Jack of All Trades

Major League Baseball transactions are changes made to the roster of a major league team during or after the season. They include waiving, releasing, and trading players, as well as assigning players to minor league teams. Trades are a big part of all professional sports, especially baseball.

As this shows there are many transactions a day However, we barely hear about any of these. We only hear about the big players getting traded from a team they’ve played on for so long, or the trades requiring big money. Some of these are players getting called up from triple A, some are getting taken down to triple A. 

Teams may trade only players currently under contract, except those players who have been drafted in the last year. From the end of the previous World Series through July, trades between two or more major league teams may freely occur at any time.

Trades are very confusing, so I found this website that explains a so called waiver. Any player under contract can be placed on waivers at any time. If a player is waived, any team can claim him. If more than one team claims the player from waivers, the team with the weakest record in the player's league gets first preference. If no team in the player's league claims him, the claiming team with the weakest record in the other league then gets preference. 

If a player placed on Major League waivers is not claimed by another team during the three business days after waivers have been requested, then the players is said to have "cleared waivers," and the team has secured waivers for the remainder of the waiver period.

And what does that mean? This generally means one of three things:

(1) They can send him to the minors

(2) They can release him, which makes the player a free agent and thus available to sign with any team.

(3) They can trade him to another team, even if the so-called "trading deadline" has passed. Any trades made after July 31 may only involve players who have cleared waivers.

Waivers just might be the most complicated single aspect of the rules. It is a very confusing process not only for fans but also for the players and teams getting traded. It is very stressful and most trades come about because of money issues not necessarily players performances.