Kris Bryant and Addison Russell were the talk of the first couple of weeks of the season because the Chicago Cubs kept them in the minor leagues longer than necessary to deprive them of a complete year of service time and insure their presence on the Cubs’ roster for an extra year.

Now the focus is on the Houston Astros, 100-game losers each of the past three seasons but the class of the American League West this season.

The Astros seem to be loaded with good young players, and although their $71 million payroll is the majors’ second smallest, salary arbitration makes payrolls grow by leaps and bounds so the longer the Astros can hold off that growth the happier owner Jim Crane will be.

With that in mind, the Astros waited until June 8 to promote Carlos Correa, and with a maximum of 2 years and 119 days he can attain he will not have enough service time to be a Super Two after the 2017 season.

At the age of 20, on the other hand, Correa, the first player picked in the 2012 draft, promises to be a super player. A shortstop and Puerto Rican native, he has excelled in his first 19 games, hitting .301, slugging 5 home runs in 83 at-bats, driving in 15 runs and a posting a .566 slugging percentage.

Although the Astros are surprisingly dominating the American League West, they just might want to wonder how much more dominant they might be had they called up Correa a couple of weeks earlier. General Manager Jeff Luhnow did not return a telephone call to discuss the matter.

Management officials, as highly ranked as Commissioner Rob Manfred, have said clubs have the right to make personnel decisions. An arbitrator established that right in 1986, and Manfred noted that collective bargaining negotiations in recent years have failed to alter that policy.

However, while arguing the legality of the issue, Manfred et al have ignored the integrity of it. If players like Correa and Bryant could help their teams win more games by being in the majors sooner, they would enhance the teams’ chances of reaching the playoffs and winning the World Series.

Isn’t that what fans want to see? Don’t teams have an obligation to put their best players on the field? Isn’t Manfred responsible for and obligated to seeing that teams put their best on the field?

In recent labor negotiations Manfred was the owners’ chief negotiator, and his job was to see that the owners got what they wanted. On the issue of service time and manipulation of it, he succeeded.

That’s why Jim Crane can save money on Carlos Correa and others.

The Astros also waited until June 10 to call up Vincent Velasquez, a 23-year-old right-handed pitcher, who last Friday night shut out the Yankees on three hits for 6 1/3 innings before giving up two more hits and leaving the game. He will gain a maximum of 117 days of service time this year, leaving him short of Super Two status, just like the Astros appear to have planned it.

The Astros, however, made Lance McCullers Jr. an exception, summoning the 21-year-old right-handed pitcher May 18. The 41^st player chosen in the 2012 draft, the son of the former major league pitcher has responded with a 3-2 record and 2.33 earned run average. He can total 2 years and 140 days by the end of the 2017 season, which should be just enough to make him a Super Two.

In recent weeks, with the June call-up calendar on their front-office walls, teams have called up a bundle of young players from the minors, some of them too late to get the service time they need to qualify for salary arbitration when their time comes.

Here are some June call-ups of recent years: Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton, Chris Archer, Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, Anthony Rizzo, Yasiel Puig, Wil Myers, Gregory Polanco, Mike Moustakas, Pedro Alvarez, Carlos Santana, Gordon Beckham.

The players who qualify for arbitration are those with at least three years of major league service and the Super Two’s, the top 22 percent of players who have between two and three years of service.

In four salary arbitration periods under the current collective bargaining agreement, the service time of the last Super Two has been 2 years and 146 days in 2012, 2 and 139 in ’13, 2 and 122 in ’14 and 2 and 133 this year.

The list of Super Two’s is not determined until the season is finished and every player’s service time is known. However, management and union officials have an idea before then of which category players will fall. The labor relations department in the commissioner’s office gives clubs its best estimate on where the cutoff will be, and clubs plan accordingly with their minor leaguers who are major league-ready, balancing their decisions on the basis of finances and needs.

