There’s something ‘icky’ about those waiver dumps

The Angels dumping their players on waivers was a problem, but the Guardians scooping up so many of them is its own issue, too.

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I haven’t taken the time to write about what the Angels did before the postseason eligibility waiver deadline, when they placed 20 percent of their roster on waivers and told the rest of the league to have at it just so they could save a few bucks. And at this point, basically everything there is to say about it has been said, but still, there are some things about the whole ordeal I’d like to reaffirm, with the help of a couple of pieces that have run at Baseball Prospectus on the subject.

Patrick Dubuque, as I linked to last week, wrote about rules, and how there is always someone looking for a loophole, which makes acting within the rules the correct thing to do in a very general sense. That point of view forgets who makes the rules, though, which is how we end up with something like the Angels very obviously just trying to drop their chances of exceeding the luxury tax threshold and looking to gain a better compensation pick if Shohei Ohtani leaves as a free agent this offseason.

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