the Braves have to either agree on a trade with the team that claimed him or take Jones off the waiver wire. Also, NL teams get preference, teams with the worst W/L records this season first.

It's hard for me to imagine that no NL team would've claimed him before any AL team.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Baseball_transactions#Waivers
Waivers

Any player under contract may be placed on waivers at any time. If a player is waived, any team may claim him. If more than one team claims a player from waivers, the team with the lowest record in the player's league gets preference. If no team in the player's league claims him, the claiming team with the lowest record in the other league gets preference. The previous year's standings are used during the first month of a season to determine preference.

If a team claims a player off waivers and has the viable claim as described above, his first team may choose one of the following:

    * arrange a trade with the new team for that player within two business days of the claim; or
    * rescind the request and keep the player on their major league roster, effectively canceling the waiver; or
    * do nothing and allow the claiming team to assume the player's existing contract, pay a waiver fee to the first team, and place him on their active major league roster

If a player is claimed and the option to rescind is used, this option to rescind a waiver may not be used again for that player in that season. If no team claims a player from waivers in three business days, the player has cleared waivers and may be assigned to a minor league team, traded, or released outright.

The waiver "wire" is a secret within the personnel of the Major League Baseball clubs; no announcement of a waiver is made until a transaction actually occurs. Many players are often quietly waived during the August "waiver-required" trading period to gauge trade interest in a particular player. Usually, when the player is claimed, the waiving team will rescind the waiver to avoid losing the player unless a trade can be worked out with the claiming team.

They are talking about this over at Hatelow Hell, but they think it's Houston.  The more I think about it the more he doesn't fit with the Angels, who are set in the OF w/the newly-dangerous Rivera, the sparkplug Figgins, and the fearsome Guerrero. I'd imagine the notoriously self-impressed Jones would demand to play CF, but I can't see them moving Fig back to 3B and making their horrid defense even worse than nature intended, nor can I see them dislodging GA (under contract through 2008 I think) from the DH and 4th OF'er spots.  

I don't think Schuerholz would settle for less than Kendrick and Aybar, LAoA's main young studs, if they were to attempt a trade either, so my guess is it's the Astros, who were pressuring Boston last week to trade 3 guys for Jones so they could flip him to Houston for Roy Oswalt.

There is no way Beane lets Andrew Jones make it past the A's to the Angels.  Not only that but Seattle and Texas smell blood, have deep pockets, and are looking for that extra 3.5 game push to get past the A's.  They would probably claim him before he ever got to the A's.

for the same league's teams if more than one team claims a player has been eliminated. So far I've not found any source that answers this claim, although one very recent article by Steve Phillips (Baseball Prospectus, subscription required) claims that the league preference is still the rule.

http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2006/08/death_taxes_and_1.php
Keith, one particular area of confusion involves the priority of waiver claims for major league waivers. I've heard from numerous sources that the AL/NL distinction has been eliminated, but multiple news articles (and Steve Phillips just yesterday) say that the claim priority still goes AL teams, then NL teams, for a player waived by an AL team, for example. Which is it?

BTW here's the link to the Phillips article. I think, however, that it was written a year ago.
http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=phillips_steve&id=2130379&action=logi n&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fmlb%2fcolumns%2fstory%3fcolumnist%3dphillips_st eve%26id%3d2130379

with Atlanta...doesn't look like they're pulling him out of the lineup either.

I don't think he's going anywhere til at least the end of the season.