For example, Byron Buxton, Minnesota’s rookie center fielder, played his first major league game June 14. If he remains on the Twins’ roster – he is hitting .189 – or the disabled list, where he is now with a sprained thumb, he will finish the year with 113 days of service time.

After two more full seasons, he would have 2 years and 113 days and would fall well short of Super Two status.

Francisco Lindor, Cleveland’s rookie shortstop, came up the same day as Buxton and would be in the same service-time position. Lindor was hitting .262 at the start of Sunday’s game.

Joey Gallo, a Texas rookie, who became a major leaguer June 2, will have a maximum of 125 service days at the end of the season and will very likely miss the Super Two cutoff. He has split his time between third base and the outfield and is hitting .225. He was the 39^th pick in the 2012 draft.

A Gallo teammate, Chi Chi Gonzalez, arrived three days before Gallo and can reach 128 days. The 23^rd pick in the 2013 draft, the right-hander went into his scheduled start against Toronto Sunday with a 2-2 record and 2.27 e.r.a. in 5 starts.

Matt Wisler, whom Atlanta acquired from San Diego in the Craig Kimbrel trade opening day, can get only 108 days of service time this season. He limited the Mets to 1 run in his debut June 19.

Here are a few other pitchers who recently became major leaguers:

• Eduardo Rodriguez, a Boston left-hander from Venezuela, was called up May 28. With 3 wins and 2 losses in six starts, he is the only Red Sox starter with a winning record. They obtained him from Baltimore for Andrew Miller last July 31.
• Justin Nicolino, a left-handed pitcher, was added to the Miami roster June 20. He was one of 12 players Toronto and Miami swapped in a November 2012 trade.
• Taylor Jungmann was Milwaukee’s first-round selection in the 2011 draft, the 12^th player chosen over-all, and the Brewers promoted him June 9. He has a 2-1 record and 2.74 e.r.a. in 4 starts.

Several players had September call-ups last season, then had their return this season delayed. One of those was Rusney Castillo, a Cuban outfielder.

Castillo, who turns 28 next week, spent 12 days with the Red Sox last September and hit well (.333 average, .400 on base, .528 slugging) but didn’t join the Red Sox this season until May 22. His stay lasted only 33 days and 26 games, during which his offensive numbers (.230/.260/.284) earned him a trip back to the minors.

Castillo, though, doesn’t have to worry about salary arbitration and Super Two’s. The Red Sox signed him last August to a seven-year, $72.5 million contract.

The best late call-up story, though, may belong to Kyle Schwarber, a 22-year-old catcher, who was the fourth player chosen in the 2014 draft. The Cubs brought up Schwarber June 16 but not to catch. They had two interleague series – with Cleveland and Minnesota – in American League parks and needed a designated hitter.

They went all the way to Class AA for him, and Schwarber dazzled them. In 6 games, he stroked 8 hits, including a home run, in 22 at-bats for a .364 average, had a 4-hit game and had .391 on-base and .591 slugging percentages.

He was then sent back to the minors, though to Class AAA.

Schwarber’s performance was more impressive than that of Theo Epstein, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations. Speaking about Schwarber, the graduate of Yale University and University of San Diego Law School was quoted as saying, “It was a best-case scenario for as well as it could have went.”

A retired baseball executive called the other day eager to tell me a comment someone had made to him.

“They blamed deflate-gate on the ball boy,” he said, chuckling before he got to the punch line. “Well, now that the Cardinals have said their computer hacking wasn’t done by the high-ranking officials, they can blame it on the batboy.”

That was supposed to be a joke, but chances are good that in this youth-driven technological age the St. Louis batboy would be more likely to be able to hack into the Houston Astros’ computer system than Bill DeWitt Jr., the team’s principal owner and chief executive officer.

The Cardinals’ alleged hack attack is no laughing matter, certainly not when the FBI is involved. Although the investigation seems to be in extra innings – it reportedly is a year old – if there’s something to be found the FBI will find it.

The last time Major League Baseball suspected computer crime the FBI wasn’t involved in the investigation. The New York Times, which was first to report the current investigation, apparently missed that one.

