Wily Mo Pena Clears Waivers

According to Rob Bradford of the Boston Herald, Wily Mo Pena has cleared waivers without a claim.  It seems no team was willing to risk taking on the $580K owed to Pena this year.  Pena can now be freely traded to any team in baseball, though the players received would have to clear waivers too if on the 40-man roster.  The way around it would be to make them players to be named later.

I’m surprised no one put in a claim on Pena.  It can’t really be his salary, can it?  Teams waste more than that on players with no upside constantly.  Abraham Nunez makes almost $2MM this year.  Is it possible that Theo Epstein somehow convinced the 29 other GMs not to put in a claim?  That doesn’t seem possible either.  Why wouldn’t Jim Bowden put in a claim?  He loves Pena.  Why wouldn’t the White Sox put in a claim?  Even if a GM figured he couldn’t hammer out a deal with Epstein for Pena, why not put in a claim anyway just in case?