Preview/Prediction

The rebuilding process in Chicago that general manager Rick Hahn began in earnest last year has already begun to pay dividends.

Are the Cleveland Indians contenders or pretenders?

It's an impossible question to answer, with the club hanging around the outskirts of the playoff race despite having a losing record and a negative run differential, which makes the Indians one of the more intriguing teams to follow as the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline draws near.

Few teams in baseball have enjoyed the kind of recent success that the Detroit Tigers have.

Winners of three consecutive American League Central crowns, the Tigers have a legitimate chance to make it four in a row in 2014.

But a World Series title has remained elusive, and the pressure is on general manager Dave Dombrowski to figure out how to best position his club to claim baseball's biggest prize.

Things haven't been nearly as bad in Houston as many expected they would be, with the Astros looking very much like a team that has finally taken a big step back towards respectability after years of being the laughingstock of the game.

General manager Jeff Luhnow has done a remarkable job in recent years of unloading his veterans for younger, less-expensive talent, and the current roster doesn't have much in the way of valuable trade chips to peddle at the trade deadline.

Kansas City's stay atop the American League Central standings last month may have been fleeting, but it was a sign that the Royals may finally be ready to break a nearly 30-year absence from postseason baseball.

The Los Angeles Angels weren't going to wait for the calendar to flip to July before making a move, trading their own disappointing closer, Ernesto Frieri, to the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for another disappointing closer, Jason Grilli, toward the end of June.

Despite the loss of All-Star catcher Matt Wieters and a starting rotation full of underachievers, Baltimore finds itself in the thick of the American League playoff picture, sitting within a game of first place in the AL East and 1.5 back of the two available wild-card berths as of June 31.

Those expecting the New York Yankees to sit back and wait for the nearly $500 million that they spent in free-agent additions over the winter to begin paying off simply haven't been paying attention to how things work in the Bronx.

When you've got (arguably) the best team in baseball, the best manager in baseball and the best general manager in baseball, the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline would seem to be a rather irrelevant date on the calendar.

But if there's one thing that we've learned about the Oakland A's under the stewardship of GM Billy Beane, it's that the team rarely passes up an opportunity to improve, regardless of their place in the standings.

It's been difficult to get a grasp on the Seattle Mariners in 2014, given that the club hasn't been at full strength much of the season.

They only recently got prospect Taijuan Walker back into the rotation, while fellow youngster James Paxton remains sidelined by injury, robbing the rotation of two of its most talented and important pieces.