METS ON WAIVERS

[Guest Rotblatt]

According to the FAN yesterday, Gammons had a column about who's been put on waivers and what's happened.

Allegedly, Matsui was placed on waivers, someone claimed him, and the Mets pulled Matsui back.

Piazza cleared waivers.

Anyone with ESPN Insider want to tell us more about this column? I'm dying to hear . . . .

When Piazza got yanked last night, I wondered if it was because the report came out and he found out that he had been put on waivers. Or would he have been told?

And who claimed Matsui? Did we have a deal in place that someone broke up or were we just testing the waters?

Very, very interesting stuff, IMO.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Apparently, Looper, Glavine & Pedro (!?) cleared waivers as well, making them eligible to trade. Why would we put Pedro on waivers at all? Any ideas?

From SoSH:

]The full list of what gammo claims went on. Players waived, claimed and withdrawn: Starting pitchers: Clemens, Rodrigo Lopez, Glendon Rusch, Orlando Hernandez, Bronson Arroyo, Aaron Harang, Andy Pettitte, Doug Davis, Kyle Lohse, Vicente Padilla Brett Tomko, Jamie Moyer, Gil Meche, Josh Towers and Jeff Suppan. Relief pitchers: Jose Valverde, Jorge Sosa, Jorge Julio, B.J. Ryan, Mike Myers, Cliff Politte, Damaso Marte, Kent Mercker, David Weathers, Sunny Kim, Ron Villone, Dan Wheeler, Jeremy Affeldt, Mike MacDougal, Brendan Donnelly, Yhency Brazoban, Chris Hammond, Akinori Otsuka, John Grabow, Matt Wise, J.C. Romero, Ryan Madson, Billy Wagner, Ugueth Urbina, Brian Shouse, Miguel Batista, Eddie Guardado, Julio Mateo and J.J. Putz. Position players: Tony Clark, Conor Jackson, Wilson Betemit, Jay Gibbons, Bill Mueller, Kevin Youkilis, Corey Patterson, Rob Mackowiak, Dunn, Kearns, Jeff DaVanon, Russell Branyan, Kaz Matsui, Kenny Lofton and Shea Hillenbrand. Utilitymen: Olmedo Saenz, Neifi Perez, Ryan Freel, Lenny Harris, Chris Woodward, Marlon Anderson, Mark Sweeney and Pete Orr. Catchers: Matt Treanor, Josh Paul and Mike Redmond. As well as: Mark Teixeira, Jeff Francoeur, Vernon Wells, Ryan Howard, Khalil Greene, Vladimir Guerrero, Ervin Santana, Ben Sheets, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Mark Prior, Carlos Zambrano, Adam Dunn, Austin Kearns, C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee. Even Roger Clemens. Cleared Waivers - Potentially Available Players: Relievers Steve Kline got through, so did Ryan Vogelsong, Jason Christiansen, Scott Schoeneweis, Justin Speier, LaTroy Hawkins, Duaner Sanchez, Ramon Ortiz and Braden Looper Starters: Josh Fogg, Odalis Perez, Derek Lowe, Tom Glavine, Joe Mays, Tomo Ohka, Jose Lima, Bruce Chen and Joel Pineiro As well as Griffey and Sean Casey, Mike Piazza, Sweeney, Frank Catalanotto, Dustan Mohr, Todd Hollandsworth, Todd Walker and Edgardo Alfonzo and "players who would never be traded but cleared" : Hank Blalock, Michael Young, Russ Adams, Aaron Hill, Brandon Webb, Tim Hudson, Andruw and Chipper Jones, Matt Clement, Johnny Damon, Curt Schilling, Jason Varitek, David Wells, Bobby Abreu, Chase Utley, Garret Anderson, Darin Erstad, Francisco Rodriguez, Scot Shields, Rickie Weeks, Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez, Jon Garland, Mark Buehrle, Freddy Garcia and Scott Podsednik. Its a mad mad mad mad world on the waiver deadline.

[Elster88]

I would hypothesize that there is no reason to try and read into Matsui's name being on this list, or Piazza's, or anyone else. My reasoning is that David Wright's name is on this list.

[Guest Edgy DC]

This just shouldn't be publicized.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Do you really believe Piazza would leave a game because his name appeared on a waiver list?!? Or that he'd been traded mid-game?

Anywhoo, looked like Castro pulled something en route to first base in his AB. Any word on that?

[Frayed Knot]

Newsday's Sunday sports section also had a list of (leaked and presumably - though not neccesarily - accurate) names of Mets & Yanx that had cleared waivers. I didn't save it but it's prolly in their archives if you want to dig.
Thing is, it's not really all that important in most cases anyway.

