AL Central

As the trade deadline begins to inch closer and closer, it becomes more obvious what teams will be buyers and what teams will be sellers.

It is fairly obvious that the Indians will be one of the teams that will be sellers. They are currently 13.5 games out of first place and 16 games under .500 with a 26-42 record.

There has been talk about a few Indians pitchers being moved between now and the trade deadline. Jake Westbrook's name has been mentioned in connection with many teams.

The White Sox announced the signing of their first round pick LHP Chris Sale for $1.656 million. 

Sale was rated the top college left-hander after Drew Pomerantz in most of the mock drafts shown, but he fell to the White Sox with the 13th pick, probably because he went to a second-tier school, Florida Gulf Coast University.

Florida Gulf Coast did indeed play mostly second-tier schools. When they played top-tier schools, they generally got pounded, unless Sale was pitching.  He beat Wichita State 7-2 on March 5, 2010 and Clemson 4-2 on May 1, 2010.

The Detroit Tigers sent down Rick Porcello to Triple-A on Sunday and are hoping to get the same results from this move that they got from sending down Max Scherzer earlier in the year.

Earlier this year, the Tigers sent down Scherzer and his 7.29 ERA and 5.6 K’s/9 to Triple-A. Since Scherzer has returned, the 25-year-old righty has a 3.48 ERA and has struck out 11.9 batters per nine IP. That is impressive.

Those are the results the Tigers are hoping to get from Porcello.

The poor situation the Pirates are in easily lends the notion that its General Manager and manager would be on the heat seat for next season. In a move that makes no sense to many, or actually makes perfect sense for the Pirates especially when you see similar bewildering roster moves over the years, Pittsburgh actually gave the two contract extensions.

The Phillies lost one of the most up-and-down games I've ever seen to the Minnesota Twins by a score of 13-10, but there were a lot of positives to take from the game.

For starters, the Phils scored 10 runs -- something they haven't been doing a whole lot of recently as they fight to fully escape their offensive funk. It's still too soon to proclaim it over, but with 14 hits and a double-digit run total, they're certainly making strides.

Hey guys, and welcome to today's rumor mill for Major League Baseball!

We'll be discussing some pretty good rumors around the MLB, so you may want to stick around to catch the excitement.

Will Cliff Lee be traded back to his old team, the Philadelphia Phillies?

Will Pedro Martinez join him? Or will he go to a different team?

All of these rumors and a lot more on today's MLB Rumor Mill!

So check out the rumors.

Hope you enjoy them.

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It’s never a good sign when a manager says his ace pitcher “has some things going on” in his shoulder, but that's exactly what Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said about Jake Peavy the other day.

Due to Peavy’s achy shoulder, the White Sox skipped his Thursday night start against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he'll attempt to start on Saturday.

Mlbtraderumors. com reports that the Twins and Rangers are the two teams rumored to be most interested in acquiring Mike Lowell from the Red Sox.  Makes sense to me.

Carlos Pena who had been slumping hit a home run in his fifth consecutive game and he has hit six home runs in those five games.

Carlos Pena hit a home run in his fifth consecutive game while breaking a Rays franchise home run record of 129 home runs, which had been held by Aubrey Huff until last night.

When the Cleveland Indians traded 3B Casey Blake to the Los Angeles Dodgers back in the summer of 2008 for prospect Carlos Santana, I was really surprised. Santana was a rising prospect in the Dodgers’ organization and was hitting .323 with 14 home runs in High Single A at the time of the trade.