Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

In the past 2 days, the Arizona Diamondbacks have signed 3 players from the waiver wire, which is 3 more than all of the other Major League teams combined. Byung-Hyun Kim, Jeff Cirillo and Joe Kennedy are the newest members of the organization.

While other potential playoff teams chose to make trades to try and improve heading down the stretch, the Diamondbacks went the waiver route instead. This has its good points and bad points. The signings do give the team more depth. While Kim will undoubtedly give Diamondbacks fans heart attacks every time he takes the mound, he does have experience and is a marginal improvement over the pitchers who were previously options for that roster spot. He has pitched well as of late, sporting a 3.25 ERA in his last 6 starts. We'll see how long that lasts, but for now, that looks enticing. Cirillo adds another bat on the bench, while Kennedy adds another lefty arm to the bullpen. Also, this was all done without giving up any prized prospects in the minor league system.

On the bad side - well, let's just say there was a reason why these teams weren't able to trade these players at the trade deadline. We all know Kim's drawbacks, and I think that A's fans would be more than happy to tell us why they are glad Kennedy is gone.

Arizona GM Josh Byrnes has said that some of the claims were complete accidents, the baseball equivalent of a condom breaking. Sometimes you get a baby, sometimes you get a Byung-Hyun Kim. Byrnes said, "We essentially - some by accident, by some design - got depth and insurance so that if we had injuries with our pitching, we're a lot more covered today than we were a couple of days ago." They kept other teams from getting these guys, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how they perform.

The fact that Byung-Hyun Kim is back with the Diamondbacks makes me feel a multitude of emotions. Obviously, the team feels that it will be playing in World Series games that they need to have blown, which makes me excited. Plus, who wouldn't be excited about the return of the "Byung-Hyun Kim Face"? The confused look he gets when the ball is heading 450 feet in the opposite direction is classic.

All-in-all, I think the moves were good. The Diamondbacks improved at those roster spots, and the only thing they have given up is money. This is all subject to change, of course, when Kim starts blowing games and Diamondbacks fans remember why we were happy to see him leave in the first place.

Sources: (AZ Central & Wikipedia)