Why Can’t Carl Crawford “Be Named Later?”

The Baltimore Orioles traded Chad Bradford via waiver claim to the Tampa Bay Rays for a player to be named later.

How come “players to be named later” are never great players? Always some minor league clownboot who will probably be busted down to Triple-A within weeks of the deal. Oh, how I wish the Rays would name Carl Crawford later. That would be something for the Orioles.

Even if it was just a mistake, like the GM was getting ready to sign said clownboot’s name on the trade, somebody mentions Crawford’s name, and he writes it in by accident. Yep, that would be a back-back, no-trade-back moment if there ever could be one.

And the lore of “players to be named later” would never be the same.

Comments

By Cork on August 7th, 2008 at 6:14 pm

I know this was tongue-in-cheek, but for those that are not familiar, the reason they are always low-level prospects is bc the other team has not been scouting every minor leaguer in the system. In this case the Rays probably offered the O’s one of 3-5 players. The O’s know little about these guys other than numbers. The numbers look OK, but they could be fluke numbers. So they want a chance to look at each of the guys and in a week or two the O’s will pick one that they like best.

By JC on August 7th, 2008 at 10:31 pm

Seriously, that was really insightful. I appreciate you dropping that knowledge on the subject.