New York selects Carlos Monasterios, the righthander in the Phillies system, a sinkerballer acquired in 2006 in the Bobby Abreu trade.

The Astros follow with Jorge Gimenez, a third baseman from the Red Sox system. He’s an offensive-minded minor league veteran.

The Padres pass.

Former UCLA righthander Hector Ambriz to the Indians with the fifth pick; kudos to MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo, who was on that.

The Diamondbacks take lefty Zack Kroenke from the Yankees system.

Orioles take lefty Ben Snyder from the Giants and will trade him to the Rangers in the Kevin Millwood trade. The Royals follow with lefty Edgar Osuna from the Braves.

The Nationals take Jamie Hoffmann first overall, and he’ll be traded to the Yankees for Brian Bruney. The Pirates follow with speedster John Raynor out of the Marlins system.

INDIANAPOLIS—The Rule 5′s about to be on, and our connection looks secure. If we lose our site here due to crazy Rule 5 traffic, we’ll switch to the BA Twitter feed.

The roll call is starting, so no more datelines or rumors. We’ll just blog every pick as fast as we can.

INDIANAPOLIS—Baseball is the only draft of amateur talent where teams are not allowed to trade draft picks. I’ve never been an advocate of trading picks—after all, sports such as basketball and football don’t trade minor leaguers, since they don’t have any. Prospect deals in baseball are the equivalent of draft-pick deals in other sports.

But this week’s Rule 5 draft gives teams a chance to trade draft picks, sort of. The slots can’t be traded, but this week has brought a slew of trades including players to be named, and most if not all are tied to the Rule 5. [...] Continue Reading »

INDIANAPOLIS—This is a familiar tune with the Rule 5 draft. Teams say there’s not much buzz, the list of talent is down . . . and then come Thursday morning’s draft, all kinds of stuff starts happening.

It’s not clear if this year’s Rule 5 will follow last year’s, where little was anticipated but 21 players got selected. Of those 21 players, just three have stuck in any significant fashion—Padres shortstop Everth Cabrera, Rangers righthander Darren O’Day (whom the Rangers picked up on waivers, after the Mets didn’t keep him in the Rule 5), and Pirates lefthander Donald Veal.

Several new names are circulating around regarding the Rule 5, though we’ve also had some names quoted back to us from our Rule 5 preview from last week, such as Giants outfielder Mike McBryde and catcher/infielder Robinson Chirinos of the Cubs.

Perhaps most disappointing is that one of those names is the last name we cut out of our early preview, righthander Craig Baker of the Rockies. [...] Continue Reading »

INDIANAPOLIS—Couple of quick news and thoughts on what’s going on, when we’re not giving away awards or doing other Winter Meetings-related stuff:

• Sources with both the Yankees and Nationals have confirmed the Yankees acquired the rights to the first overall pick in Thursday’s Rule 5 draft from the Nationals for righthander Brian Bruney. The Yankees have only made a pick in the major league phase once in the last decade, when they took Josh Phelps as a DH/first baseman in December 2006, at a point when he’d already played parts of six seasons in the major leagues. There are similar players available in this year’s Rule 5, but it seems unlikely the Yankees would give up a pitcher like Bruney to acquire a veteran player, such as former Yankees righty Scott Proctor or Rockies infielder Omar Quintanilla, one of several young veterans available.

It’s also possible the Yanks could pull a Braves and pick one of their own players, as Atlanta did in 1988. New York did leave several attractive players off its 40-man roster, but this is pretty unlikely.

I spoke to one Yankees official via text message about the deal tonight, and his only reply was, "Who would you take?" We’ll work to find the answer the next two days. [...] Continue Reading »

The first big story of the Winter Meetings happened before the meetings actually began. MLB.com is reporting the Royals have signed Cuban free-agent lefthander Noel Arguelles, reportedly for a major league contract worth $7 million. We’ll have more on the signing as we can touch base with sources here in Indianapolis.

Arguelles pitched for the Cuban junior national team (not the World Baseball Classic or Olympic bunch, but the top group of 18-and-under players) and defected while at the World Junior Championships in Edmonton, Canada, in July 2008. One scouting report this fall of an Arguelles workout, however, had him heavier and with diminished velocity, topping out at 89 mph in one session.

