The Pittsburgh Pirates have selected shortstop Josh Rodriguez with the first pick in the 2010 Rule 5 draft. We heard from Jennifer Langosch before the draft that the Pirates were likely to take Rodriguez with the first pick.
Rodriguez, who turns 26 in about a week, hit for a .293/.372/.486 line in 317 at-bats in AAA this past year in the Cleveland farm system. He played most of his games at shortstop, and also played second base. Langosch mentioned that he would fill the backup infield role if the Pirates went with Ronny Cedeno as their starting shortstop. That’s kind of surprising, since I figured Pedro Ciriaco would play that role. Ciriaco will be in a crowded situation in AAA, with Chase d’Arnaud, Jordy Mercer, Josh Harrison, and Brian Friday taking up middle infield playing time.
An interesting note on Rodriguez, he was the starting shortstop at Rice University until Friday stole his position after Rodriguez returned from an injury. Rodriguez went on to be one of the top shortstop prospects in the 2006 draft, and was selected in the second round by the Cleveland Indians. He was the number 20 prospect in the Indians system in 2008, but his stock fell after a down year that season, followed by an injury filled year in 2009. He bounced back in 2010, as shown above, which makes him an intriguing pick. Indians Prospect Insider has a good summary of him in their Rule 5 draft preview.
“The draft changes were made to help small market teams.”
No, the draft changes were made to limit the amount of money spent on draft picks. The impact on small market teams was, at best, not a consideration.
The system did not hurt us in signing Appel. Appel and Boros hurt us. Appel will have ZERO leverage next year. A team drafting him won’t even have to pay him slot!
Appel didn’t fall because of the system. Appel fell because Boros was bound and determined to try to make his case….that the draft doesn’t work! It DID work, in every instance, but Appel.
I applaud NH for drafting him. Let’s not over react. Appel is going to be sorry that he turned down $3.8mil. And Boros should be ashamed that he cost his client so much money. If not for Bora$$’s shenanigans, Appel would be sitting at home counting his $5-6 mil bonus that he received from team 1 or 2.
Its not really the non-signing that has the impact, its the new rules. This was evident when the CBA was adopted, sustained success for small revenue teams that do well was mad much more difficult. As Tim pointed out, the better you do, the less money you get to draft and also to sign Int FA’s. High revenue teams can compensate by signing MLB free agents, the low teams cannot. Thus, it makes it far more likely that low revenue teams will only be able to win for a window then drop back down to losing to get better picks.
I’m fine with this Cedeno is not as abd as he looks sometimes. More surprised that didn’t take a shot on Miller or Pelzer when they’re holding a guy like mccutchen/martinez