SB Nation User Blog: RickeySteals

Explaining Waivers

RickeySteals — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 18:31:47 -0000

I've seen a bunch of questions about waivers, and although I definitely do not think of myself as an expert, I did read an article about them by Steve Phillips over on ESPN.com

Usually, I think the guy is an idiot (heck, look at what he did to the Mets), but this was actually a pretty informative article

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=phillips_steve&id=2130379

Alas, it is insider only, but here are the relevant bits:

Players can change teams one of three ways on waivers:

A player is claimed on waivers and the team awarded the claim makes a trade with the other club.
A player is claimed on waivers and the player's team just decides to dump the claimed player on the claiming team.
A player clears waivers, meaning that no team claimed him during the 47-hour period, and is later traded to an interested party.

The interesting thing is that most teams try to get all of their players through waivers -- not because they want to trade them, but instead to protect themselves just in case they get an incredible offer for a player.

Once a player goes on waivers any team can put in a claim, but the claims are awarded in order of

League -- American League teams have dibs on AL players before the National League gets 'em and visa-versa
Record -- When comparing two claims within the same league, the team with the worst record gets dibs.

Usually, when a player is claimed, the owning team pulls him back - they didn't really want to trade the guy and were trying to sneak him through. However, if nobody claims the player within the 47 hour waiver period, the player has "cleared waivers" and can be traded to anyone.

Gammons had an article about the guys who have cleared waivers. Among the hitters that cleared were: Piazza, Griffey, Sweeney, Frank Catalanotto, Dustan Mohr, Todd Hollandsworth, Todd Walker and Edgardo Alfonzo. Sadly, one of our favorites, Adam Dunn did not clear - so we realistically have no shot at him. For those of you with insider, here's the Gammons article:

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/gammons/story?id=2135848

One other interesting thing to note - if a team wants to trade anyone on the 40 man roster, that player must clear waivers. So, for some of our AAA guys to be included in a waiver trade, they too would have to clear waivers. (Not bloody likely in the case of someone like Juan Cruz).

On mullets...

RickeySteals — Sun, 14 Aug 2005 18:41:24 -0000

Business up top, party in the back! Eck day today reminded me of one of the clubhouse trends from our last dominant era... of course, I'm speaking of the pitcher's mullet. Eck, Gene Nelson (an absolute classic), Storm Davis - heck even Todd Stotlemyre kept the tradition alive into the 90's...

Looking at the team today, I think we've got some guys who are channelling the mullet vibe, even if they aren't actually rockin' the mullet. Look at Zito or Haren, with the hair sticking out. Even Saarloos is getting shaggy in the back.

So here are some questions for AN - what's going on here? Is the mullet coming back? Can we convince Street to grow one (the artist's renderings floating around in some other diaries are awesome)? Would Blanton have to be issued a trailer home if he were to grow one, just on principle? Would this totally freak the ladies of AN out? More importantly, is the porn-star 'stache next?

Haren gets some love!

RickeySteals — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 17:48:58 -0000

Despite his Boston love, I gotta say, Bill Simmons over on ESPN's page 2 is one of the most entertaining writers in sports right now. He posted a mid season report card for the AL (sorta like our own Blez, but with more random references...) and had some cool things to say about Danny Haren:

The Bobby Simmons Award for "Best Player That Nobody Realizes is Good Yet"
Have you seen Danny Haren pitch for Oakland? First of all, he's a big dude with long hair and a crazy look in his eye -- one of those guys who stares down his manager because he doesn't want to come out of the game. Second, he's the reliever who shut the Sox down in long relief of Game 2 of the World Series -- in a must-win situation, on the road -- so clearly, he has the requisite testicular fortitude. Third, he's 6-0 in his last nine starts. Fourth, he's only 24. And fifth, he's on my AL-only roto team and one of the few bright spots of my season, so I thought I would give him his own paragraph. Thank you, Danny Haren. I enjoy your work. Keep it up and you'll get your own fluff column in ESPN The Magazine some day.

I'd check the whole column out, there's some good stuff in there:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/050708

Chavvy's dead arm?

RickeySteals — Wed, 15 Jun 2005 17:31:51 -0000

Its the first diary for me, so be gentle...

Reading the articles today about Chavez and his shoulder today got me thinking. The A's organization has known about this for a long time. What if some of their recent moves were made with this in mind?

Suppose Chavvy's shoulder only lasts a few more years, and then he can't make those throws any more. You'd have to think Beane has thought about this. Then, we use our first pick in the draft this year on a shortstop, even though we already have a good one locked up for several years. I've seen several posts suggesting that the A's would move Pennington to second eventually, but what if they were to move him to third?

Think about it for a sec - Chavez moves to second (or even first, although we're pretty set there) and no longer has to make those long throws across the diamond. Our infield ends up with Pennington (or another 3B), Crosby, Chavez and Johnson/Barton. There's some serious, serious power there and a pretty sweet defense as well.

Intriguing, eh?