Olney: Yanks have been aggressive making waiver claims

According to Buster Olney (subs. req’d), the Yankees have been aggressively claiming players on trade waivers this month. Obviously none of those claims have led to a trade. Olney says the Orioles in particular are looking to add pieces, presumably pitching, but the Yankees have a higher waiver priority and keep blocking the O’s trade targets. That’s usually how it goes this month.

Quick trade waivers primer: every 40-man roster player has to go on waivers to be traded after the deadline. If the player is claimed, he can only be traded to the team that claims him (with 48 hours of the claim). If he goes unclaimed, he can be traded anywhere. Trade waivers are revocable, meaning you can pull the player back if he’s claimed. Everyone goes on waivers at some point. It’s a zero risk move. Anyway, I have two quick thoughts on this.

1. The Yankees are always aggressive with trade waivers. This is nothing new. The Yankees have always been aggressive when it comes to claiming players on trade waivers, dating back to when the Devil Rays unexpectedly dumped Jose Canseco on them in 2000. They made a ton of claims last year too, including David Robertson. At the time it seemed the Robertson claim had more to do with preventing him from going to the Blue Jays or Astros than trying to acquire him.

The Yankees have plenty of payroll flexibility, more than they seem willing to admit (which I guess makes sense, since it gives them leverage in trade and free agent talks), so they’re in position to be aggressive with claims. If someone gets dumped on them a la Canseco, they’re better able to absorb the contract than other teams. Even if the claims are only block moves, the Yankees have every reason to be aggressive.

2. There’s not much time left to make a trade. The deadline to acquire a player and have him be eligible for the postseason roster is 11:59pm ET tomorrow night. There’s no loophole around that one. It’s a hard deadline. Teams can still make trades in September — the Yankees acquired Brendan Ryan from the Mariners in September — but the player(s) won’t be postseason eligible, so September trades are very rare.

I don’t expect the Yankees to make a trade prior to tomorrow night’s deadline, though grabbing some pitching help wouldn’t be a bad idea. The rotation is pretty thin and the middle relief is a mess. This goes the other way too. The Yankees don’t have much time left to trade away a player, such as Brian McCann, who has already cleared trade waivers. Others like Brett Gardner and Michael Pineda could be of interest around the league.

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Despite all the claims, the Yankees have not been very active on the waiver trade market in recent years. They dumped Matt Thornton on the Nationals two years ago, brought in Ryan three years ago, and added Chad Gaudin in 2009. That’s pretty much it. The waiver trade market is typically lots of hype and little action. There’s no reason to think this year will be different.