Jake Westbrook

As of Aug. 23, 15 major league teams either hold a playoff spot or are within seven games of one and could be looking to improve their playoff chances by making a waiver-wire deal in the near future.

Seven August trades have happened thus far:

Starting Pitchers

Heading into the season, the Cardinals rotation looked like one of the best in all of baseball. That all changed on February 24, however, when it was announced that Adam Wainwright suffered an injury that required Tommy John surgery and would sideline him for the entire season.

One of the more important aspects of drafting in fantasy sports is finding a solid “sleeper.” As most of you know, a sleeper is a player who is ranked low in the draft, but turns in gold numbers during the season.

With the fantasy baseball season rapidly approaching, and mock-draft lobbies filling up in anticipation, let’s take a look at potential pitching sleepers for this year.

Madison Bumgarner

With the Pujols situation looming large in Cardinals camp, the last thing they needed was something as catastrophic as this.

Co-ace Adam Wainwright has returned to St. Louis, just a few days into spring training, to have his right elbow examined. Many believe it to be a possible ligament injury.

As the Philadelphia Phillies' season came to an abrupt end against the Giants in the NLCS, the offseason went about itself the next day.

We have already seen J.C. Romero's $4.5 million option not picked up and heard from Jayson Werth about him testing the free agent waters. All odds are pointing toward him not being in a Philadelphia uniform in 2011. With that being said, there are definitely some needs that this Phillies team has to address, and the most likely way to address that is through free agency.

The Orioles will go into this offseason happier than any 90-plus loss team has in the history of baseball.

They might have ended the season with 96 losses, but they were 34-24 in August, September and October and under new skipper Buck Showalter, the young players that the organization was beginning to worry about, stopped the regression that was frustrating every fan in Baltimore.

Because of this recent play, general manager Andy MacPhail will almost certainly make a bigger splash in the free agent market this year.

The day after the San Diego Padres acquired veteran bat Ryan Ludwick, he went 1 for 2 with a run scored. It's a great start.

But who came out victorious after the Padres, St. Louis Cardinals, and the Cleveland Indians made the three team trade was a question.

Here's what each team got:

Padres: OF Ryan Ludwick

Cardinals: RHP Jake Westbrook, LHP Nick Greenwood

Indians: RHP Corey Kluber

The Padres gave up the two minor league pitchers for Ludwick.

So far this season, the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds have been engaged in a dogfight among the top of the National League Central. With St. Louis recently solidifying their starting rotation, that may be about to change.

Jake Westbrook and Ryan Ludwick were traded today in a creative three-way trade. The moving parts in this deal looked like this:

Cardinals acquire:
Jake Westbrook (From Indians)
Nick Greenwood (From Padres)
Undisclosed amount of cash (From Indians)

Padres acquire:
Ryan Ludwick (From Cardinals)
Undisclosed amount of cash (From Indians)

Indians acquire:
Corey Kluber (From Padres)

Begin Slideshow