“The attack would represent the first known case of corporate espionage in which a professional sports team hacked the network of another team,” the Times said in reporting the Federal probe.

In 1989, however, MLB investigated similar allegations against the New York Yankees. Baseball never disclosed who specifically it was investigating, but a baseball lawyer said last Friday it was General Manager Syd Thrift and his chief aide, Jim Bowden.

Thrift died in 2006. Bowden, now an ESPN.com analyst, did not initially respond last week to telephone and e-mail efforts to reach him, later explaining that he had been “at my dad’s burial memorial service and life celebration.” He called this week and explained the 1989 investigation and other issues in which he has been involved.

I wanted to talk to Bowden to find out why he thinks he seems to be singled out so often for suspicion of wrongdoing, especially when it turned out to be unwarranted.

Bowden and Thrift were suspected of taking computer files when they left the Pittsburgh Pirates after the 1988 season. They landed with the Yankees in March 1989. It was never clear who made the accusation of computer theft, but three weeks after they left the Yankees (at the end of August 1989) MLB cleared them of any wrongdoing.

”We have looked into allegations that Pittsburgh scouting information may have been tampered with,” baseball administrator Bill Murray said in a statement at the time. ”At this time, we see no reason to continue to pursue this issue.”

People who worked with Bowden in Pittsburgh would not have been surprised had he taken files with him. His fellow employees obviously did not like him.

“He started as a public relations intern and got buddy buddy with Syd,” one employee said. “There were very few computers in the building, but the scouting department had computers and Syd got him working on the computer. He told people he worked through the Thanksgiving weekend and that’s why Syd liked him so much.

“Nobody ever trusted him. We all knew he was compiling information so that when he went to New York he could take anything.”

But MLB found no evidence that Bowden did anything improper or illegal. Nevertheless, the day after Thrift resigned from his job with the Yankees, George Steinbrenner emphatically displayed his distrust of Bowden.

“George became concerned that he would leave Yankee Stadium with stuff he didn’t have a right to,” said a former baseball executive familiar with the incident.

“My understanding is that’s when Bowden started to go on line and be critical of the Yankees’ way of scouting, comparing it to other organizations. When George became aware of that, he called Bob Quinn and said get rid of him and escort him out of the building.”

Bowden said it was all a misunderstanding.

“Computers were new and no one understood them way back then in the 80s,” Bowden said. “You would use software that was ‘R’ based (for the integration of pathway data). When we went to the Yankees, we bought the same software we used with the Pirates. They looked into it and found out what the story was.”

Quinn, who briefly followed Thrift as the Yankees’ general manager, did as ordered with Bowden, but it didn’t sour him on his young associate. Quinn left the Yankees soon after Thrift and Bowden, went to Cincinnati to be the Reds’ general manager and hired Bowden.

“I hired him in Cincinnati,” Quinn once explained, “because we were so far behind we needed some computer guy. I hired him because he was supposed to be a computer whiz.”

Quinn followed Bill Bergesch and Murray Cook as Reds’ general managers who had served in that same role with the Yankees. Bowden broke that string when he succeeded Quinn in Cincinnati in 1992, then went on to serve until 2003.

It was in his next job, in Washington after moving with the team from Montreal, that Bowden encountered his next accusation.

In 2009 Federal authorities investigated charges that Nationals’ executives and scouts were skimming money from bonuses intended for amateur Latin players the National signed.

The Nationals fired Jose Rijo, a former major league pitcher and Bowden’s special assistant, and Jose Baez, the Nationals’ director of operations in the Dominican Republic. Bowden, however, incurred no penalty or no finding of guilt.

“I’m very confident Bowden didn’t know anything about it.” said Stan Kasten, Bowden’s boss then and Los Angeles Dodges’ president now. “There was no wrongdoing on Jim’s part. There was never any credible allegations that Jim did anything. Nothing was found to lead to that conclusion. I don’t believe today there was any shred of truth to it. As to money going to anyone in our front office, there was no finding that it did.”

