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First Pitch: A Primer For August Waiver Trades and PTBNLs

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Typically, following the trade deadline, I’ll write an article explaining the rules for the August waiver trade period. The “trade deadline” that everyone is most familiar with is actually the “non-waiver trade deadline”, where teams can deal players with no restrictions. Trades can still be made beyond that deadline, but eligible players must pass through waivers first, which prevents teams from maximizing their return in some cases.

This year, I didn’t get a chance to do this right away, because of all of the chaos surrounding the Francisco Liriano trade, plus my trip to Morgantown. I figured I was safe — what are the odds the Pirates would make a move so quickly in August? Pretty good odds, actually. They traded Arquimedes Caminero this weekend, making their first of what could be several trades this month. If you’re unfamiliar with the process, here is how it works. Also, at the bottom of this article, I’ll give a brief primer on how the Player to Be Named Later system works, since the Pirates have two trades where that is relevant.

The Process

August trades are made through revocable waivers.  Any player on the 40-man roster can be placed on revocable waivers.  If the player clears waivers, he can be traded to any team, without restrictions.  If the player is claimed by another team, then his original team has a choice to make:

-They can let the player go to the claiming team, with the new team assuming the remainder of that player’s salary.  We’ve seen this in previous years, with one of the biggest cases being when the Chicago White Sox claimed Alex Rios from the Toronto Blue Jays in 2009, taking on the remaining $60 M of his salary.

-A team can also pull their player back from waivers if he is claimed.  The team keeps their player, although they lose the right to place that player on waivers again.  If a player has previously been pulled off of revocable waivers, and he is placed on waivers again, the team has no choice but to give him up to any claiming team the second time.

-The original team can also work out a trade with the claiming team, which is something that happens frequently. We just saw this happen with Caminero. The Pirates also made a few deals in the past, with the most notable ones being the deals to bring in Marlon Byrd and Justin Morneau.

Note: Players who are not on the 40-man roster don’t have to be passed through waivers. Also, players who are on the 40-man roster, but in the minor leagues at the time of a deal, can be traded as a PTBNL. They just can’t be called up to the majors by the trading team after the deal is made, and they can only be dealt after the season, when the waiver process expires.

Priority

The claim priority is based on league, and the current standings.  Using the Pirates as an example:

-They currently have the 8th priority in the National League.

-Any player waived by a National League team would have to pass through the 7 teams ahead of the Pirates.

-Any player waived by an American League team would have to pass through every AL team, and the 7 NL teams ahead of the Pirates.

The fact that the Pirates are behind a few teams in the Wild Card race isn’t good, but the one advantage here is that they get first priority for players over those other teams.

Mass Waivers

You’ll hear a lot of rumors about players being placed on waivers.  Pretty much every player in the majors will be placed on waivers this month, with almost all of them being drawn back.  There are some players who have cleared waivers already this season. Some teams place their entire 40-man roster on waivers, to try and disguise who they’re actually looking to pass through waivers.  Some teams are looking to place players with big contracts on waivers, just hoping that another team will be willing to assume the salary.  Just because a player is on waivers doesn’t necessarily mean the player is being shopped.  And just because a player is claimed, doesn’t mean he will be traded.

Blocking Deals

Sometimes you hear about teams blocking other teams from making moves.  For example, say the Cardinals are looking for a bullpen arm.  The Pirates, with the higher priority, could claim every bullpen option that passes through waivers, essentially blocking the Cardinals from making any upgrades.  The risk taken here is that there’s no guarantee that the Pirates don’t get stuck with a ton of unwanted relievers.  The higher priority can serve as an advantage if two teams are looking to upgrade the same position.  For example, if St. Louis and Pittsburgh are both looking for bullpen help, the Pirates will have the priority as long as they are behind the Cardinals in the standings.

Trade Values

The value of trades goes down in August, mostly because teams don’t have much negotiating power.  They can only make a deal with one team, and they are limited with what they can receive in return, as they can only trade for players who reach them on waivers, or who aren’t on a 40-man roster. There might be some negotiating value in a case like with Caminero, since the Pirates could just choose not to trade him. But it’s still lower than when they can shop him to any team.

Trade Examples

To give you a better idea of how the process works, here are a few examples of the various types of trades that can be made:

A Player on the 40-Man for a Player on the 40-Man

In any trade where teams are trying to swap two (or more) players on the 40-man roster, those teams have to make sure that the players reach their destination.  If the Pirates and the Marlins decide to make a swap of Player A and Player B, the Pirates have to hope that Player A passes through to Miami, while the Marlins have to hope that Player B passes through to Pittsburgh.  All it takes is for one player to get blocked to prevent a deal from happening.  Normally there is a gentleman’s agreement in place, although there can be some blocked deals. That’s especially true if you have a situation like I mentioned above, where two division rivals have the same need.

