As he was announcing that Adam Dunn had been placed on waivers by the Washington Nationals yesterday, ESPN.com's Buster Olney wrote, in an article entitled, "Adam Dunn expected to draw interest" that the AL teams who were reportedly pursuing the Nats' big middle-of-the-order bat before the trade deadline would never get a chance to claim the slugger now, with, "The wide expectation among some executives [being] that an NL team like the Colorado Rockies or San Francisco Giants will be awarded a claim on Dunn."
San Francisco Chronicle Giant beat writer Hank Schulman was reporting on Twitter (@hankschulman) in the hours before the July 31st Non-Waiver deadline passed that, as he wrote at the time, "...[the] Giants still checking in on Dunn, but Nats want Sanchez or Bumgarner and Sabean is firm on not moving either." As soon as Mr. Olney reported that Dunn had been put on waivers yesterday, Mr. Schulman was fielding questions on Twitter about the possibility of the Giants' GM Brian Sabean going after Dunn to which Mr. Schulman responded that he was, "...Still not sure Nats want to move him."
In a blog post at the San Francisco Chronicle blog, "The Splash" entitled, "How the waiver trade period works, and how the Giants can get Dunn", on August 2nd, Mr. Schulman wrote that:
"The Nationals have been very squirrely about Dunn, perhaps because they still hope to re-sign him or they are willing to let him walk as a free agent and take two compensatory draft picks."
Mr. Rizzo? In MASNSports.com's Ben Goessling interview with the Nats' GM on Mike Rizzo's blog entitled, "Deals for Dunn and Harper", Mr. Rizzo described the possibility Mr. Schulman mentions of Dunn walking after failing to sign as the "worst-case scenario", though he notes that the idea of receiving the compensaotry picks, "...that's very exciting to me. Being a scouting guy and an ex-scout, that's very exciting to me." If the Nationals were to make a deal, Mr. Rizzo says, "The players that you're going to acquire have to be at least better than the two first-round draft picks you can get in 2011."
MLB Network analyst and Former Texas Rangers' GM John Hart appeared on the Sirius/XM MLB Network Radio show First Pitch with Rob Dibble and Jim Memolo this morning, Mr. Hart said simply, "[Adam] Dunn's not going to clear [waivers]. There's no chance Dunn's going to clear, he's going to get claimed and he'll be claimed by multiple teams, because he's a guy that everybody would love to have, so why not going ahead and claim him and that's not a bad guy to block as well, so there's no chance that Adam Dunn gets through waivers," but what are the chances any team that claims him is going to offer something better than, "...the two first-round draft picks [the Nats] can get in 2011," if the Nats let him walk as Mr. Rizzo mentions? Not likely...