Bowden, however, resigned March 1, 2009, denying what he called “false allegations, insinuations and innuendoes by the press.” He added, “There have been no charges made and there has been no indication that parties have found any wrongdoing on my part.”

In the telephone interview, Bowden said, “They looked into everything and didn’t find anything.”

Bowden’s most recent episode came when he was no longer a general manager but was a member of the news media. It involved a prank played at Bowden’s expense by people I don’t know and have no reason to trust. Worse, it centered around a phony Twitter account and a fictional tweet. Right there is enough to heighten the sleaze factor.

Using the name of a known newspaper reporter, someone tweeted a report last August that Marlon Byrd had been traded by the Phillies to the Yankees. The prankster or pranksters, clearly aiming to embarrass Bowden, said that without confirming or attributing the fictional report Bowden tweeted it on his Twitter account as his own report.

“Two minutes later,” one report of the fake report said, “the news was on Bowden’s account: ‘Yankees acquire Marlon Byrd’—a tweet that since has been deleted.”

Bowden’s explanation at the time was ridiculed by his critics, very likely including the perpetrators of the prank, but he repeated it.

“My account was hacked, like a lot of people get hacked,” he told me. “They hacked into my account and took over control of it. I have better security now.”

Bowden’s critics don’t believe him. But does their feeling justify putting a fake message on Twitter, using a real writer’s name to further their prank? I suggest their actions are as wrong as Bowden’s, if he did “steal” the Byrd tweet to use a word from a headline on a report of the prank.

The whole thing about the fake tweet and Bowden’s Twitter account makes me feel justified in shunning all of that nonsense. It’s not journalism and, in fact, demeans journalism.

This website isn’t in the habit of recommending television viewing, but here is an exception. On Monday afternoon ESPN will debut an “Outside the Lines” focused on Pete Rose.

Yeah, I know, you’ve seen and heard enough of Pete Rose. I know I have. This, however, is different. This program is about a Rose betting book kept by his betting buddy Michael Bertolini. If you still harbor any doubts that Rose bet on baseball games, including some played by the team he was managing, the Cincinnati Reds, the Bertolini betting book will put them to rest.

The news that the Bertolini was about to be made public was not the only Rose development of the past week. John McHale, an official in the commissioner’s office, met with John Dowd to discuss his 1989 report that prompted Rose to accept lifetime banishment from baseball.

Rose has applied for reinstatement, and Commissioner Rob Manfred has said he will review the request, at the same time offering no indication that he is prepared to take any action in Rose’s favor. In fact, it is highly unlikely that Rose will find any solace in Manfred’s response to his application.

McHale, said a lawyer familiar with the Rose developments, is “doing work for Rob to help him get a handle on everything that happened and to prepare him for meeting with Rose and his lawyers in the near future.”

Another lawyer said McHale was not repeating the Dowd investigation as was done once before.

“He’s auditing it, not redoing it,” the second lawyer said. “They wanted to get a sense of Pete.”

According to the second lawyer, McHale learned something in his meeting with Dowd, though not about Rose. Dowd told McHale about the effort of then commissioner Bud Selig and his chief operating officer Bob DuPuy to have him disbarred.

“Dowd told him about Bud and DuPuy filing a complaint against him with the District of Columbia bar,” the lawyer related. “They filed a really important legal document that would’ve taken away Dowd’s career. He’s never forgiven DuPuy.”

In an interview last August about the June 1998 complaint, Dowd said Selig accused him of violating attorney-client privilege by talking publicly about his report. DuPuy’s complaint also cited Dowd’s public comments about cases involving Don Zimmer and Lenny Dykstra.

In his response to the complaint Dowd noted that Rose’s lawyers had made the report public in their lawsuit against the commissioner so he was not violating any confidentiality. He was no longer representing the commissioner, Dowd added, in the other cases he talked about.

