How did the redsox and dodgers trade after deadline?

Answer 1

Waivers. The deadline for regular trades is July 31, after that teams can still trade for another month via the waiver wire. Teams place their players on "waivers" which enables other teams to claim those players. If a player is claimed, the waiving team has 3 days to do choose 1 of the 3 following options: arrange a trade with the claiming team, allow the claiming team to simply take the player and assume his entire remaining contract and salary, or pull him off of waivers and keep him. If no team claims the player within a certain period of time then he is considered to have cleared waivers, and his team can either move him to the minors or pull him off of waivers.

Waivers differs from the regular trade period in that you can no longer approach specific teams and suggest a trade; you can only deal with whichever team claims the player, and teams are given preference according to their record with the worst record getting priority. This rule allows teams in contention to effectively block trades to other teams in their division.

In this instance, LA was in 1st place when they claimed AGon, so SF - being a contender for the Western title - could have opted to claim AGon after learning he was claimed by LA, seeing as SF had the worse record. The downside here is the risk of potentially getting stuck with a player they do not want, need, or can't afford. Had SF claimed AGon in attempt to block him from going to LA, Boston could have just let him go, in which case, SF is now obligated to take the player they didn't actually intend to keep.

The bottom line is that the regular trade period gives you the ability to choose a team with players you want and then negotiate a trade. Trading via waivers forces you to deal with whichever team claims your player, and that team might not have players that adequately address your needs.

Answer 2

In the case of how the Boston Red Sox were able to trade Josh Becket, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto to the Los Angeles Dodgers for James Loney, Allen Webster, Jerry Sands, Rubby De La Rosa and Ivan DeJesus, Jr. on August 25, 2012, all players on both teams' 40-man roster needed to clear trade waivers however since Sands and De La Rosa were players to be named they did not need to clear trade waivers right away. The trade was announced on August 25 of 2012 which would've been after the non-waiver Trade Deadline meaning that all players on a 40-man roster that were involved in the trade that weren't PTBNL (players to be named later) had to go through trade waivers meaning their team would've placed the player on waivers and due to this action 1 of 3 things could've happened, each team is given a chance to claim the player but the league that is in the same league as the team that placed the player on waivers waivers is the first league that gets the first chance and in the event no teams claim a player in the NL in the event of the Dodgers placing a player on trade waivers then AL teams would get the next chance and if no one claims the player after all teams have had a chance then he's eligible to be traded to any team which is usually common for players with huge salaries since in a case that multiple teams had claimed a player that a team like the Dodgers had placed on waivers then the claim would go to the team that has the worst record in the NL and in that case the Dodgers could either work out a trade with the claiming team, let the claiming team have the player for free which means they would be stuck with any of the player's current salary obligations that the Dodgers were originally responsible for or the Dodgers could elect to pull the player back.