The Rule V Draft: Ya Win some, ya lose some
by Evan Hochschild on Nov 27, 2008 11:18 AM CST
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PrintThe folks over at The Baseball Analysts did a nice post on some recent Rule V draft successes. I knew that Wesley Wright was plucked from the Dodgers farm system in December 2007. I didnt know Willy Taveras was a Rule V draftee. So the Astros have shown some adeptness is making selections...one particular player did manage to get away, however.
Happy Thanksgiving! Although it'd be happier if we still had this guy...
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Willy T was picked as a Rule 5 draftee but he didn't make the roster in spring training..
He was sent back to the Indians. The Astros decided they liked Taveras, though, and then traded pitcher Jeriome Robertson for both Taveras and Luke Scott. That allowed Taveras to play in AA ball.
Looking back over the baseballanalysts.com's list of available pitchers...
I am intrigued by one potential Rule 5 pick who is very different than the others, Igawa of the Yankees’ organization. The reason he is different is that he is still owed $4 million/year until 2010. The Yankees paid nearly $30 million in posting fees to Japan in order to negotiate with him. He has flopped at the major league level, but seems to perform fine at AAA. Igawa obviously had some pitching talent which led the Yankees’ scouts to believe he was worth such a huge posting fee. Does the possibility exist that he had problems with the NYC spotlight, particularly given the language/cultural transition? (The Big Apple spotlight has taken down many a good player.) I think about the way that Matsui thrived when he moved out of New Yok City to the lower pressure Colorado environment. $8 million over the next two years is a lot of money to take a risk on Igawa in the Rule 5 draft, but it is intriguing. If he isn’t taken in the Rule 5 draft, maybe the Yankees would trade him and pay a percentage of his remaining salary. It’s an idea.
Good find
The Crawfishboxes
A good friend of mine used to say, "This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains." Think about that for a while.
by Stephen Higdon on Nov 29, 2008 7:43 PM CST up reply actions
More Rule 5 possibilities....
After looking at a BBTF article on possible Rule 5 draftees, some attractive ideas:
Will Rhymes, 25 year old middle infielder (plays SS and 2b) out of Tigers system. The Astros may need another utility infielder, and he could give Sutton competition in the spring. Unlike Sutton, Rhymes advanced to AAA late last season. AA :.305, .356, .391, .747;
AAA: .320, .370, .400, .770. Not much power but lots of speed (65 stolen bases in partial season at AA). LHB who hits LHP well also. It turns out that he is from Houston too.
http://firstinning.com/players/William-Rhymes-a/
Luis Perdomo, 24 year old hard throwing RH reliever traded by the Indians to Cardinals (Anthony Reyes trade). Could be a “get righthanders out” specialist.
http://firstinning.com/players/Luis-Perdomo-a/
May not mean much, but here are his major league equivalents from his Cleveland AA time:
http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?pl=466412
Kevin Whelan, (ex-Tex. A&M, by the way), another power arm RH reliever, from the Yankees organization. Good K rate. Good in brief stint in AFL…not sure why it was so brief.
http://firstinning.com/players/Kevin-Whelan-a/
Eduardo Morlan, 22 year old RH reliever from D-Rays organization. Also listed at top of BaseballAnalysts.com’s list of pitchers. Once highly regarded prospect traded to Rays in Young deal. Fastball in mid-90’s and hard slider in high 80’s. I suspect he will be picked early though.
http://firstinning.com/players/Eduardo-Morlan-a/
Good eye on these
I like Rhymes, but mostly because he has the ability to play short, and its not clear that Sutton can take on that role. But on offense, Sutton will draw more walks and hit for more power, so he’ll have a better chance at sticking at the ML level. Rhymes could be a cheap placeholder for Sutton if you wanted Sutton to get a few AB at AAA in 2009, sending Rhymes back to the Tigers when you want to call Sutton up.
But if the reason you’d take Rhymes is to create competition, I’d rather see them draft someone who has a shot at being a starting pitcher at some point, even if we have to hide him in the bullpen. Rhymes has an awesome name, though.
my thought on Rhymes is that he might be a stopgap, in the event....
that Sutton isn’t ready for major leagues based on his spring training. Sutton hasn’t made a AAA stop yet, and I think he would need to a tremendous spring in order to skip Round Rock. I agree that Sutton has better offensive potential (because of his power). But Rhymes has some traits like speed and defense which are very useful off the bench. If you recall how Newhan was used, it involved a lot of pinch running and late inning replacement. I am impressed by Rhymes’ consistency in batting average and OBP in the minors, and the fact that he adjusted well when he was moved up to AAA. However, he doesn’t have a lot of upside in terms of OPS, because of his lack of power.
My major concern is that his batting average at AAA is partly an illusion due to an unusually high BABIP (.381 in 2008). Even if we could expect him to have a higher than usual BABIP due to his speed, he may run into trouble against major league defenses.
That being said, I’d be very happy if we pulled some younger guys from the Rule 5 who would have a good shot at replacing Newhan or Abercrombie. Of course, I’d be happier to pull a Johan Santana, but Abercrombie/Newhan seems like more reasonable of an expectation.
good point about the BABIP...
but my recollection is that he had a little over 19% LD rate in 08, which translates to .330 BABIP in the majors, and probably something like 10 or 15 points higher in the minors. So, it is possible his speed could be enough to rationalize his BABIP. Not that I am pushing all that much for this guy…it just seemed like an interesting possibility.
At the very least, he's got a pretty good name
It’s been a slow news weekend, baseball-wise, so I’ll take the discussion where I can get it.
Where we pick
Our original draft position would have been 20th (our draft position in the summer will be 22nd because the Nationals and the Mariners got compensation for not signing their picks this year), but the Pirates, Rockies, Orioles, Royals, Marlins and Blue Jays appear to have full 40-man rosters, so we should be picking around 14th. We’ve got a pretty good shot at one of the better guys falling in our lap.
More interesting to me is that Wade has only 34 of the 40-man slots filled. I’m not sure if this is an indication that Wade might try to take more than one player from the Rule 5 (can you even do that?) or if he’s just leaving himself room to trade at the winter meetings.
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