How is the player to be named later decided?

Question

For baseball

Answer 1

It depends. Sometimes the general manager at the time of the deal will say, "At the end of the season, you can have your choice of blank, blank, blank or blank," thus giving the acquiring team more time to evaluate choices. The teams might agree ahead of time that it is someone on the 40-man roster.

Sometimes it's a matter of putting off the decision. And sometimes it is a case of a team not wanting to uproot a player in the middle of the season, so they leave him alone. In the latter case, the Red Sox got Javy Lopez from the Orioles for the ptbnl. Everyone knew it was going to be Adam Stern, but he stayed in Pawtucket.