MLB Rules – Trade Waivers

Now that the Non-Waiver Trade Deadline has passed, Clubs are focused on the waiver wire.  Decisions need to be made on who to place on Trade Waivers and which players to claim from other organizations.  Regardless of their current place in the standings, all teams will place at least some of their players on Trade Waivers.  Most, if not all, will also claim players throughout the month of August.

First let’s examine the placement of players on Trade Waivers (TR).  (If you need a refresher on what these waivers are – Waivers: Part 1 – What Are They?)  Although all organizations will uniformly place players on the list, there are several different philosophies on “why”, “how” and “when”.

It probably makes the most sense to start with “why”, and there are a three main reasons as I see it.  A Club wants to trade a player, wants a player claimed or is gathering information.  (There is probably a fourth, that being – because everyone else is doing it)  In order to trade a player past July 31, he must be placed on TR.  If a Club wants to move a player the desire is for him to clear waivers – i.e. no claim is placed.  If a player “clears” he is available for trade to any of the 29 other organizations.  A player who doesn’t clear – can only be traded to the team awarded the claim. (see Waivers: Part 3 – Claiming Order, Waiver Periods and Summary.)

Often, a team places a player on TR in hoping he is claimed and therefore passing his contract along to another organization.  I don’t have any data to support this – but I think this method of passing along poor contracts is becoming less effective.  Most, if not all, GM’s understand putting a claim on a hefty salary is a risky proposition.  There will still be another Esteban Loaiza to the Dodgers or Randy Myers to the Padres – but less likely than the past.

Perhaps the most common scenario is information gathering.  The organization has no interest in immediately moving the player, but would like to find out which Clubs are interested and perhaps open some dialogue that can be followed up at a later date.

Need to Know – A Club may only place seven players on waivers each day.

A little on the “how”.  As a team can only place seven players on each day, it takes four days to run your entire 25- Man Roster through TR.  Of course not all teams will run each player out there. If you have Albert Pujols on your team and certainly don’t plan on trading him now or in the off-season – is there any real reason for putting him on TR?  Having said that, there is no risk of losing Pujols so the Cards may view his placement as information gathering or as a way of “diluting” their list.

Need to Know – By default, each player claimed on Trade Waivers is pulled back unless the Commissioners Office is informed otherwise.

The most common method used is placing the maximum number of players on waivers each day until the process is finished.  How a Club groups the players each day varies from team to team.  Some may go alphabetical, by position, random or use a “strategic” method in an effort to “hide” the player the organization wants to clear.  Truthfully I don’t put much stock into hiding players this way.

When is best for a Club to start putting players on TR?  It really depends on what the objective is.  I’d guess 75-80% of all players will be placed on waivers within the first 7-10 days of August.  The remaining few will never be exposed to the wire or will be dangled later in the month.  For example, last year while with the Jays, we knew we couldn’t move Matt Stairs early in August and we also realized he was unlikely to clear waivers.  This combined with the fact that if a player is claimed you have just two business days to complete a trade with the claiming Club meant we waited until we were ready to move him before putting him on TR.

That covers the placement of players on Trade Waivers – I’ll follow-up with a brief looking into the intricacies of claiming in a few days.