Cliff Lee Placed on Waivers; Philadelphia Explodes into Completely Necessary Emotional Firestorm

I don’t think we even know what were terrified of, we’re just terrified.

Or maybe we’re just looking for a reason to burn stuff.  We don’t want to be a city of some of kind of unmotivated arsonists.

It was a long, stupid trade deadline at the end of a turbulent July.  We’re all very glad that it’s over; the rumors, the questions with no answers, the answers to questions no one asked, the Buster Olney.  It was all a little much, and even when it culminated in reality and our outfield was shipped west, it wasn’t a totally satisfying experience.

And what we’re left with is two months of space-filling baseball until eight other teams that aren’t the Phillies make the playoffs.

But what we’re forgetting is that just because the trade deadline is a deadline for trading doesn’t mean there isn’t trading after the deadline.  It’s one of those hilarious quirks, and the reason why everybody loves the business side of baseball more than whatever the other part is.

So Cliff Lee was put on waivers by the Phillies.  By today, he should be eligible for a trade.  No, the Phillies aren’t guaranteeing that they are going to trade him by doing so.  In fact, so many players are placed on waivers this time of year that if everybody was as worked up as we are, this country would implode.

The way waivers work is that ballooning payrolls are given the potential for release when teams choose to put players “on the waiver wire,” where they can be claimed by another team and carried off without so much as a low-ceiling prospect to pay for them.

See, isn’t that better?  Knowing that everything we had to do get Cliff Lee and then lose him and then get him again could all result in absolutely nothing?  Which I guess isn’t really “trading.”

Sure, we’d have his money loose to on the payroll to use however we choose.  But Cliff Lee would be gone and we’d have to go through the process of convincing ourselves that that player we love is gone forever and hey; it’s actually a good thing.

In a way.

However, with his contract being what it is–large enough for Ruben to experiment with hanging him on the waiver wire–there’s also the likelihood that he won’t be touched at all.  As Dash told us yesterday, guys like Juan Pierre and Joe Blanton are far more likely to get poked.