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With the trade deadline past almost the only way teams can add players is to hope that a team releases a struggling veteran or the designate a player for assignment and then they can claim that player on waivers. Well over the last couple of days that has happened.

The Boston Red Sox decided to part ways with outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. Bradley Jr. was in his second stint with the Red Sox but was hitting just .210 in 91 games this season. Bradley Jr. is known more for his defense and has won a Gold Glove in his career, so it’s possible that a playoff contending team could add him to be a late inning defensive replacement in their outfield.

The Philadelphia Phillies where the other team that released a veteran player. Philadelphia parted ways with shortstop Didi Gregorius. Gregorius was in his third season with the Phillies but had played in just 63 games this season due to injury. Gregorius was hitting .210 this season with 1 home run. Gregorius also struggled last season hitting .209 and his power numbers have come down since joining the Phillies. Will have to wait and see if a team adds Gregorius for the remainder of this season or if he’ll have to try to catch on with a team next season.

There was also a third player that ended up on the open market and that was Dinelson Lamet. Now Lamet was just acquired by the Milwaukee Brewers as part of the trade that sent Josh Hader to the San Diego Padres. It’s unclear what the Brewers were trying to do with Lamet as they designated him for assignment, and he was claimed by the Colorado Rockies. I’m guessing that Milwaukee was hoping Lamet would go through waivers unclaimed, and they could assign him to Triple-A, but that was a big risk for the Brewers to take and it didn’t work out for them.

Lamet has appeared in 13 games this season covering 12 1/3rd innings. He has an ERA of 9.49 and has struck out 16 batters while walking 9.

Will have to wait and see if any other veteran players are either given their outright releases or possibly designated for assignment, so they can move on to other teams.

In case you weren’t paying attention that NFL pre-season started this past Thursday. The Las Vegas Raiders defeated the Jacksonville Jaquars 27-11 in the Hall of Fame game.

I’m sure absolutely no one was surprised when neither Derek Carr nor Trevor Lawrence didn’t play a down along with almost all the other starters from both teams. That’s just how the NFL pre-season goes now. Starters play very little if at all and in some cases that lack of playing time can carry over into the start of the regular season.

As always concern for injury is a reason that starters don’t play much in the pre-season, but it seems as though some teams have devalued pre-season to the point where they don’t believe that their starters need to play to get ready for the regular season. There are a few NFL head coaches that actually prefer those control scrimmages with other teams than pre-season games.

As a fan I have very little interest in pre-season NFL games, but I will try to catch the start of them when the starters may actually take a snap or two. I’m sure that season ticket holders are less than pleased since they have to buy tickets to those pre-season games and I’m sure they’re difficult to get rid of with the starters not playing.

Now, will get a whole slate of pre-season NFL game next week. There are two games on Thursday, five games on Friday, eight games on Saturday and then one game to wrap up the weekend on Sunday. Eight of these games will be shown on the NFL Network and I’m sure they’ll be televised locally as well.

It won’t be long before the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams are hosting the Buffalo Bills in the first regular season game of the year on Thursday September 8th.

Not only have NFL games started, but the start of the college football season is right around the corner as well. I hope you’re ready for football.

Remember to look me up on Twitter @Burketime.