Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.
@RMooneyTrib
TBO_Rays
Send us your questions

Posted Aug 29, 2011 by Roger Mooney
Updated Aug 29, 2011 at 02:02 PM
ROGER MOONEY
TORONTO The 1:30 p.m. waiver trade deadline passed without that Rays making a deal for B.J. Upton.
The center fielder was claimed by an undisclosed team on Friday, which means the Rays had three days to make a deal or pull Upton back.
Placing Upton on waivers didn’t mean the Rays are anxious to make a move at this time. I t could mean they were trying to gauge the interest in Upton to give them a better idea of which teams to target for trade talks during the offseason.
Executive vice president Andrew Friedman has never made a waiver trade in August during his tenure. He prefers to do his dealing on the offseason when he can deal with more teams.
Upton said Saturday he believes his days as a Ray are numbered, given the amount of rumors concerning him before the trade deadline.
“I hope not, but I don’t see why I wouldn’t be (traded) with all the talks at the deadline, and with this (waiver claim), I don’t see why there wouldn’t be that possibility,” he said. “I don’t want to go anywhere, but if that’s what they want to do it’s out of my hands.”
(Requires free registration.)
ADVERTISEMENT
TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online ©2010 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC. A Media General company. Member Agreement | Privacy Statement | Work With Us
Reader Comments
Por (SeminoleSteve) on August 29, 2011 (Suggest removal)
Wasn’t Kazmir traded in late August after clearing waivers?
Suggest removal