Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: of rehabs and regulations

What we were told all Summer is that there was one trading deadline this year – July 31.  So naturally, the Atlanta Braves have continued to add players despite that barrier.

If you were confused about how player acquisitions would work in August this season, so were we.  The Atlanta Braves have still managed to add 2 players from outside the organization, lose 2 to other teams, and seem bent on adding a third soon.

The key here is that word ‘trade’.  The change was that no trades could be executed after July 31st.  Other than that, it appears that most of the prior rules have remained intact.

So while players could not be placed on a ‘revocable’ waivers list, they could still be designated for assignment or waived for release purposes (non-revocable waivers).

Players without minor league options available to their team or those being outrighted (removed from the 40-man roster) have to pass through waivers before they can be assigned to a minor league club.

That’s how the Braves lost Wes Parsons to the Rockies this week.  He was DFA’d to make room for Adeiny Hechavarria and Colorado won the waiver claim.

Likewise, Kevin Gausman was claimed – contract and all – by the Cincinnati Reds.

Meanwhile, Atlanta managed to bring in Hechavarria and then Billy Hamilton under these modified rules.

The (maybe) newest Brave?

That brings us to a clarification about catcher Francisco Cervelli.  His is a confusing situation because of the publicity that was made from the early reports:

• The word has been leaked that the Atlanta Braves will ‘sign’ Cervelli.
• A ‘signing’ or a ‘deal’ implies that he’s on the open market.  He’s not… at least not until Saturday.
• Because the Pirates granted him release waivers, he’s subject to being claimed by any of the 29 other clubs until the waiver period expires (Saturday).
• There’s still an order to the waiver claim process:  all NL clubs in the priority of reverse record order (i.e., Marlins 1st, Braves and Dodgers are the last 2), then the AL clubs.
• While these things may be taking place in hush-hush ways, the Braves are not supposed to be talking with Cervelli or his representatives until then.
• All that said, if the Braves have put in a waiver claim, there’s a pretty good chance that they will win the claim since they’d have to pony up the rest of his contract ($2.4-ish million)… and there’s no other known NL team out there that would be willing to pick up that marker at this time of the year.
• A “signing” would only happen once waivers are cleared and it would be a perfunctory process with Atlanta “signing” him to a (presumably) major-league minimum deal that would cost them just over $100,000 for the rest of the year – sticking Pittsburgh with the rest of his contract… but there might be a team that might try to coax him to their team for that reduced cost.  Obviously, that’s the route the Braves would prefer:  $100K is a lot less than $2.4m… but there’s a risk involved in waiting it out.
• However, this rampant speculation about the Braves getting Cervelli would imply that a waiver claim has occurred (that’s supposed to be secret info, but leaks happen).
• Still… a “claim” and a “signing” are 2 different things… with those two dramatically different costs involved.

Ultimately, if Atlanta thinks that there’s a serious need for the ex-Pirate, a waiver claim is the only way to insure they get him.  If they want to roll the dice, then the matter becomes Cervelli’s choice on Saturday.

Maybe he’s already made that choice.  We’ll find out for sure on Saturday afternoon.

So he can still hit

Dansby Swanson played for Rome last night as DH.  This was a way for him to ease back into competition before playing defense.

Yeah, right.

Swanson went 3 for 4, plus a walk and scored twice.  He also knocked in a run.  In the 7th inning, he got two of those hits as Rome put 9 runs on the board and put a hurting on the Kannapolis Intimidators Thursday night (14-4).

It mostly appeared to be station-to-station running for him, but it was a lot of time for him on the base paths.

If his heel isn’t quite healed up… I suppose we’ll know that in short order!