Major League Baseball announced the All-Star coaching staffs as selected Terry Francona and Clint Hurdle today. Assisting Francona with the AL squad will be Tigers manager Jim Leyland and Yankees manager Joe Girardi, in addition to the rest of his Red Sox staff, while Hurdle picked Padres manager Bud Black and Mets manager Willie Randolph, in addition to his Rockies staff, to help with the NL.

The selections seem completely arbitrary: as my collegue Pat Lackey pointed out over email, it seems odd that Black is getting the honor given that San Diego currently has the worst record in baseball and completely collapsed down the stretch last year. The selection of Leyland is equally confusing given Detroit's slow start.

Just because the Rockies were everyone's favorite underdog late last year doesn't mean the team was hoping to embrace the same role this season. But, with a quarter of the season in the books, the Rockies sit just a half game ahead of the Padres for the worst record in all of baseball.

Not surprisingly, Colorado's disappoint start has spawned speculation that Matt Holliday, who has just one year left on his contract and will command at least $100 million to re-sign, may be on the block. That talk made it's way back to Colorado's clubhouse, where Holliday denied being concerned. From Troy Renck of the Denver Post:

"You know I live in a box. I don't worry about that stuff," Holliday said.

Holliday hasn't spoken with agent Scott Boras, who is never influenced by media scare tactics, about any new talks. The left fielder is scheduled to make $13.5 million next season, his last before becoming a free agent.

There's been some talk that Holliday may ask for a Miguel Cabrera-esque extension, but I think he'll lose most of his leverage if he leaves Colorado considering how the degree to which Coors Field inflates his numbers. Over his career, he's hit .364 (1.090 OPS) at home compared to .274 (.780 OPS) on the road, which is the difference between an MVP candidate and just another solid corner outfielder. Buyer beware.

Just about every time you hear word of a sports transaction it's followed by a reminder that the deal is pending the player's successful passage of a physical. Usually that's a formality but, every now and then, you hear that a player fails and the deal falls apart.

One of those failures was in November when a seemingly done deal between Yorvit Torrealba and the Mets fell apart at the last minute. The Mets never publicly said what happened but all reports pointed to Torrealba's right shoulder as the reason for their change of heart. That hasn't sat well with the Rockie catcher or his agent so they've filed a grievance against the Mets for pulling the $14.4 million offer after a term sheet was signed.

Torrealba returned to the Rockies on a two-year, $7.25 million deal, with a mutual option for $4 million. The grievance will center on Torrealba's potential lost income. Even if the Rockies exercise his option, Torrealba stands to lose $3.15 million.

Now, my legal education may consist of a video shown before serving jury duty some years ago but term sheets and contracts aren't the same thing. Unless the Mets are using some real cut-rate attorneys, I'd guess that one of the terms they insisted on including was Torrealba's ability to pass a physical. Short of reneging on a signed contract, which the Mets aren't accused of, I don't see much justification for his aggrieved status.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Texas Rangers (19-21) vs. Seattle Mariners (15-25) - 8:05PM Est.

Let's start today's On Deck by taking a trip in the FanHouse Time Machine. We're going to go all the way back to May 8th, 2008. The world was a different place back then. Ok, so the world was really any different as all, as it was just five days ago, but it was sort of exciting!

That was the day when Richie Sexson threw his helmet and charged Kason Gabbard after taking exception to a pitch. Sexson thought that Gabbard's eye-high fastball was meant for his face even though it was over the heart of the plate, and he took umbrage. Of course, had Felix Hernandez not plunked Ian Kinsler earlier in the game after Kinsler homered, none of this would have happened.

Now, here we are five days later, and Gabbard and Hernandez are set to face each other one more time. Will we have an encore?

Surgery to remove blood clots in Kip Wells' hand was successful, the official website of the Colorado Rockies reported on Wednesday. The pitcher had been placed on the disabled list as of April 30, but the team had been relatively quiet about his surgery beforehand.

Wells' condition will be re-evaluated on Wednesday, but he did avoid further surgery on a previously repaired artery under his right collar bone. He is out indefinitely.

[...]In March 2006, Wells underwent surgery to repair a complete blockage of the axillary artery, which was replaced by a vein in his leg. That procedure also was performed by Dr. Thompson. Wells returned to pitch in nine Major League games that season, going 2-5 with a 6.50 ERA.

Of course, all the best to Wells and his family as he recovers. It's a little terrifying that Wells has already had a similar surgery, in only that it feels like something that he should probably use to take a serious step back from baseball and make sure his health is in check. On the other hand, maybe it shows that Wells and/or the Rockies medical staff is doing something right to catch this, both times, before it became a much more serious problem.

Which it actually could be, in terms of endangering his career; blood clots can only continue to surface before teams -- and Wells himself -- will start to ask questions about the safety of him as a major league pitcher. As Lackey pointed out, both times he has returned quickly, but the continued emergence of blood clots is certainly disconcerting.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Toronto Blue Jays (16-17) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (16-15) - 7:07PM Est.

