Besides which, for a huge portion of players put on waivers (and claimed) their contracts are quite attractive, and the risk isn’t all that great. If you see Pujols on waivers, of course you claim him.

I thought that monkeying around with waiver claims in ths way was standard operating procedure.”

It’s no longer standard at all. This ended in the late 90s when San Diego got stuck with a broken-down Randy Myers for $13/year and saw their payroll crippled for it, after making a “blocking” claim. They never in a million years thought they’d end up with him.

Sounds reasonable (and familiar). But the DePodesta article (linked in posting 71, above) says “Furthermore, many teams will place claims on players with absolutely no intention of acquiring them. They do this in order to block another organization from being able to trade for that player. This can get tricky, though, as the originating Club can choose to dump the player on the claiming Club along with the player’s entire contract.”

So it might no longer be standard practice and it “can get tricky”, but according to DePodesta, it is still done by “many teams”.

Reminisce with me about the few glimpses of relatively good GM’ing for what amounts to a New York Minute in the lifespan of the Mariners organizaiton, Pat Gillick’s short stay here. John Ellis probably had something to do with that.

Mainly because he stayed out of the way and let the baseball people make baseball decisions.

HowChuck think they know baseball.

Reminisce with me about the few glimpses of relatively good GM’ing for what amounts to a New York Minute in the lifespan of the Mariners organizaiton, Pat Gillick’s short stay here. John Ellis probably had something to do with that.

I have to think that the same old more recent upper management interference is the heavy hand in these boggled bungled aborted non-waiver and waiver deals: Howard and Chuck. I mean, Lee Pelekoudas has been a Mariner gofer through ALL of those regimes, surely after all this time and experience he recognizes good management when he sees it. He’s probably hoping his term as interim GM ends ASAP.

On the other hand 10m plus what ever Wash would get in arbitration is WAY over what the draft picks would be worth, and would Washburn even qualify as a type A free agent?

Plus, you’ve got one more year of having the guy on the roster. Raul, to put it mildly, is not hurting us in the lineup, and even his play in the field is not hurting the team as much as his bat is helping it. The analysis is completely different with Washburn.

This is ridiculous.

“It made no sense to trade Ibanez without gettng something good back because the type A free agent compensation would be lost.”

Really? Do we have any idea what those draft picks are? Right, nothing sure…oh, but I guess we could have picked a relief pitcher or a catcher with those picks.

and

Just out of curiosity, does Washburn project as a type A or B free agent after next year? If so, that’s worth 10 mil to me. We’re not competing next year, the free agent market isn’t encouraging, so why not carry the albatross in the hope it bears a couple golden eggs?

I think the correct answer is somewhere in the middle. Even a AAAA player in return for Ibanez wouldn’t be worth it because Raul’s salary isn’t an issue, and we could expect to get at least one player that projects to a major league player in the draft as compensation for Ibanez. A 4A player is a great pickup when you are paying nothing, but he isn’t worth 2 draft picks.

On the other hand 10m plus what ever Wash would get in arbitration is WAY over what the draft picks would be worth, and would Washburn even qualify as a type A free agent?

http://itmightbedangerous.blogspot.com/2008/07/deadline-has-passed.html