Rankings/List

When Michael Lewis' best-selling book "Moneyball" hit the market in 2003, baseball was changed forever. Lewis chronicled the inner workings of the Oakland Athletics, the team that somehow managed to turn bands of rejects into playoff contenders.

Since joining the A's in 1998, general manager Billy Beane has sent the team to playoffs six times despite continually having one of the league's lowest payrolls. 

The New York Yankees will enter the offseason with 12 players eligible for free agency.

Many of those players will not be returning to the team.

The Yankees will look to plug holes with available free agents while staying true to their goal of staying under the luxury tax, as David Waldstein of the New York Times reported in March.

General managers around baseball have this recurring nightmare every offseason.

It's the one where they go out and add established major league talent to their respective rosters in an attempt to plug holes and upgrade specific positions from the previous season, only to watch those new additions wilt under the spotlight and become part of the problem, not the solution.

Have you ever wondered where your favorite MLB franchise stands in comparison against all the others?

I'm not talking about how your favorite team is doing this season. In fact, this year has almost nothing to do with this discussion.

I'm referring to things like team history—playoff appearances, World Series championships and Hall of Fame players—as well as revenue earned and farm systems.

Momentum is important in Major League Baseball and the most important part of this season is starting to get into gear.

With a little bit more than a month left before the playoffs, any team that is lucky enough to end up in the postseason will want to be in top form when it begins.

That is why it is so important to do well right now and that is why the following four teams are so interesting. Some of them are securing their postseason positions while others are making charges at grabbing their playoff invitations.

Raise your hand if you picked Chris Davis to finish anywhere near the top five in the voting for American League MVP heading into the 2013 season.

Mr. and Mrs. Davis, you can put your hands down.

Every year, fans and pundits make their predictions before the MLB season gets underway as to which teams are going to play in the World Series and which players are going to take home the biggest individual awards that the game has to offer.

MLB contenders must seize opportunities to add impact players prior to the 2013 non-waiver trade deadline. They face ultimatums as July winds down: Complete blockbuster deals to address glaring weaknesses, or risk having those weaknesses exploited down the stretch.

Five teams in particular feel the urgency to find solutions for specific needs. Of course, their challenge is fending off the other dozen or so clubs that feel postseason competition is still a possibility.

Of the names we're hearing that are very likely available on the trade market, there's not much to get excited about. At least not in terms of a player who can make an impact down the stretch as Marco Scutaro did with the San Francisco Giants in 2012. 

Chicago White Sox general manager Rick Hahn can permanently extinguish the last vestiges of belief that Kenny Williams is still the arbiter of South Side fortunes over the next seven days.

Not only is the White Sox’s 25-man roster awash with veteran talent, but Hahn has second- and third-year players under team control for some time that he could move if the return is high enough.

A couple of well-timed, prospect-driven trades would go a long way for Hahn and the White Sox.

Pitchers are fragile and should be handled with care, which is why you'll see workloads decrease in the second half and very few pitching prospects called up to the big leagues for the stretch run. That doesn't mean you should stop paying attention to what's going on down in the minors.

Here are some pitchers, two from each level, that have either been really bad or really good as of late. 

Triple-A