Can someone explain to me how a trade deadline works? Thought it passed, but now the astros are trading for verlander. How?

After the trade deadline there is August waivers. Teams place players on revocable waivers. If a team claims that player they have exclusive negotiating rights (48 hours i think) with the team that placed him on waivers. Players with large contracts often go unclaimed (Verlander) because if you claim a player then the team that put him on waivers can make you keep that player. Many players go through waivers and are claimed and you never hear about it. Teams do this just to see what a players value is sometimes. Jay Bruce, Verlander and Stanton are players who have passed through waivers unclaimed so far as well as others. If a team from the AL places a player on waivers AL teams starting with the team with the worst record get first chance to claim. If no one in the AL claims that player it goes the same through the NL also worst to first. Once a player passes through waivers unclaimed they can be traded to any team. A player has to be on a teams 40 man roster by 8-31 to be eligible for the playoffs.

What do you mean by the team can make you keep that player ? Like you're getting him for free ? What's the point in trading for him if you can get him for free with the waivers ?

I also am pretty confused with these post trade deadline waivers haha.

Interesting. Never totally understood it, thank you.

If a team would have claimed Verlander, the Tigers could (and probably would) have said "ok he is yours". Verlander is not worth that contract so no one would risk claiming him. To facilitate a trade the Tigers would need to eat a large chunk of his contract to get even a marginal prospect return.

Im a bit surprised no one claimed Stanton. That contract will probably be pretty appealing in a few years. The Marlins surely would not have just let the claiming team have him for nothing anyway.

Np, shit is confusing

This post was edited by Ianarky on Aug 16 2017 10:16am