Sports Time Radio

Now that Major League Baseball no longer allows trades after August 1st it’s become very clear how teams are going to get around that rule. Teams are just going to place those players that they would’ve tried to deal after the trade deadline on waivers and allow other teams to either claim them or sign them after they’re released.

After being buyers at the trade deadline the Los Angeles Angels placed five players on waivers yesterday. After trading for Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Randall Grichuk at the trade deadline the Angels placed all three on waivers yesterday along with Matt Moore and Hunter Renfroe.

You’d have to think that all the Angels are looking for is some type of salary relief, so they’ll have a little more money to resign Shohei Ohtani this coming off season.

If any of these players are claimed on waivers by another team all the team claiming them is required to do is pay that players remaining salary. The Angels will get nothing in return of any of the players they placed on waivers.

Now the Angels aren’t the only team that is doing this. It’s being reported that players like Harrison Bader of the New York Yankees, Carlos Carrasco of the New York Mets, Mike Clevenger of the Chicago White Sox and Jose Cisnero of the Detroit Tigers will be joining the group of Angel players on the waiver wire.

I guess this is just the way that things are going to go in MLB since there can no longer be any trading done after that August 1st deadline, but for some reason it just doesn’t seem right to me.

The waiver claims do start with the team with the worst record and work their way up to the team with the best record, but do we really think teams like the Oakland A’s who have the worst record in baseball or a team like the Kansas City Royals or Colorado Rockies the next two teams with the worst records would be inclined to add salary at this point of the season.

That means that these players on waivers will be sitting there when the playoff contending teams turns come up to claim players and they’ll have the chance to add a quality player without having to give up anything. This has to be too good to be true for a big money team that’s not going to be afraid to add a little bit of salary to try and win a World Series.

None of these players are making an outrageous amount of money and a lot of them are in either the final year of their contract or arbitration eligible, so any contender that might end up with one of these players would only be paying what’s left on his salary for the remainder of this season. If the player is arbitration eligible the team that claims him can simple not offer him arbitration and allow him to become a free agent.

At the trade deadline I’m sure you heard the term “rent a player”. I don’t know about you, but this seems like the perfect rent a player type of situation for contenders.

I don’t think that there is anything that Major League Baseball can do about this because they can’t really tell teams how to spend their money, but it almost seems unfair that a team can acquire a solid player for the stretch run and not give up anything to get them.

I don’t know, let me know what you think about this situation and if you think there’s a way to fix or rectify it.

Don’t forget to look for me on the X, I’m @Burketime.