The Chicago White Sox on Saturday acquired closer Brett Myers from the Houston Astros, lending experience and stability to a bullpen that has been among the worst in the American League.

Brett Myers is headed to the White Sox. (Getty Images)Myers, who returned to the bullpen this season after serving as a starter for most of the previous four seasons, had 19 saves, two blown saves and a 3.52 ERA in 35 appearances for the Astros.

In return, the Astros received minor-league pitchers Matt Heidenreich and Blair Walters. On Friday, the Astros dealt set-up man Brandon Lyon and starter J.A. Happ to the Toronto Blue Jays in a 10-player trade. So, their rebuilding effort is at full throttle.

[Related: Jays, Astros complete huge 10-player trade]

Typically aggressive at the trading deadline, the White Sox sought a veteran hand in a bullpen that features 23-year-old Addison Reed as its closer and a host of early twenty-somethings in key roles. The rotation has two 23-year-olds in Chris Sale and Jose Quintana. The White Sox lead the AL with

In what had been an arduous walk-up to the trading deadline, the Toronto Blue Jays and Houston Astros completed a 10-player deal Friday morning that sent pitchers J.A. Happ, Brandon Lyon and David Carpenter to the Blue Jays.

The Astros received reliever Francisco Cordero, outfielder Ben Francisco, four minor leaguers and a player to be named later.

In a somewhat more conventional deal also struck Friday morning, the Colorado Rockies and Kansas City Royals swapped struggling starting pitchers. The Rockies acquired left-hander Jonathan Sanchez and his 7.76 ERA in return for right-hander Jeremy Guthrie and his 6.35 ERA. Sanchez, who had been designated for assignment by the Royals, was acquired by the Royals last winter for outfielder Melky Cabrera, now batting .357 for the San Francisco Giants. Fox Sports first reported the Sanchez-Guthrie trade. Jonathan Sanchez was traded to the Rockies. (AP)

[Also: Nats ponder pitching move as Stephen Strasburg limit looms]

What the Blue Jays-Astros trade carried in numbers, it lacked in

In the slow dance that is the lead-up to the trading deadline, it would be only appropriate that the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers would find each other for "Stairway to Heaven."

Ryan Dempster will carry a 33-inning scoreless streak into his next start. (US Presswire)Irrelevant two weeks into the season, the Cubs are working on a full-bore rebuild. Let's call it a five-year plan, as that's the length of Theo Epstein's contract. Maybe it won't take that long, but it might. So there's very little in the way of players that can't be moved in order to nudge ahead The Plan, which is why Ryan Dempster and his league-leading 1.86 ERA can be had. Matt Garza probably won't be far behind, either.

Conversely, the Dodgers have today in mind, and they've strung together a month's worth of awful todays. Gone are the best record in the league, the best record in the division, and the notion they might just overachieve for all of six months. The Dodgers need players. They need pitching and they need offense from the corners of their infield. They need a lot of help, and new

It might surprise you to read the Washington Nationals – National League leaders in team ERA and starters' ERA – would be in the market for a starting pitcher, but there is the matter of Stephen Strasburg. Stephen Strasburg should reach the 160-inning mark around the first week of September. (Getty Images)

After years of scouting and spending and developing, the Nats have a staff to be proud of, one that could carry them into the playoffs and get something done once there. Except Strasburg will have to go home early per doctor's orders following his 2010 Tommy John surgery that cost him nearly all of last season.

So, the Nats will troll for a veteran starter of some pedigree, someone along the lines of Kevin Millwood or Francisco Liriano, unless the cost of the top-end guys comes down. They might even be better off waiting until August, as there will be more pitchers available as the fringe teams drop out.

Barring an injury to a Nats starter or two, there would seem to be no rush to make a move.

Meantime, Strasburg, the Nats and general manager Mike Rizzo deal with the

Leave it to the guy who's retiring to advocate for a big move at the trading deadline, as those kinds of deals can clean out the top end of a farm system and don't always bring return beyond the current calendar year. But, as they say this time of year, the present is now.

Chipper Jones wants help for a final playoff push. (Getty Images)The Atlanta Braves have won seven of eight, are second in the National League wild-card race and have gained two games on the Washington Nationals in 10 days, four of which were consumed by the All-Star break.

"We're going to have to get better to contend," Chipper Jones said recently. "I think we both know the Nationals have a pretty good team, a pretty good staff."

At that point, the Braves had lost shortstop Andrelton Simmons to a finger injury but have since replaced him by trading for Cincinnati's Paul Janish, a slick fielder who batted .214 in 114 games with the Reds. There also are questions about the starting rotation, though Ben Sheets was effective in his debut against the New York Mets. Jair

LOS ANGELES – It's all so surreal that on a given Tuesday night in July the Philadelphia Phillies would have Roy Halladay on the mound, all their parts in their predetermined places around him, the batting order presenting stout and reliable in name and reputation, and yet their season sits teetering on irrelevance.

This is exactly who they are, right? Halladay and Chooch, Howard and Utley, Victorino and Rollins.

Roy Halladay threw 80 pitches in five innings on Tuesday. (US Presswire)Except the first three months happened, and Halladay hadn't thrown a pitch in six weeks. And Chase Utley came up in the first inning and drove in his seventh run of the season. Ryan Howard followed with a groundout, his batting average .143 through 21 at-bats.

A team in its prime – granted, reasonably well along in its prime – is gunned down by injuries, and depth, and a talent creep toward Washington, the usual sturdiness in Atlanta, and whatever that is – or was – in New York.

So, on any given night, opposing scouts overrun the media dining room, preparing to pick

The Oakland Athletics have forced themselves into the summer conversation.

A year or two early, they've pitched well enough to sneak up on the presumed wild cards. They've begun to hit a little and really only need a little. Just an average offense would go a long way for the A's, and they were better than average in June, and have been about average in July, enough so that their entire strategy is no longer to wait until Josh Reddick and Yoenis Cespedes have their turns at bat.

Bartolo Colon is a good bet to go if Oakland trades a starter. (Getty Images)Finally, the A's could be an interesting player at the trading deadline. They are one of the few contenders with a surplus of pitching both in their rotation and bullpen. Then, from the disabled list, they could add Brett Anderson in the coming weeks and Brandon McCarthy sometime after that. Minor league right-hander Dan Straily (46 strikeouts in 33 innings at Triple-A Sacramento) could be called up anywhere in between. (Dallas Braden remains a long shot to return before next season.)

Of their toddler

While Zack Greinke's run of consecutive starts for the Milwaukee Brewers ended ingloriously over the weekend at three games, and on Sunday Cole Hamels took the ball in Colorado, and Chad Billingsley came clean on a sore elbow in L.A., and Ben Sheets threw six shutout innings in Atlanta, and Ryan Dempster sunned in the aftermath of his still-alive 33-inning scoreless run in Chicago, the pitching market inched again toward the trading deadline.

Zack Greinke has a 9.00 ERA in four July starts. (Getty)There is hardly a contending team that couldn't use Hamels or Greinke or Dempster, and who wouldn't risk prospects for a few good months of one of them, but of course it's more complicated than that.

For one, the suddenly woeful Philadelphia Phillies would like to sign Hamels to a contract extension, presumably something at least in the Cliff Lee ballpark (five years, $120 million), and well before the deadline. The Brewers have the same idea with Greinke, though presumably not quite to Hamels' numbers.

The extension process is difficult