I don't know if I have the power anymore, but I want my next contract
to not allow me to be put on waivers. I don't like it when a team that
I wanted to play for and, in turn, wanted me to play for them, decides
to relinquish their rights to me. This blows monkeychunks for a couple
of reasons:
1. If a player is put on waivers, the player has no idea, officially,
if he was put on waivers. A team doesn't have to tell a player or his
agent, or the press, so we find out through backrooms in bathrooms from
people who overheard something that may or may not be true.
And if the player passes through waivers, meaning no team claimed the player for their roster, then the team that has the rights to that player can now trade him to any team they like (assuming the player's contract doesn't have a no-trade provision, like mine.) But even if a no-trade provision exists, the player's team can still negotiate a trade and then bring the idea to the player (ask Brian Giles). "Yes, we love you and want you around until the end of time or your contract runs out, whichever comes first. You're a bedrock of this franchise. We can't imagine life without you. But, just in case you're thinking what we may or may not be thinking - because we love you and everything about you so we're probably not thinking this. But if you, by chance, would be interested in being traded to (insert team here), we can work something out to get a player who's probably younger, faster, and has lower cholesterol than you. But don't do it if you don't want. We love you. Just, you know, kick around the idea a bit. Oh, can you let us know in the next fifteen minutes?"
Rumors are one thing, but the truth hurts the most. I've been waived, had no idea, and been claimed by teams and pulled back (meaning my team offers me but elects not to talk trade with the team(s) that say they'll take me). I've also been waived and passed all the way through and had no idea. Which brings me to this...
2. What if you're a player and you get waived and nobody claims you and you stay with your team? How embarrassing is that? Your team doesn't want you. No other team wants you. And everybody hears rumors about the whole thing, including you, but there's no one to give a definitive word to you to confirm the story. Here's where General Managers and front office staff love their power over players. They can basically talk about us behind our backs to other teams, creating hordes of paranoid men with numbers on their backs and balls and bats in their hands, and never tell us or our agents what's going on. Why? They don't need to. So we become embarrassed by unsubstantiated rumors and paranoid because the rumors exist in the first place.
Here's an analogy for those of you who've never thrown a cut fastball at the head of 225 pound boys who would love nothing more than to hit said ball so it zooms right down your throat: You're a girl (bear with me here, gentlemen). Prom season is coming up. You've been preparing all winter for it so you can have a more productive one than the previous year. You know you can go with Ted. He's your standby. You go with Ted to everything. You don't love him and he doesn't love you, but you're still together at the public functions built around making teenagers feel more self-conscious and self-loathing than they really need to feel. You and Ted have a deal and it's working fine.
But rumors start flying around the lockers. B.J. might ask you to go with him. Then, soon after, you hear that Tommy might ask you. You really want Ben to ask you, but you understand through the grapevine that Ben's going to ask Bonnie, the girl with the name stolen from a 1937 Farmer's Almanac. The deadline for prom and post-prom eligibility races closer each day. You see B.J. walking with Maura to study hall. And Tommy's dad, you just found out, lost his job and their house is being foreclosed. He doesn't have the funding available to even go to the prom by himself. He's out of the running. Finally, while you apply some cover-up to that zit you wish had waited to pop on top of your skin until the family vacation to Amish country in two months, you turn and see Ben standing right there. He wants you to go to the prom with him.
Now the negotiation starts. What about Ted? It turns out, after some gentle beating around the bush, that Ted may have prodded Ben to ask you because Ted really wants to go with Bonnie, who's a junior and doesn't bring her zits with her to school. In essence, Ted doesn't want you anymore and Ben had to be "sold" on asking you. What do you do? Guilt Ted into still going with you? Agree to go with Ben? What do you do?
My analogy ends with that cliffhanger. I was going to end it with everyone getting killed at the prom due to the telepathic powers of a girl doused with pig blood as a post-modern teen ritual, but I don't know. I like pork. Bacon especially. Can't eat it anymore. It was responsible for giving me high cholesterol.
So if you read in the papers that I've been waived or put on waivers, let me know. You might be hearing before me. And that, friends, will be truly embarrassing for this paranoid android to hear.
I don't know if I have the power anymore, but I want my next contract
to not allow me to be put on waivers. I don't like it when a team that
I wanted to play for and, in turn, wanted me to play for them, decides
to relinquish their rights to me. This blows monkeychunks for a couple
of reasons: