One of my favorite days of the baseball year is the Rule V Draft Day. Call me weird, alot of people do, but there are gems out there, and I can’t help but wonder what diamonds in the rough will become household names of tomorrow. Some of yesterday’s Rule V selections have gone on the become superstars of today, guys like Joakim Soria, Johan Santana, Dan Uggla, and bad boy Josh Hamilton. Interestingly enough Hamilton was selected by the Chicago Cubs out of the Tampa Bay Rays organization, now the Cubs are looking for a lefthanded hitting outfielder, funny how that works, wonder if they’d like to have Josh back, rather than picking him, and trading him off? Wonder if he might’ve gotten the Rays over the hump, if he’d been protected, but the Rays were in the process of getting rid of bad boys, like Delmon Young & Elijah Dukes.
This year’s first round selection was a righthander out of the Cincinnati Reds organization named Terrell Young, selected by the Washington Nats. On June 12th he allowed five runs without retiring a batter, after the All Star game, he posted a 1.86 ERA, with 20 strikeouts in 29 innings. Advice to DC don’t pitch him on 6/12, seriously though, he has a live arm, but needs to stick with big league club if Nationals are to keep him.
With the 16th pick in this year’s draft the Milwaukee Brewers selected the big Cuban Eddie Morlan out of the Tampa Bay Rays organization. I’ve seen this guy pitch, he can really bring it. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t stick with the Brewers, and help them win some games out of their pen.
The San Diego Padres might’ve stolen one away from the NY Yankees, Ivan Nova is a 21 year old 6’4″ 210 pound righthander that may still be growing into his body, right now he’s not a big strikeout pitcher, but that may come, he has good control for a youngster, San Diego might be able to hide him away on their rebuilding big league roster.
It’s always a crap shoot in the Rule V, what better place to do it, than Las Vegas, BABY!!!