Yesterday saw an unusual wave of waivers across MLB. First, the Angels made five of their regulars available, before some other teams, including the New York Yankees and New York Mets, followed suit.
The reason?
First, to save money on the payroll and to try to get under the first threshold of the luxury tax in the case of certain formations, such as the Angels and the Yankees.
Then, for a player to be eligible for the playoffs, they must be on a roster by September 1, and the waiver window is open for two days, which brings us to August 31.
This will certainly be profitable for some players who will be offered on a silver platter the possibility of participating in the playoffs, leaving their team which no longer had any chance of being part of the autumn dance.
And it seems that Randal Grichuk wants to take this chance. After learning that he was on waivers by the Angels, the outfielder had an excellent performance, shooting a long ball, in addition to adding two doubles to his record.
Grichuk will certainly attract the interest of several organizations, including the Toronto Blue Jays, who are desperate for a right-handed stick to take down the monkey that has taken up residence on their shoulders this season.
Another player who could be interesting for the Jays, and for all the teams in the race, is the one who learned that the Yankees made him available by watching television on the ESPN network, Harrison Bader.
We have to realize that things are going much too fast for Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and that it might be time for him to step down.
Going back to Bader, he’s excellent defensively and has proven in the past that he can step up his game when the moment is right, in the playoffs. Unless you have incredible depth in the outfield, no one can afford to pass it up.
The next few hours will therefore be very interesting to follow in major league baseball.
