A day after baseball's trade deadline, it might seem as though your team's roster is largely set -- MLB's deadline was hardened a few years back, with teams now restricted from making swaps in August. But if last summer's transactions are any indication, that shift doesn't necessarily mean players won't change teams next month -- and perhaps your favorite contender could benefit.
You can give the Los Angeles Angels the credit -- or the blame -- for this industry shift. "It's a copycat sport," said one executive, "and I bet you'll see more teams doing the same thing [the Angels] did."
To review: Last July, the Angels made an aggressive -- some might say reckless -- charge before the July trade deadline after owner Arte Moreno decided he would not trade Shohei Ohtani. Angels GM Perry Minasian, understanding that he couldn't retreat and flip assets for prospects, moved to upgrade his team with a series of trades. He added Lucas Giolito to the rotation, Reynaldo Lopez for his bullpen and the Colorado Rockies' Randal Grichuk and C.J. Cron to his group of position players.
The Angels promptly lost their first seven games of August, dooming their season; on Aug. 23, they were six games below .500.
What happened next was largely unprecedented: In an effort to reduce their payroll below the luxury tax threshold, the Angels placed six veterans on waivers, including some they had just acquired -- Giolito, Lopez and Grichuk, along with relievers Matt Moore and Dominic Leone, and outfielder Hunter Renfroe. After that, every contender had a choice: place a claim on a player, or risk seeing them snapped up by teams lower in the waiver pecking order.
Players on waivers are awarded to the team with the worst record that places a claim, and last year, according to sources, many teams placed claims on the pitchers -- Lopez, Giolito and Moore. Cleveland's record gave it the first shot, and it added all three. The Cincinnati Reds claimed Renfroe, as well as Harrison Bader, who had similarly been placed on waivers by the Yankees.
This nature of salary dumping through waivers was largely unprecedented since the trade deadline had been moved to the end of July and the previous waiver process was streamlined, and some league officials felt queasy about the optics. But while the topic was briefly a conversation among the general managers late last season, no rules were put in place to stop the practice. "When you look at what happened, none of those guys proved to be difference-making [in the playoff races]," one official noted. "They didn't swing the balance of power. I bet it'll happen again, because teams will try to save some money."
This year, it would be no surprise to see more teams -- last year, the Angels, Yankees and Cleveland Guardians used the practice -- try this.
With the NL wild-card race so jammed -- nine teams are within 4½ games of a wild-card spot -- very few teams were willing to give up on their seasons ahead of the trade deadline. But now that the trade deadline has come and gone, what happens as more teams inevitably fall out of the race, like the Angels did last year?
Without the ability to trade players in August, they could look to dump salaries by unloading them on waivers. The most likely candidates are players on the cusp of free agency but not expected to receive a qualifying offer from their current team. (Even if the Yankees collapsed in August, for example, they would keep Juan Soto through the end of the year in order to give him a qualifying offer and get draft pick compensation if he lands elsewhere.)
One prime candidate seems to be Hector Neris. The Chicago Cubs are on the fringe of contention, but if they fall out of the race next month, they could put the right-handed reliever on waivers and save $1.5 million of his $9 million salary if someone claims him.
Teams that have the best records will be at the back end of the waiver claim order and almost certainly will not have access to the best players dumped on waivers, so teams like the Philadelphia Phillies, with the best record in baseball, probably won't add talent through waivers like the Guardians did last year.
But last year, the Guardians claimed the trio of pitchers in part to keep them from the Minnesota Twins, who led the AL Central at the time. Teams that are at the edges of the wild-card races -- a list which includes the New York Mets, Texas Rangers, Seattle Mariners, Arizona Diamondbacks, the always busy San Diego Padres -- could have the opportunity to add players in the waiver pecking order, as much to help their own campaigns as to keep them from their competitors.