You Learn Something New Every Day, Week 5 (I think)

First, a moment of silence in memory of Joe Kennedy, a 28-year-old pitcher who has passed away (cause undetermined).


Okay, I'm still kind of out of it after all that food yesterday...okay, I'm lying, I had sushi. I am not really a fan of Thanksgiving food...however, I really still am out of it, so for this week's YLSNED, I'm going to go with something timely.

On Josh's suggestion, I'm going to go ahead and explain the Rule V Draft.

The Draft, which is different from the amateur draft held each year in June (the amateur draft is the one most comparable to the NBA or NFL draft), is held at the Winter Meetings in December each year.

The goal of the draft is to prevent any one team (okay, the Yankees/Sox/Mets/Cubs/any large market team) from stockpiling their farm system with talent that other teams (like Tampa/Oakland/etc) would use at the major league level.

The selection order is as is usual with drafts--worst team goes first, best team goes last, those in the middle are roundly screwed.

Because any player selected is automatically added to a team's 40-man-roster, teams without an open spot are ineligible to participate. Additionally, any player chosen must be kept on the 25 man roster for the ENTIRE season of the selecting team--no optioning to the minors or DFAing.

You can read more about the Rule V Draft here.