The `official' trade deadline is over, but teams can still make swaps through the ol' waiver wire deal, and the Rays will likely pursue just that. Over at MLBTR Dierkes has a nice summary of how the process works, here's the `options' so to speak for a team:
Any player can be put on waivers by his team, and the player does not need to be informed.
Other teams have the chance to make a claim on the player during a 47 hour window.
If the player is claimed, the team that placed him on waivers has the option of pulling him back. If the team pulls him back they can't trade him for 30 days.
If his team decides not to pull him back:
Option 1: His team can work out a trade with the team that claimed him. Any player involved in the trade who is on a 40 man roster must go through waivers first.
Option 2: His team can just dump him and his salary on the team that claimed him, getting no player in return.
Option 3: No one claims him, and his team is free to trade him to any team.
If more than one team places a claim on a player, the winning claim is awarded based on worst record or the league the claiming team is in.
Take a look at Option 2, and then a glance at that spreadsheet, which two names stick out the most? Casey Fossum and Gregory Blakemoor Norton I would hope. Fossum has been used so sparingly in the past week that his numbers indicate he's `clicking', three innings pitched, one earned run on one hit, two walks, five strikeouts and a nice 3.00 earned run average. We all know that Fossum simply isn't worth 5.2 million for this season and the next, but do we really want to buy him out for 300,000? If someone were to claim him, or that pinch hitting colossal Greg Norton, don't you think we should just uh ... let the team have them?
Outside of those two the only other player that comes to mind would be backup catcher Josh Paul, whose book on the mental side of catching I've been waiting on only to disappointingly learn that there's still no timetable update. Regardless if someone feels Josh Paul's playoff `experience' is more important than being good with the bat, he'll likely get a shot as a backup, but don't expect that to come with the Chicago Cubs, as he burned those bridges with some comments in 2004. Paul also has the whole `Edgar Allan Poe' look going right now, floppy mustache, moppy hair, all that's left is him marrying his cousin and writing some of the better short story horror around, but then again maybe that will come with the chapter devoted to Seth McClung?