- So why put those names on waivers in the first place?
Because they can and it don't cost nuthin'
Because there's this idea that a player you do want to deal might get thru easier in a flood of names than all by hisself.
Because it takes 72 hours to "clear" a name and it's best to "pre-clear" players so they can be dealt w/o delay in case a trade possibility pops up unexpectedly.

- Why would Matsui be withdrawn?
Either because someone in the org still believes his talent will surface
Or, because he was claimed by a team he can block a trade to and therefore couldn't be lost

- Would Piazza be told about clearing waivers?
No, he [u:e8a1d71494]can't[/u:e8a1d71494] be told; not officially anyway.
And he has no reason to care even if he did find out.

[patchyfogg]

This was always supposed to be private info. Has the Balco grand jury testimony leaking and leaking of Palmeiro's well, leaking, lowered the bar? I'll leave the obvious Judith Miller stuff for another forum.

[Guest Rotblatt]

Thanks for the info, everyone! When I first heard the report, they only mentioned Piazza & Matsui and they said it like it was something significant, and then I remembered that he'd been pulled from the game . . .

It's funny--after the Manny on waivers thing last year, I got the impression that not many players got put on waivers.

Boy was I wrong.

[Theoldmole]

It's not uncommon to put an entire roster on waivers - sometimes in order to try and sneak one name through.

[MFS62]

When Bill Veeck bought the St. Louis Browns, the first thing he did was put the entire team on waivers to see if there was any interest among other teams in his players.
Not one of them got claimed.

Later

[Guest Mark Healey]

I don't think it's so terrible that this kind of thing goes public.

Gives grist for the various rumor mills you see around the "Net, and is a great baseball conversation starter.

Plus, writers nowadays want to know that when they're given some info, they can accurately check on it. Disclosing those who ckeared waivers is a step.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I don't see grist for rumor mills as a good thing.

[MFS62]

Edgy DC wrote: I don't see grist for rumor mills as a good thing.

Bartenders at watering holes where such things are hotly discussed might disagree with you.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

]It's funny--after the Manny on waivers thing last year, I got the impression that not many players got put on waivers.

Keep in mind that the whole Boston/Ramirez thing (winter '03/'04) was:
- a completely different type of waivers: those were IRrevocable as opposed to those that can be recalled, so that ANYONE daring to claim MR back then would have assumed his entire contract no questions asked!
- at a completely different time in the season: there are different "waiver periods" at different times of the year
- done for far different reasons: the Sox wanted someone to claim him - even knowing they'd get nothing in return - so they could get that contract off their books during the off-season while there were still options to spend it elsewhere. Essentially they decided that, although Manny's a great player, his contract was bloated and out-of-date and they could do better with the remaining (then) 5yrs x $20mil/per (something we oughta think about before trading players in addition to assuming his remaining 3x$20mil/yr)

[Guest Mark Healey]

did my post get deleted?

[Elster88]

Click on your name, and then click on "Find All Posts".

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Mark Healey wrote: did my post get deleted?

It was claimed on waivers by Cincinnati.



















(actually, it's right where you left it, above)

[MFS62]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: It was claimed on waivers by Cincinnati. That is a fate worse than death. Later (actually, it's right where you left it, above)

[Guest ABG]

What's baffling to me is, if true, why on earth we'd ever pull Matsui back. The purpose of pulling a guy back is so you can keep him--if someone had claimed Kaz, they'd be stuck with his salary and overall shittiness, right?

[MFS62]

But it may have been a team on his "no trade" list. I think I read that he can only be traded to a few teams.

Later

[soupcan]

MFS62 wrote: But it may have been a team on his "no trade" list. I think I read that he can only be traded to a few teams. Later

Even so - how about having a conversation with Kaz before pulling him back and assuming he'd veto a trade?

Because we all know what happens when you assume.

[MFS62]

I agree.

I can also imagine Omar having an Andy Rooney (60 minutes)- type conversation with the GM of the team that claimed him:
"Look at all the second basemen I have assembled here on my desk..."

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

]Even so - how about having a conversation with Kaz before pulling him back and assuming he'd veto a trade? Because we all know what happens when you assume.

So, then, why assume they didn't?

We're making judgments based on a whole lot of assumtions here.

[seawolf17]

Mike & the Dog had a thought on this... first, who the hell would claim him, with $7 million left next year, and second, if he was claimed, why would they pull him back? Doesn't make sense.

So either one of two things might have happened... either the rumor is totally bogus, or perhaps Hideki Matsui was claimed and pulled back, which would make sense, and the rumor is just misguided.