A month and a half ago, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association agreed to some new rule changes over the next couple of years. One of the first to become effective this season was the end of August trade waivers.
The thinking there was that it will make the July 31st trade deadline more exciting and force teams to decide if they’re in or out faster than ever before. From the Players’ Union side, it sure seems like it’d mean more player movement to get players off of bad teams and onto good ones as well as a lot more player movement during the offseason; but, if we’re using our thinking caps here, taking away front offices’ collective flexibility seems to make the players’ lives more difficult.