Example: When the Pirates traded Brian Giles in 2003 to the San Diego Padres, they received Jason Bay and Oliver Perez, who were both on the 40-man roster for San Diego.  Getting Giles to the Padres wasn’t hard, as they had the number one waiver claim.  However, Bay and Perez had to pass through three other NL teams before they could go to the Pirates.

A Player on the 40-Man for Prospects

Once a team claims a player, they can try to trade as many prospects as needed to get the other team to release that player, provided the prospects aren’t on the 40-man roster.

Example: Pretty much 90% of the deals that go through.

So there you have it! The non-waiver trade deadline has passed, but teams still have until August 31st to make a trade. They can actually trade beyond August 31st under the same waiver rules, but only players acquired prior to September 1st can join the playoff roster, making September trades rare.

Player to Be Named Later Rules

The Pirates currently have two trades involving a Player to be Named Later. They’ve got two players going to the Yankees in the Ivan Nova deal, and they’ve got one or two players coming back in the Caminero deal.

A team has up to six months to decide which players they want. Before the trade, the two teams settle on a list of players that the acquiring team can choose from. These types of deals are made around the deadline to give the acquiring club more time to evaluate who they want. In August, they can also be made in order to trade a player on the 40-man roster, who is currently in the minors. That player couldn’t go to his new team until the end of the season, when the waiver trade process has completed.

You almost never hear about the names of the players on the list. The players don’t even know this information. There’s good reason for this. The current rumor is that the Yankees can choose from a list of four players. So telling the players they are on the list, or releasing the names, would be unfair to those players involved, as all four of them would be thinking they’re going to be traded, while only two of them could actually be traded in the deal. This is also why I’m just going to say “I don’t know” to any questions about who the players are, or who the players might be. Since we’re dealing with real people’s lives, and since we will find out eventually, there’s no need to try and figure this out early with speculation.

The rare time you find out the name of a PTBNL is when it’s a 40-man guy in the minors. Even then, you don’t always hear about it, and don’t hear about it right away.

In the past, a PTBNL could have been a draft pick, although never this early. MLB teams had a rule where draft picks couldn’t be traded until a year after signing. Since teams had six months to finalize the deal, you’d see trades in late December or January for the previous year’s draft picks. MLB removed that rule this past off-season, allowing draft picks to be traded at the end of the current season, but preventing them from being traded as a PTBNL.

A PTBNL can also be conditional. It can be one player from one list, or two from another list. It could also be a situation where a team gets a second player, or gets a player instead of cash, depending on how much or how long the other team uses their new player. I’m not sure which one of those is the case in the Caminero trade, but I do know there’s the potential for one or two players to be acquired by the Pirates.

And now, here are the most notable articles from the weekend.

**Site Updates: Building the Foundation of Future Prospect Coverage. I’m on to the next leg of my trip through the lower levels of the minors. I just finished covering Morgantown for five games (a LOT of articles coming this week), and arrived in Charleston tonight, ready to cover West Virginia for 4-5 games. Read the Site Updates from this week to understand the goals — short and long-term — behind this trip. If you’re not a subscriber, you’re going to be missing out on a lot of great articles on the new guys. Subscribe today to get them all.

**Neal Huntington Addresses Recent Trades and the Starting Rotation. Ed Giles broke down Neal Huntington’s comments today on the Liriano trade, and the future of the starting rotation.

**Clint Hurdle Puts the Blame on Himself After Rough Pirates Loss. Not a good outing at all for the Pirates, and Alan Saunders breaks it down.

**Prospect Watch: Rough Start for Yeudy Garcia; West Virginia Bats Break Out. Live reports from Brian Peloza in Indianapolis, and from myself in Morgantown, with a few injury updates, and the first look at the sixth round pick this year.

**Pirates Notes: The Bullpen Appears to be Set For the Remainder of 2016. Alan Saunders takes a look at the bullpen setup after the Caminero trade.

**Jason Creasy Returns From Arm Injury With Better Velocity, New Curveball. Creasy rehabbed in Morgantown this weekend, and looked great with his new curveball.

**Pirates Trade Arquimedes Caminero to Seattle. A breakdown of the trade this weekend.

**Josh Bell Looks to Regain Approach He Had Before His MLB Promotion. Brian Peloza looks at Josh Bell’s recent struggles, talking to Bell and Indianapolis manager Dean Treanor.

**How Logan Hill Bounced Back From Demotion With Sheer Tenacity. Abigail Miskowiec looks at Logan Hill’s numbers at the plate recently, which have improved after a demotion to West Virginia.

**Mitch Keller Voted the Best Pitcher in the South Atlantic League. He’s one of the big reasons I’m here in Charleston this week. Originally I was going to go to Morgantown for one week, take a week off, then go to Bristol the next week. But I wanted one more look at Keller and Hinsz, so I grouped West Virginia in the middle of the short-season teams.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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