Perhaps one of the nerdiest events in baseball, the August 31 waiver trade deadline is always an exciting time for hardcore fans, writers, and executives.
It is at this point that playoff hopefuls fine-tune their solid rosters to prepare for a playoff run and middling teams sell of their short term assets to try and fortify their depth ahead of the next season.
Though the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline has all the blockbusters that make us question the very nature of the game, the August 31 trade deadline (and, in a sense, the entire month of August) presents a more strategic and microcosmic roster-based landscape.