The Winter Meetings

Come on .... all together now....

♪ It’s the ♫♪ most wonderful ♫ time ♫ of ♪ the ♫ year ♪♫ ….

No, not Christmas, although that’s pretty cool too.  I’m talking about the baseball winter meetings!  These meetings used to be where legends were made.  Divisions and World Series used to be won or last two weeks before Christmas of the PRECEEDING year!

Its true. 

Of course, those were the days that when the Yankees had a ‘middle of the pack’ payroll.  When the thought of Boston winning a World Series was as ludicrous as the thought of the Cubs winning both ends of a double header.   Back when the only baseball in Florida and Arizona was played in the spring. 

Ahhhh, the good old days!

Without boring you too much with minutia (I just like saying that word) there is a lot that goes on this time of year in baseball.  Specifically, its all around the 40 man roster.  For the uninitiated major league teams have 25 men on the roster, the 40 man roster is like a roster extension that covers 15 of your minor leaguers and top prospects and stops other clubs from using loopholes to snatch them up. 

Again, staying high level on this, in the past few weeks, free agents have filed, clubs have offered arbitration to eligible players and clubs have non-tendered players making them defacto free agents.  So teams now know how many roster spots (40-man) they have open meaning that they can fill those spots by acquiring free agents, making trades or through the rule 5 draft.  While there are a lot of cool things at the winter meetings, the Rule 5 draft is what I’m going to chat about.   

If you say, “what is the rule 5 draft”, this is where it starts getting fun for me!  The rule 5 draft takes place this week at the winter meetings.  In short, you can draft ANYONE from ANY team that isn’t on a clubs 40-man roster.  There are usually 150-200 players under contract at any given time to any team so there is a lot to sift through to make these picks.  If a player was under contract to a club at 19 years old then they need to have been in the organization for 4 years to be eligible for this draft.  Players under contract at 18 need to have been in the organization for 5 years.   Regardless, the drafted players earliest age of eligibility is 23. 

But there’s a catch.  Of course there’s a catch.  First, each pick you make costs you 50k (actually it may have gone up to a 100k recently) to the club you are drafting from.  Hardly a big price in the baseball world.  Then, once you draft a player they need to stay on your 25-man major league roster for the entire season.  If you want to send them down to the farm they have to first be offered back to their original club. 

The reason this draft was created was to prevent teams from stockpiling major league calibre players in the minors and not bringing them up.  Apparently this was an issue at one time. This draft, even more so than the amateur draft is where scouts really show their value. 

I know you’re probably thinking that a draft of career minor leaguers or players who aren’t even roster worthy can’t be too big a deal.  Oh contraire mon frère!

2 Cy's 

Johan Santana, Mets ace and two time Cy Young award winner with Minnesota, was acquired by the Twins through the Rule 5 draft.  Baseball is full of stories and this one is particularly good.  Santana, in 1994, was discovered in Venezuela by a scout working for the Houston Astros named Chance Partin.  No kidding.  It gets better than the name though, Chance is the brother in law of Cheech Marin.  Anyway, they signed him as a Centre Fielder!  In his last year of protection in the minors he was converted to a pitcher.  He pitched well but apparently not well enough to have Houston ‘waste’ a roster spot on him.  So, he gets drafted in the Rule 5 draft my Minnesota who use him as a spot starter and out of the pen during his first year.  Remember they can’t send him down, he has to stay on the Major League roster.  So, guess who he gets his first major league win against on June 6^th, 2000?  The Houston Astros of course.  Since then he has been voted to the “all decade team”, won two Cy’s, made 4 all star teams, won a Gold Glove, Led the league in ERA and K’s three times.  Not bad for a 50k draft pick.

MVP 

Lest you think that Santana is an anomaly, lets look at Josh Hamilton.  Hamilton, after years of alcohol abuse and addiction was left unprotected by the Rays.  He was drafted in the Rule 5 the Cubs who flipped to the Reds.  The Reds used him a fair bit and were able to trade him at season end for two pitchers from Texas.  Hamilton of course has one a batting title, been MVP, been to all star games etc, etc.  The Rays?  They got 50k. 

