Esteban Loaiza

The Oakland A's $21 million disappointment, Esteban Loaiza, was available on my league's waiver wire last night.

I grabbed him for a few reasons. The first was his $1 salary. As we get deeper into the summer, salary cap space becomes more important. As he is cheaper than the player waived ($10), I put that in $9 savings in the "trade" bank.

The second reason I took him is my league rules allow only one waiver claim/successful FAAB per week, and the week runs Monday to Sunday. Using this time frame makes claims on Sunday painless as you need only wait until the sun next rises to have that option back.

Most importantly though, is Loaiza reports no physical problems, and the A's are meeting today to decide how to handle his atrocious season-to-date. A trip to the DL to work on mechanics would be best as it would allow me an open roster spot to search for closers-to-be for two weeks.

Or I could pick-up a player from the pool and waive him for the pitcher I had waived to pick-up Loaiza - Bruce Chen. The question in that scenario is whether or not I wait until after Chen's start in Texas (the reason I chose to waive Chen in the first place) on Thursday or grab him ASAP to avoid another team waiting for the same reason.

Any way it works out, I am glad to pick-up a starting pitcher on a play-off contending team with a great defense who only costs $1.