Was the MLB waiver trade deadline 4 p.m. or midnight EST?

Won't have to worry about this for another year obviously, but I've seen it reported differently by reputable sources. I know the non-waiver deadline is 4 p.m. That's widely publicized. But does anybody know definitively when the waiver deadline was/is?

 

It's not a trade deadline. It's a postseason eligibility deadline. It was midnight ET.

 

Right. You can still make waiver deals. The player acquired just won't be eligible for the post season.

Since I'm getting old, I can no longer remember if something happened two years ago or 15 years ago.

But, I'm trying to remember some team that did make a post 9/1 waiver deal for a player that made a real contribution to a team's playoff run.

I know there's one out there, but I'll be damned if I can remember the specifics or how long ago it was.

There may be more than one, but does anyone have an example of such a deal?

 

There was the Fred Lynn case in 1988 where the trade was made, but Lynn didn't make it into Detroit airspace (as per Wikipedia) by the time and was ruled ineligible for the playoffs. But Fay Vincent overruled that and made Lynn eligible. But the Tigers didn't make the postseason, which only the division winner did back then.

 

In 1964 the Yankees acquired Pedro Ramos from the Indians in September and he proceeded to do a fantastic job in relief down the stretch. He wasn't eligible for the post-season, though.

Lest you think I am some great baseball historian, I just know of him through Halberstam's "October 1964."

 

I also read October 1964, but that definitely was not the deal I was thinking of.

The Lynn deal rings a bell, but the specifics don't match my memory -- which could be faulty.

 

There is also the Francisco Rodriguez exception - If the guy is on your 40-man roster by Sept. 1, then you can sub him on your playoff roster after Sept. 1 for anyone on the 60-man DL. For example, if the Red Sox wanted to put Ryan Lavarnway on the playoff roster, they could even though he was in the minors on Aug. 31, because they have several players on the 60-man DL. (I think that's roughly how it works.)

 

That team has a hell of a lot of problems if it has a 60-man DL.

 

Makes sense. Technically, there isn't a deadline, but the midnight Aug. 31 playoff eligibility deadline is ostensibly the waiver deadline for meaningful moves that have any reasonable likelihood of happening. In other words, Kubel and Berkman aren't going anywhere...

 

doh! No idea where my mind was with man vs. day.

 

I have always heard that one contributing factor to Lynn not making it in time was that there was no first-class seat available on the flight that would have gotten him there, and he refused to fly coach. I don't know if it can be confirmed or debunked, but I'm going with it.

 

I remember hearing that the flight was in Detroit airspace at midnight but there were delays and the flight was held up and landed like 5 to 10 minutes after midnight. Then Vincent ruled that a player just had to be in the city, not necessarily on the ground, so that made Lynn eligible.