 54 bombs

How about Toronto’s single season home run record holder Jose Bautista?  Bautista was drafted by Baltimore in 2006 in the Rule 5.  Baltimore needed the roster spot as the season wore on so he was traded.  He was traded 4 times before settling in Pittsburgh.  He is the only player ever to have been on 5 major league rosters in one season and he did it as a rookie.  He went from living out of a suitcase to having a 54 home run season!

 202 blasts as a Jay

Bautista of course beat George Bell’s home run record and OF COURSE, George Bell was also a Rule 5 draftee.  When people look at George’s stats you’ll see that his major league career started in 1981 but that he didn’t play in the majors in 1982.  Well, Gorgeous George taken was from the Phillies in the Christmas 1980 draft and had to stay on the Jays ML roster for the whole season.  He wasn’t ready for the show.  He hit .233 with 12 RBIs over 160 at bats.  He started the next two seasons in AAA and finished 1983 in Toronto.  In 1984 as the full time outfielder he hit .326 with 26 HRs and 80+ RBIs.  He was on his way.  Toronto was bad in the early 80s.  Bad enough that they could afford to carry a player that they knew wouldn’t be ready for a few years.  Its much harder to do that today.  In 1987 Bell led the league in RBIs and won MVP.  The year before, Joe Carter (Cleveland) led in RBIs and Roger Clemens (Boston) was MVP.  The year after Bell, Jose Canseco let the league RBIs and was MVP.   I think its interesting that all of those players ended up as Jays at one point or another.   Or maybe its not.

There are a lot more Rule 5 examples, but historically, the Jays have been one of the more active Rule 5 teams.  By ‘historically’ I mean before JP who was quite possibly the worst GM ever.  In fact, I may have to right a brief (like I do brief) dissertation on JP in the near future.   I’m hopeful that GM Alex Anthopoulos’ investment in scouting will show a return to superiority in this area. 

I'm not Eddie Murphy's father dammit! 

In 1978 the Jays snagged Willie Upshaw from the New York Yankees.  He would be an integral part of the Jays first division title in 1985. 

Million dollar arm; 5 cent head 

In 1984 they got Kelly Gruber from Cleveland.  Gruber won a Silver Slugger and a Gold Glove in Toronto.  He was part of division winning teams in 89, 91 and 92.  He hit a game tying home run in game 3 of the 1992 World Series against Atlanta. 

Second best short stop in baseball?

Manny Lee was signed as a 16 year old by the NY Mets in 1982.  He was packaged with a bunch of other players and sent to Houston for Ray Knight in 1984 (husband of pro golfer Nancy Lopez).  Mr Lopez helped the Mets win the series (The Buckner ball???) in 1986 & the Astros failed to protect Lee shortly after they got him and lost him to Toronto.  While he was never a major cog on the team, he was an important depth player who could contribute at multiple positions.  He was there for the division wins in 1985, 1989, 1991 and the World Series in 1992. 

There are players to be had in this draft.  And there have historically been some steals. 

Here are some players to watch for this year:

1)      Stephen Hill – St Louis.  A catcher, but sort of like how Carlos Delgado used to be listed as a catcher.  He’s a major league that doesn’t have a real defensive position.

2)      Brandon Waring – Baltimore. Probably too many strikeouts to play in the national league but a potential star in the AL.  Corner infielder

3)      Brad Emaus – Toronto.  3b with ok power but big up side on OBA.  Strikes out half as often as he walks and he walks a lot. 

4)      Jason Rice – Boston.  Pitcher.  A little wild but high upside on the K’s.  Throws 92-94 and had 10+ strikeouts per nine innings as a triple A reliever. 

5)      Adam Miller – Cleveland.  Pitcher.  I think this is the one to watch.  He was Cleveland’s top prospect from 2005-2008 but hasn’t pitched since the ’08 season.  He had a gross finger injury and has had it surgically rebuild.  While picking up guys off injury is risky, its not his shoulder or his elbow.  This could be a top of the rotation pitcher. 

Miller Time? 

More next week on:

·         Gillick going into the hall of fame.

·         The disaster known as JP Ricciardi.