The worst-kept secret in the world, Chance Ruffin was announced Wednesday as the player-to-be-named-later in the trade-deadline deal with Seattle for Doug Fister and David Pauley.

Of course, the Tigers also gave up a pair of rookies, OF Casper Wells and LHP Charlie Furbush, as well as minor-league 3B Francisco Martinez. Wells, in particular, has been hot since the July 30 trade, hitting .341 with five home runs and 12 RBI in 12 games, matching or exceeding his 64-game totals with the Tigers in both categories. Furbush is 2-1 in three starts with the Mariners, but has a 4.76 ERA and a WHIP of 1.294.

Ruffin — considered a potential closer down the road — had a two-appearance cup of coffee with the Tigers in late July, posting a 4.91 ERA in 3.2 innings. He was the second of two supplemental-round picks in last year's draft, and could not be named in a trade until he'd been in baseball for one full year. Tuesday was the anniversary of his signing.

When you consider the two players — minor league pitchers Cole Nelson and Lester Oliveros — given up for Delmon Young in Monday's waiver-trade with Minnesota, and the two Class A players — LHP Antonio Cruz and C Julio Rodriguez — sent to Kansas City for Wilson Betemit on July 20, and the Tigers have divested themselves of eight minor league prospects in the span of six weeks.

While Cruz, Rodriguez and Nelson were probably nothing more than organizational players, the other five were all among the organization's best youngsters. The preseason rankings of one website (BlessYouBoys.com) had the five all among Detroit's top 20 prospects — No. 5 (Martinez), No. 6 (Ruffin), No. 10 (Wells), No. 13 (Furbush) and No. 20 (Oliveros).

All but Martinez had at least one appearance in the majors this season.

You can look at that as a LOT to give up in 42 days, or you can look at it like the Tigers got a starting pitcher, a starting outfielder, a key reliever and a part-time infielder for the stretch drive in a pennant race. Depends on if you're glass half-full or glass half-empty.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t turned into two everyday players for the Tigers.

Despite the excitement when the Tigers traded for Betemit, he’s played in only 17 of 25 games since the deal. Don Kelly and Ryan Raburn have both started in that spot in the other games. Kelly was in the starting lineup at third for Wednesday's game.

Manager Jim Leyland said Wednesday that he felt Betemit — hitting .316 and slugging .474 as a Tiger — is a better player when only used as a part-time starter, rather than playing every day.

Brandon Inge, who was designated for assignment and sent to Toledo to work on his swing, has said it was promised that he’d return when the rosters expand on Sept. 1. Leyland said Wednesday that he was considering using Inge against left-handers in September.

(C'mon — I had to. You know I did. Stop rolling your eyes.)

After Sunday's game at Target Field, the Tigers announced they'd be sending Lester Oliveros back to Triple-A Toledo, and giving one of their two No. 1 picks from the 2010 draft — a kid named Chance Ruffin — his first Chance.

(OK, I'm done now. Seriously.)

What does it mean that Oliveros was sent down? Nothing much, really. Most of the writers who cover the Tigers were a tad surprised that he got through the past two weeks — which included a handful of agonizing transactions — unscathed.

Not that he'd pitched poorly. He hadn't. But while he hadn't earned himself a bus ticket out of town (trademark: Bobby Ross), he hadn't exactly made it impossible for him to be optioned out, either. In short, he'd been OK — nothing more, nothing less.

So what makes this transaction noteworthy — other than the symmetry with Chance making the majors just a year after being drafted, as had his father, Bruce, to start his own 12-year MLB career? The younger Ruffin was taken with the compensatory pick the Tigers got when they lost Fernando Rodney to free agency. Bruce Ruffin was a second-round pick of the Philadelphia Phillies in 1985.

Tigers manager Jim Leyland certainly didn't sound like he was the architect of the move. "I don't know anything about him," the manager told reporters in Minneapolis after the game. "I know nothing about him except he's tough, he's good and he's from Texas."

Think about it this way, then: If Oliveros hadn't really done anything to force the issue on being sent down, what did Ruffin do to earn the promotion at this point?

Well, he'd done well enough with both Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo, going 3-3 with a 2.09 ERA, 17 saves, 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings, and a WHIP of 1.209. Solid, but not spectacular.