However, at his best, Arguelles evoked the good version of Francisco Liriano, as we wrote here (with apologies for having his name spelled in different ways.)

The Twins take Jason Jones, a righthander from the Yankees, while the Mets try to fortify their bullpen—again—by taking sidearming Darren O’Day from the Angels.

The Brewers then pop the elephant in the room, Eduardo Morlan, down at 25 overall. Morlan fell as hard as Brady Quinn!

The Phillies took righty Bobby Mosebach out of the Angels system, and the Angels lost yet another player with righthander Miguel Gonzalez going to the Red Sox.

The Rays took sidearming righty Derek Rodriguez from the White Sox. And the Cubs and Angels pass to end the first round, with 19 players selected. On to round two.

The Diamondbacks take James Skelton in an active first round, and the Marlins took lefthander Zack Kroenke, who made our pre-draft blog buzz. No huge surprises yet, other than Reegie Corona, who’s just a small surprise.

Here’s a new name: the Astros took Gilbert de la Vera out of the Royals organization. He’s a lefthander and the first guy I don’t know.

Two more guys from our preview: David Patton, Rockies righthander, to the Reds, and Tigers take lefty Kyle Bloom from the Pirates.

The Royals took hard-throwing lefty Jose Lugo from the TWins, and the Athletics selected outfielder Ben Copeland from the Giants organization.

Pirates take Donald Veal, and the Orioles draft catcher Lou Palmisano. Word is the O’s will deal him to the Astros.

Picking sixth, the Giants select Luis Perdomo, so things are going according to plan.

Seattle drafted middle infielder Reegie Corona from the Yankees system. Corona’s a light-hititng second baseman/shortstop. Then the Padres follow with the Rockies’ Everth Cabrera with the third pick.

Roll call tells us which teams have room on their rosters; we’ll go the quick way to tell you who is at 40:

Rangers, Rockies, Dodgers, Blue Jays and Yankees.

And Terrell Young is off the board.

LAS VEGAS—We found the ballroom, and I’ll be here to live blog the Rule 5 draft. This is either the third, fourth or fifth straight year that we have live blogged the Rule 5, and I’m always surprised by the traffic and interest we get in the Rule 5. Then again, this decade has been one of Rule 5 draftee stars.

Well, I’m not sure Terrell Young will be a star . . . I’m also not sure he’ll be a National. Late word just before the draft starts here has the Nats trading Young or selling his contract to another club. [...] Continue Reading »

We’re hearing that the Nationals will take Reds righthander Terrell Young with the first pick in the Rule 5 draft. Young, 24, went 2-5, 2.88 in 59 innings between low Class A Dayton and high Class A Sarasota last year. A 10th-round pick out of Grenada (Miss.) High in 2004, Young signed for $40,000. He dropped in the draft that year because of concerns about his makeup. He has always had an outstanding loose arm, but he also has struggled to show consistency and an ability to take coaching.

Partly because of that, Young didn’t make it to full season ball for good until 2007 in his fourth pro season. Command has always been an issue, as he walked 59 batters in his first 83 innings, but he did show some improvement this year, as he walked 28 batters while striking out 47 this year.

Young’s fastball is a potentially plus pitch. When he’s on, Young’s 93-95 mph fastball will touch 98 mph on good days. His breaking ball however is fringy and he struggles to locate it. Without solid secondary stuff, Young will have to show he can locate his fastball consistently to stick with the Nationals.

We’re also getting rumblings that Brewers catcher Lou Palmisano will likely be popped in the top five picks.

LAS VEGAS—The raw order for Thursday’s Rule 5 draft, which begins at noon Eastern time (9 a.m. local) at the Bellagio hotel. This order applies to the major league and minor league phases.

RULE 5 DRAFT ORDER

1. Nationals
2. Mariners
3. Padres
4. Pirates
5. Orioles
6. Giants
7. Braves
8. Reds
9. Tigers
10. Rockies
11. Royals
12. Athletics
13. Rangers
14. Indians
15. Diamondbacks [...] Continue Reading »