With Manny being put on Waivers last night, it made me curious exactly how the waiver process works. I mean, even Casey Blake doesn’t understand what’s going on after hearing the news he was put on waivers. Now that we have the blog, it’s given me an extra reason to find out what is going on with this seeming second trade deadline. The waiver period doesn’t really end there, but that’s when teams have to declare their playoff eligible players. So, just like I broke down the Super 2 rule that keeps some teams from calling up their top prospects. Now, I will loosely use Manny as an example of how this waiver crap works…

It all starts with the Dodgers deciding to place Manny on waivers. This means they control three things that happen at the end of a 48 hour period or a kind of0 silent auction so to speak. One note, it’s not actually 48 hours sometimes. For some reason it only counts business days, so if they held off putting Manny on waivers until Thursday or Friday his waiver period would last through the weekend until Monday or Tuesday. By doing it yesterday, the Dodgers insured that the period will end before this week is over.

So who can claim Manny? Basically any team can throw their name into the claim hat, but there is a priority list, and it starts with the worst team in the National League, because Manny is in the NL. If the Pirates decided to throw in a waiver claim in for Manny, they’d have the top priority. The team with the best record in the AL (Yankees/Rays) would have the lowest priority if multiple teams were putting in claims on Manny. Also, the best team in the NL would have a better shot than the worst team in the AL. Still with me?

Ok, so let’s say a team claims him. The Dodgers now can choose three different outcomes. They can pull the player back, and keep him on their roster. They can negotiate a trade with the team that put the claim in (Two business days to work out a deal from the time the claim goes through). They can also let the player go without compensation to the new team like the Blue Jays did letting Alex Rios go to the White Sox last season, and let the new team assume all of his remaining contract. We saw Johnny Damon weep like he just realized his beard was gone, and denied a return to the Red Sox was a prime example. It will be Manny’s choice if he goes anywhere, which in a likely scenario, the team that put the player on waivers is usually stuck with that player they put on waivers, and just have to hope for some compensation picks, which isn’t a terrible 2nd place prize if your stuck with said players contract.

Another interesting thing I found was how much strategy there is in the waiver process. Just because a team claimed someone doesn’t necessarily mean they REALLY wanted them. Sometimes a team will claim a player just because they want to block that player from going to a rival or someone they are chasing in the standings. It’s why I think the Red Sox put in a claim for Damon and might for Manny. They would rather have these guys deny a trade to play for them, and block the Yankees and Rays from improving. Who knows, they might even be happy that Damon stayed put! This factor made me realize that the July 31^st deadline is way more important than the August 31^st deadline, because teams are heavily restricted with who they can negotiate with. The problem though, is what if a team claims one of the players without a no trade clause to block someone else from getting them, and they just get screwed with a someones recycled pile heap? I guess that’s just the risk you have to take as a GM sometimes…