ENTIRE FREAKING TEAM COULD BE DESIGNATED HITTERS. Konerko has a .954 OPS, which is fourth-best in the entire AL, and is among the league leaders in RBI (62, third), home runs (21, fourth) and batting average (.317, fifth). The problem is that teammate Carlos Quentin was a players’ selection and AL skipper Ron Washington needed to use four of his seven spots to ensure that every team was represented. He simply ran out of room for Konerko, which is a shame. But hopefully he’ll win the “Final Vote� and be on his way to Arizona next week anyway.

3. CC Sabathia, SP, Yankees
Seeing as how Sabathia is scheduled to pitch on Sunday, it’s kind of a moot point to discuss in detail how he was screwed. But a snub is a snub. Washington chose his own lefty C.J. Wilson over Sabathia, which isn’t that big of a deal. There’s a strong argument that Wilson should have made the team, but there were others less-deserving that took Sabathia’s spot. (Jose Valverde, anyone?) Again, in the end Sabathia would have been replaced anyway. But he at least deserved to be mentioned.

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With their 11-10 win over the Rays on Monday night, the Indians became the first team to win a game after trailing by 10 runs since the Rangers rallied to beat the Tigers in 2004.

Thanks to another brutal performance by Fausto Carmona in which he walked the first four men he faced in the second inning on 20 pitches and gave up five runs while getting only one out, the Tribe fell behind 5-0 after only two innings. Cleveland then surrendered five more runs to fall behind 10-0 after three and a half innings before scratching across two runs in the fourth and two more in the eighth to make it 10-4 Rays.

The massive rally in the ninth started when Grady Sizemore walked, Victor Martinez popped out to third, Jhonny Peralta singled to left and then a throwing error on a ground ball by Shin-Soo Choo allowed Sizemore to score and Peralta to get to third. Mark DeRosa then lined out for the second out of the inning, but Ryan Garko belted a three-run dinger to cut Tampa’s lead down to 10-8. After Asdrubal Cabrera, Ben Francisco and Jamey Carroll all walked, Rays’ reliever Jason Isringhausen then walked Sizemore to force a run home to make the game 10-9. The final dagger for Tampa came when Martinez singled home Francisco and Carroll to give the Indians an improbable 11-10 win.

It’s amazing how games can turn in the blink of an eye. Had Rays’ shortstop Reid Brignac not made a throwing error on Choo’s grounder, Tampa probably would have turned a double play and the game would have been over. But one thing leads to the next and before you know it, your team loses. (Of course, the 67 walks in the ninth didn’t help the Rays either.)

Despite the win, Carmona once again had major control issues. It’s amazing to think that he was viewed as one of the better young arms in baseball just two years ago and now he’s on a crash course to baseball purgatory. Also, top pitching prospect David Price failed to get out of the fourth inning in his debut, although he did strike out six. Like Carmona, Price had major issues with his control and threw 100 pitches to record just 10 outs. He walked five in total.

All 2009 Fantasy Articles | 2009 Position Rankings

Before your 2009 fantasy baseball draft kicks off this year, do yourself a favor and repeat this three or four times to yourself: I will draft a shortstop in the first nine rounds.

Not unlike third basemen, the shortstop position is weak this season. After Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins come off the board in the first two rounds, you’re left with roughly eight shortstops that will give you adequate to good production this season. We project those eight shortstops to be selected anywhere between the fifth and ninth round in standard mixed leagues, which is why we suggest nabbing one before the conclusion of the ninth.

The good news is that in a 12-team league, you’ll definitely have the opportunity to land one of the big three (Ramirez, Reyes, Rollins) or scoop up one of the eight adequate-to-good shortstops that we’re referring to. The bad news is that shortstops can start flying off the board quickly and if you’re selecting in a snake draft, you could wind up on the wrong end of the spectrum when the run starts.

That’s why to be safe, you will draft a shortstop in one of the first nine rounds because you don’t want to be the guy that’s trying to figure out whether or not Edgar Renteria will bounce back now that he’s in the NL again, or having to choose between Orlando Cabrera’s consistent .280 batting average and Khalili Greene’s 25-plus home run potential. (Side note: If you do wind up being that guy come draft day, it might be wise to select two shortstops back to back and hope you catch lightning in a bottle with one of them.)

Obviously you still want to be smart on draft day; we’re not advising you to take Derek Jeter in the third because you’re spooked about failing to grab a shortstop before the ninth round. But taking one of the top 11 shortstops a round early might not be a bad idea considering what you’ll be left with later on.