The D.C. bar dismissed the complaint, saying:

“It is the burden of our office to find clear and convincing evidence of a violation ofthe Rules in order to institute a disciplinary proceeding against an attorney. ‘Clear and convincing’ evidence is more than a mere preponderance of the evidence, which would be sufficient in a civil proceeding. We do not find such evidence in our investigation and therefore we must dismiss the matter.”

It has been more than 25 years since Dowd submitted his report to Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti, but I clearly recall how impressive I found it. Dowd’s evidence left nothing open to debate, nailing Rose as severely as any evidence has ever proved someone’s guilt.

Fay Vincent, who became commissioner three weeks after Rose agreed to be banished for life, laughed the other day in recalling the reaction of one notable staunch supporter of Rose. It was Harry Caray, the inimitable baseball broadcaster.

“Harry Caray,” Vincent related, “said ‘Pete stood here and said he doesn’t bet on baseball. I believe him. Why should I believe you? Who are you?’”.

A key part of the evidence against Rose was the Bertolini book.

I am both delighted and bothered that ESPN has the book. I am delighted because I have long wanted the book to become public so that the Rose sycophants who for too long denied the truth will see it for themselves.

I am bothered because years ago, when I worked for The New York Times, I tried to get the book through the Freedom of Information Act, which I assume is what ESPN has done.

However, when I made my request it was rejected because, the government said, the betting book at the time belonged to Bertolini, a Brooklyn resident, who besides placing bets for Rose arranged lucrative autograph-signing shows for him.

I can only assume that ESPN will show the pattern of Rose’s baseball bets for the 1987 season as recorded by Bertolini. Even when he finally admitted he bet on baseball, Rose said he never bet on Reds games.

However, according to the Dowd report, Bertolini’s betting book showed he made 390 bets for Rose during a three-month period in ’87, and 52 were on Reds games. The book further showed that Rose stopped betting on games Bill Gullickson started.

The manager didn’t bet against Gullickson, but not betting on him just might have told the bookies something. If proof is needed that Rose didn’t trust Gullickson to win, he urged the front office to trade him, and indeed the Reds traded him to the Yankees for Dennis Rasmussen Aug. 26.

The book, according to Dowd, also showed that in those three months Rose bet $2,500 or more on 69 games and lost 64.

A-ROD ON FIRE; IS HE USING A NEW FUEL?

What to do with Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees keep hating him, and he keeps helping them win and he keeps achieving milestones. Where would the Yankees be without him? Probably battling the Red Sox for last place in the American League East.

I’m not going to tell the Yankees to pay Rodriguez his $6 million marketing bonus for matching Willie Mays’ career total of 660 home runs. It’s not my money, and it’s not my place to spend it for them.

No other player in history, however, has in less than a two-month period reached 3,000 hits, 2,000 runs batted in and No. 4 on the career home run list. OK, we don’t know how much of these achievements has been chemically aided, but he has presumably flushed the stuff down the toilet this season, and look what he has done as he approaches the age of 40 and after nearly two seasons away from the game.

Entering Sunday’s game, he was hitting .283 with 14 home runs, 40 runs batted in, a .386 on-base percentage and .529 slugging percentage.

He has reached 668 home runs, 2,009 runs batted in and 3,002 hits.

How should we judge these numbers? Do we dismiss them and say he has played much of his career on steroids? Do we discount the numbers and create a different set?

Probably the only thing we can say for sure is he won’t make the Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds hasn’t and Roger Clemens hasn’t. Unless voters change their thinking, Rodriguez won’t either.

But I’d still like to know how to judge him. He has made that task difficult, if not impossible.

Meanwhile, the commissioner’s office and the union have agreed to put off the deadline for Rodriguez and the union to decide if they will file a grievance over the Yankees’ refusal to pay Rodriguez the $6 million bonus. He hit his 660^th home run May 1 and had 45 days (June 15) in which to file a grievance.

The Yankees, though, cannot stop A-Rod from getting a post-season share if the Yankees qualify for post-season shares.