Waiver mania
The Cubs and Bears could both improve their rosters today


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A couple of years ago, Major League Baseball “improved” their trade deadline process by eliminating the post August 1 waiver trade period. It would have made some sense if they had moved the regular trade deadline back a couple of weeks, but they didn’t. So teams are basically stuck with what they’ve got once August 1 rolls around.
Well, as it turns out, you can still acquire big league players after the trade deadline passes, you just can’t trade for them.
Yesterday, Bob Nightengale got out his abacus and counted that a “dozen” Angels had been put on waivers. It turned out to be six, which is pretty close for Bob.
LA, who made a bunch of trades in the run up to the deadline only to play like shit and see Shohei blow out his arm and Mike Trout go back on the injured list, have decided they are not going to pay a lot for this muffler roster.
They put newly acquired Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, and Randal Grichuk on waivers as well as Matt Moore, Hunter Renfroe and Dominic Leone.
And, they weren’t alone. The White Sox put scumbag Mike Clevinger on waivers. The Yankees waived unctuous outfielder Harrison Bader, the Mets waived Carlos Carrasco and the Tigers dangled reliever Jose Cisnero.
So now what happens? Whichever of these players are claimed will be awarded to the team that selects them that has the worst record. You get the player and inherit his contract.
If all six of the Angels are claimed (they won’t be) they would save seven million bucks.
If a player clears waivers the team can let him go and pay him to not play for them and then he can sign with any team he wants. Or, the team that waived him can just keep him since they’re on the hook for his salary the rest of the year anyway. That’s what will happen to almost any of the players who clear.
In the good old days there was a thing called revocable waivers. After the trade deadline had passed you put players on revocable waivers and if they were claimed you could try to work out a trade with the team that claimed him, pull him back and keep him if you couldn’t work out a deal you liked, or let the player go. The last option happened to the Padres when they claimed Randy Myers to try to block him from going to the Dodgers in 1998 and they got stuck with him and the reminder of the three years and $17 million left on his contract. Randy was pretty well cooked by that point. The Blue Jays were ecstatic that somebody claimed him and they just said, “He’s yours!” Myers pitched in 21 games for the Padres with a 6.28 ERA and his arm finally fell off. He never pitched again after that 1998 season but the Padres paid him for 1999 and 2000.