Next Monday, Aug. 31, is an important deadline in the baseball world, specifically 11:59 p.m. It is the postseason roster eligibility deadline. Players do not necessarily have to be on your MLB roster at the deadline to be eligible for October, but they must be in your organization.
There are no loopholes here. If the player is not in your system at the deadline, he can't play in the postseason. With that deadline looming, the waiver wire figures to be active in the coming days as teams out of the race look to dump salary, and contenders make last-minute moves to upgrade their roster.
The Reds put TJ Friedl and Eugenio Suárez on waivers for this reason earlier this week, reports The Athletic, though both cleared waivers and went unclaimed. They're nine games out of a postseason spot and want to shed their salaries, if possible. Suárez, 35, is owed roughly $3 million the rest of the season, and his poor performance (93 OPS+ and minus-0.4 WAR) made it unlikely he would get claimed.
If any team was going to take the plunge and claim him, it may have been the Pirates, who tried to sign Suárez in the offseason and are still plausibly in the wild-card race at 7 ½ games out. They have a great big opening at third base, too. They clearly decided not to.
The 31-year-old Friedl had a better chance to get claimed than Suárez, even though he's had a worse season (33 OPS+ and -0-9 WAR). He can play center field, he's only owed $700,000 or so the rest of the season, and he'll remain under team control in 2027 and 2028. A team that's out of the race, perhaps the Royals, could have claimed Friedl with an eye on the future.
Here are five other players who could hit the waiver wire in the coming days and land with new teams before Monday's 11:59 p.m. ET postseason roster eligibility deadline. Louis picked up Ferguson in a cash trade with the Reds at the deadline, when they were still in the wild-card race.
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