American League Holds the Key to 2017 MLB Trade-Deadline Chaos

There's going to be action at Major League Baseball's July 31 trade deadline. It's the trade deadline. That's what it's there for.

How much action, however, is up to the American League.

With the 2017 season now nearly three months old, it's easy to see which teams will obviously be buyers and which will be sellers.

What's more interesting are the tough-to-tell clubs. Dave Cameron of FanGraphs crunched the numbers and identified 12 of those. That's a solid chunk. And of the bunch, nine are AL clubs.

That shouldn't surprise anyone. Seen the AL lately? It's a humdinger. Not every team is in the race, but no team is out of the race. Even the Oakland A's, the worst of the worst, are only six games out of a playoff spot going into Wednesday.

The A's are likely to be a seller anyway, mind you. That's good for teams that would love to add Sonny Gray to their starting rotation.

The Chicago White Sox are another sure-to-be seller. That's good for teams that would love to have David Robertson, Jose Quintana, Todd Frazier and/or Melky Cabrera.

But for those nine teams of interest, who knows? And that goes double for a select few in particular.

Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

Hint: it's not the Baltimore Orioles, Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners or Los Angeles Angels.

The Orioles aren't in a rebuilding position and don't have much in the way of trade chips anyway. The Twins are kinda-sorta still working on a rebuild and are also lacking in trade chips. The Tigers, Mariners and Angels are each in contention mode and saddled with tough-to-move contracts to boot.

Maybe these teams won't be buyers, but they're probably not going to be sellers either.

The other four teams may not be buyers either. Where they differ is that they could be sellers. Even big-time sellers.

But only if they want to.

Start in Toronto, where the Blue Jays (35-36) are struggling to escape the depths of the AL East. There was an argument for them to start rebuilding over the winter. With both the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees built for the long haul, there's even more of an argument for that now.

That would be an excuse for the Blue Jays to cash in rentals such as starters Francisco Liriano and Marco Estrada and reliever Joe Smith. And possibly even slugging right fielder Jose Bautista, who has options for 2018 and 2019, and MVP third baseman Josh Donaldson, who's only controlled through 2018.

But for now, general manager Ross Atkins is putting up a stone wall.

"We're focused on adding and winning," he said in late May, per Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun. "We're focused on what's the best thing for us sustaining a championship organization and environment."

Move on to Tampa Bay, where the Rays (39-36) are having a good season. But perhaps more than any team, they must be pragmatic. In this case, that could mean giving in to what's sure to be ravenous demand for their pitchers.

Everyone would love to have Chris Archer. Alex Cobb and Jake Odorizzi are also attractive targets. Alex Colome, a largely unheralded relief ace, is yet another.

But they're also a "nope" for now. Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reported last week they're not looking to sell.

On to Kansas City, then. The Royals (35-36) barely resemble the team that went to the World Series in 2014 and won it in 2015. With Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Lorenzo Cain, Jason Vargas and Alcides Escobar ticketed for free agency after this season and Kelvin Herrera set to follow after 2018, they're loaded with tradeable assets that could kickstart a rebuild.

But 2017 is a last hurrah for the Royals, and it could be going a lot worse. They're still within reach of the AL Central lead and even closer to a wild-card spot.

"Word going around is that they'd love to see 'if they have one more run in them,'" Heyman reported earlier in June.

R. Yeatts/Getty Images

Lastly, on to Texas. The Rangers (35-36) don't have the quantity of trade chips the other three teams have. But what they do have is the single best trade chip: Yu Darvish.

The right-hander is having another strong season with a 3.35 ERA in 15 starts. He's also set to be a free agent. If he were to be made available, he would be easily the most attractive rental pitcher on the market.

But here's this from Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports: "One thing, sources said, is clear: [Darvish] is very likely to end the season in a Rangers uniform, even if they do fall out of contention by the trade deadline, which, with the American League the postseason sardine can it is, seems unlikely."

It's possible the tea leaves for these four clubs are way off. You're not listening to a negotiation expert, but it's generally not a good idea to appear desperate to sell wares that others are willing to buy. They could be using the ol' smokescreen.

However, it's at least equally possible there's something to these reports.

The AL postseason race has hardly left these teams behind. Chasing a wild-card berth means chasing only one guaranteed playoff game, sure. But that beats no playoff games. Besides, two of the AL's three division leads aren't secure. Even if they don't make any additions in the coming weeks, that could prove to be good news for the Blue Jays, Rays and Royals.

If these teams do decide against selling at the trade deadline, it won't cause the whole thing to collapse into a great, big cloud of boring. Again, there will be action.

It just might be underwhelming.

Even if Gray and Quintana are made available, their value may not be high enough for the A's and White Sox to give up on the controllability they have left. That would punt primary selling responsibilities to National League clubs, and there's just not a lot of assets there.

The Philadelphia Phillies, San Diego Padres, Cincinnati Reds and Atlanta Braves have already sold off many star assets as part of protracted rebuilds.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have Andrew McCutchen and Gerrit Cole, but they don't need to be in a hurry to deal either.

The New York Mets are having a bad year, but they may be locked into contention mode. The San Francisco Giants are also having an awful year, yet they are still built to contend over the long haul.

The Miami Marlins probably should go into a rebuilding phase, and they could stock up if they dealt Christian Yelich, Marcell Ozuna and (gasp!) Giancarlo Stanton. But with owner Jeffrey Loria trying to sell the team, Heyman reports the Marlins are believed to be "in limbo" with big-time trades.

So, what happens over the next few weeks will be important.

There's not a whole lot of clarity in the American League right now. If more clarity comes and it's kind to the Blue Jays, Rays, Royals and Rangers, the trade deadline could land with a thud.

If it's of the unkind variety, however, it should be a wild one.

Data courtesy of Baseball Reference. Contract info courtesy of Cot's Baseball Contracts.