It's been a few weeks since the Blue Jays cut themselves loose of slugger Frank Thomas because he just wasn't contributing anything on offense for them. Since that move, the Blue Jays still haven't scored very many runs, pushing only 37 runners across the plate in the 14 post-Thomas era games. Generally when you're only scoring 2.6 runs a game, you aren't going to win much, and the Blue Jays haven't going 6-8 in those games.

Over the last few days, though, Toronto has figured out how to win without scoring runs, and that's just not letting your opponent score any either.

The recent news that Rockies young superstar Troy Tulowitzki will hit the disabled list just got a lot worse. Doctors realized today that the tear in Tulowitzki's right quadriceps is going to keep him out much longer than the originally prognosticated two weeks, according to a statement from his agent.

'Best case scenario is six weeks. The realistic one is a few months,' agent Paul Cohen told The Associated Press on Thursday. 'We're hoping it's a couple months, but we won't know until they do further medical tests.'

Cohen said team doctors will have a better feel for a timeline next week after 'massive swelling and bleeding' subside. 'It's a non-surgical tear, which could be a good thing.'

The combination of "massive swelling" and "bleeding" is about as pleasant and hopeful as "barely broken" and "light hemorrhaging". This a massive blow to the Rockies, of course, who also recently lost Jeff Baker for an unknown amount of time.

The injuries forced Clint Hurdle to put catcher Chris Iannetta at third and Garrett Atkins at second for the remainder of the game on Tuesday. It's a shame too, because Tulowitzki, even if he is slightly overrated on offense because of his monster season last year, is one of the best defensive players in the game. He's like reverse Derek Jeter, really.

It's a shame, that right after Clint Hurdle's bench-him-to-spur-a-hot-streak move got Troy Tulowitzki's bat working a little bit, that it appears the second year shortstop appears likely to head to the disabled list with a strained quadriceps injury.

Rockies head athletic trainer Keith Dugger said Tulowitzki will fly to Denver on Wednesday morning, and the club hopes to arrange an MRI for him by the afternoon. He's likely to be placed on the 15-day disabled list.

'He is in a lot of pain and discomfort, and a lot of spasm after the injury,' said Dugger, who refused to speculate on how much action Tulowitzki will miss.

Tulo being forced to leave early on Tuesday resulted in a crazy shift of the Rockies infield, with catcher Chris Iannetta playing third base, Clint Barmes playing shortstop and third baseman Garrett Atkins playing second (note that Jeff Baker's injury also caused this). Clearly, losing Tulowitzki affects the Rockies both offensively, and more importantly, defensively.

There should be some roster shifting -- MLB.com reports that Omar Quintanilla has been called up -- and clearly the Rockies are going to need someone to step up in order to try and keep pace with the Diamondbacks.

Fantasy Spin: If Atkins gains 2B eligibility in your league because of this, well, you need to pounce on him before his owner figures it out. Iannetta's third base eligibility would actually make him less useful, since he's a catcher anyway, but he's starting to come on pretty nicely. Tulo meanwhile, should be benched until further notice.

When Evan Longoria signed a six-year, $16 million contract with the Tampa Bay Rays after six days in the big leagues, it raised a lot of eyebrows. Tampa was making a big bet on a player with limited service time while Longoria was risking future earnings if he made good on his immense potential.

The wisdom of such deals, more common all the time, is the subject of Bob Nightengale's column in today's USA Today. They seem like a fair compromise of risk and reward on each side. The team gets cost certainty and the player gets job security while bearing the burden of paying too much or earning to little, depending on how things work out. The deals are controversial among agents and the Players Association because of how much they may deflate salaries for star players who grow while under a team's control. Not surprisingly, Scott Boras dislikes them more than most.

"There are a lot of bad deals out there. Some of these deals cost the player as much money as the money they're guaranteed."

Sure but a lot of them also guarantee the player more money than they'd make otherwise. Take Manny Corpas, for example. The Rockie reliever was demoted from closing last week but is still going to make $8 million over the next four years. Because of the security, though, Corpas has time to turn it around.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Arizona Diamondbacks (17-7) at San Diego Padres (10-15) - 4:05 PM ET

Here's what's great about April baseball: As long as the teams stay on their rotations, you see a lot of aces match up with each other frequently before the off days make things uneven. That means today you'll see Brandon Webb match with Jake Peavy. Both pitchers are undefeated. Both pitchers have ERA's hovering around 2.00. And both pitchers are nasty. Peavy was a tad frustrated in his last outing, giving up four runs in six innings at Minute Maid Park in Houston, after which he compared the hitter friendly park to Williamsport's little league park (there's a Miguel Tejada age joke in there somewhere but that would be wrong.) Luckily for Peavy (3-0, 2.00) and Webb (5-0, 2.31), we're playing this one at canyonesque Petco Park.