According to Ken Rosenthal of The Atletic, Philadelphia has put in a waiver claim for New York Mets outfielder/third baseman Jose Bautista. The Mets have now three options on the table for the next 48 hours.
According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the Philadelphia Phillies have put in a waiver claim for New York Mets outfielder/third baseman Jose Bautista.
As of now, both teams are trying to work out a trade. That’s just one of three options the Mets have.
#Phillies have claimed #Mets’ Jose Bautista on revocable trade waivers, sources tell The Athletic. Teams discussing a deal, would need to complete it by tomorrow. Bautista slumped badly at start of August, but has .738 OPS in last 14 games.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 27, 2018
According to Major League Baseball rules, once “Joey Bats” was claimed off of revocable waivers, the Mets can do one of three things:
- The Mets can choose to keep Bautista and pull him off of waivers (pull him back).
- They can work out a trade to send Bautista to Philly.
- Finally, the Mets could let him go to the Phillies for nothing.
Option one is a possibility as the Citi Field residents are only paying Bautista the major league veteran’s minimum salary of $545K after claiming him off waivers in May. They can’t get an experienced player for less.
If that happened, the Mets would be wasting a chance to give a young player some much need experience.
There is no way option three should happen because Bautista obviously has some value. That leads to option two, a trade.
Joey Bats isn’t going to get the Mets a top prospect in a deal, but he is worth a good player from the lower levels of Philadelphia’s minor league system.
Whatever Mets GM by committee members John Ricco, Omar Minaya and J.P. Ricciardi decide on, they have two days to do it before losing him for nothing kicks in automatically.