He'd been accorded a special spot with the Mud Hens since his July 1 promotion, though, holding down the closer spot over guys with MLB experience in Daniel Schlereth and Ryan Perry — both former first-round draft picks — as well as Enrique Gonzalez, who leads the Hens in saves.

"Chance Ruffin is closer makeup and closer stuff," Hens manager Phil Nevin said, when asked by the Toledo Blade's John Wagner recently. "This is what we see him as down the line, and so far he's done nothing to deter anyone from thinking of him that way. He's someone we think very highly of."

Fair enough. But why bring him up to the big leagues on July 24, in the middle of a pennant race, especially when all of the short relief spots in the Tigers' bullpen are ably filled? Jose Valverde has yet to blow a save opportunity as the closer, high-priced free-agent acquisition Joaquin Benoit has settled into the set-up role just fine after a shaky start, and rookie Al Alburquerque, the seventh-inning guy, has arguably been one of the Tigers' four most pivotal pitchers this season.

In this case, think outside the box — or outside the organization.

This move — just like accommodating moves to pitch prospects Andy Oliver and Charlie Furbush in front of scouts from other teams — could very well just be a showcase of Ruffin's skills as a potential trade chip before the July 31 trade deadline.

If the Tigers don't want to move one of their blue-chip prospects, like Oliver, Furbush, Jacob Turner or Nick Castellanos, maybe a guy like Ruffin — a quick riser with a mid-90s fastball and a closer's disposition — would be next on the list of candidates for a swap to land the Tigers another starting pitcher for the stretch drive.

The Tigers have made it official that phenom rookie reliever Al Alburquerque is headed to the 15-day disabled list with "right forearm flexor mass inflammation." They've called up Lester Oliveros to fill his spot on the active roster.

John Wagner of the Toledo Blade first reported Thursday night that the Tigers had promoted the fireballing youngster Oliveros from Triple-A Toledo, and replaced him on the Mud Hens roster with Chance Ruffin from Double-A Erie.

Fox Sports' Jon Paul Morosi later reported that the Tigers had placed Alburquerque on the disabled list. Alburquerque struggled through 42 pitches in 1 1/3 innings in Detroit's 16-9 loss to the Mets Wednesday.

Oliveros is a fireballer with a mid-90s fastball and control issues (his WHIP at Toledo was 1.54), but he was 2-0 with a 0.56 ERA and a K/BB ratio of 27/4 at Erie before earning his last promotion. Ruffin was one of the Tigers' two supplemental first-round draft picks in 2010. He had a 2.12 ERA in 34 innings at Erie, limiting opposing hitters to a .190 average.

Alburquerque leads all American League relievers with 14.59 strikeouts per nine innings, and is tied for the AL lead in relief wins (5). He has stranded 21 of 23 inherited runners and allows opponents to hit just .147 against him — second-best among AL relievers.

"He was a godsend. If it wasn’t for Alburquerque, we’d be six or seven games less than we are right now," manager Jim Leyland said last weekend of the rookie who has taken a lot of the high-leverage innings late in ballgames this year.
"You could make a case for — without getting carried away — you could make a case for obviously (Justin) Verlander, obviously (Jose) Valverde. But you could make a case for Alburquerque after that being our most valuable pitcher up to this point."

The Tigers had hopes that Joel Zumaya and Ryan Perry would be able to handle that seventh-inning role this season, but injuries and inefficiency has precluded either pitcher from stepping forward, forcing the Tigers to turn to Alburquerque.

"We’re Zumaya-less, obviously, and we were basically Perry-less, so this was a godsend. This has turned out to be a great sign. And I thought it was a great sign when I saw him in spring training, but I wasn’t sure what would happen," Leyland said. "When I saw him in spring training, I thought ‘Wow. This is some kind of slider with some kind of arm.’ I don’t know if he’ll throw it in the ocean. But he's been fantastic. He's saved us."

Alburquerque's disabled list stint is retroactive to June 30, making him eligible to come off the DL on July 15, for the Tigers' first game after the All-Star break, the start of a three-game series in Chicago.

In other injury news, Carlos Guillen's injury rehab assignment was transferred from Class A Lakeland to Triple-A Toledo. That's a good sign for the likelihood of him coming back sooner rather than later, since it's likely more about timing rather than health at this point.