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AL East Notes: Blue Jays, Red Sox, Crawford

By Zach Links [April 24, 2013 at 8:38pm CST]

In this morning's roundup of news out of the American League East, Alex Burnett spoke with Shi Davidi of Sportsnet about the waiver process that ultimately took him from the Blue Jays to the Orioles. As trying as his brief pit stop with Toronto was, he feels even more for Casper Wells, who took a three game detour with the Blue Jays without playing once. “It happened pretty quickly for me, guys like Wells were in limbo forever, he hasn’t been able to do anything,” said Burnett. “I think it’s something that should maybe be brought up in the next players’ association meeting. It is a bad situation when it carries on as long as it has for some people.” Here's more on the Blue Jays and other notes out of the AL East..

While the Blue Jays' usage of the waiver wire is starting to attract attention from around baseball, Matt Eddy of Baseball America spoke to one agent who said that he believes GM Alex Anthopoulous is up front with players who may get DFA'd shortly after being claimed. Agent Matt Sosnick also came to the defense of AA, saying, "I’d be very skeptical of somebody who said that Alex lied or misled them. I have a hard time believing that that’s the case.”
It's not just players that aren't thrilled about the way the waiver system can be used, some clubs have lobbied for a rule change that would force teams to keep players claimed on waivers for a set period of time, sources tell Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. However, other clubs don't want to lose flexibility, according to a source, and the union almost certainly would oppose restricting player movement. Players who get knocked off of from 40-man rosters receive major league pay and service time while designated for assignment. Rosenthal spoke to Anthopoulos about his frequent waiver claims, and the GM noted that the Jays have lost players as well. He explained that the Jays' former Triple-A affiliate, the Syracuse Chiefs, aligned with the Nationals in part because Toronto did not provide a winning club. Now on a two-year contract with Buffalo, Anthopoulos is trying to provide a competitive team. As Eddy pointed out, however, many of Anthopoulos' waiver claims are with the Double-A club.
Carl Crawford is thriving with the Dodgers and the outfielder attributes that in part to being able to leave a tough situation with the Red Sox behind, writes Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com. The outfielder explained that a number of factors including injuries and self-imposed pressure hounded him in Boston and took offense to the perception that he wasn't working hard enough to get back on track.