DFA, or “Designated for assignment,” is a contractual move in MLB that can impact a player’s career. When a player’s contract is DFA’d, they are effectively removed from their club’s 40-man roster. This puts the player in a holding pattern for a week, during which time the team can trade or place the player on waivers.
Every baseball team can have a maximum of 40 players at any given time. This represents the expanded roster, where all 40 players are permitted to play for that team by league agreement. However, the active roster, which is the size of 26 players, is the one that actually participates in the games.
One reason one player’s contract may be DFA’d is that the team wishes to promote a Minor League player to the active 26-man roster when they already have a full-sized 40-man roster. They cannot do that without removing one player from the roster, which will make space for the newcomer. One way of removing that player is designing them for assignment; others are trading, releasing, or transferring them to the 60-day injured list.
Another and more common reason for designing a player for an assignment is that a particular player has been underperforming, and there is a better replacement that can benefit the team.
The players whose contracts are DFA can be claimed by another team at the waivers, meaning they are immediately a part of that team’s 40-man roster. Sure, some players go through waivers unclaimed, and for various reasons—one of them being the contract that the player has with their current team. The team that claims the player would also be taking on the remainder of that contract.
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