Rule 5 Draft

We are just days away from December, which, for baseball fans, means that the Rule 5 Draft is almost here. The Pirates have the #1 pick in the rule 5 draft, and will probably use it very seriously. They have taken players in the last 3 Rule 5 drafts (John Raynor, Donnie Veal, Evan Meek), and have seem the upside of selecting a player in the draft.

The thing with the Rule 5 Draft is that once you take a player, they have to be put on your 40 man roster immediately and be in the major leagues for the entire year (unless they are injured, in which case they can make rehab starts in the minors but have to fulfill a certain amount of service time in the majors to be eligible to be taken off the 25-man roster and still retained the following year).

Tim at piratesprospects.com made a rather in depth post about the rule-5 draft and all of the different players that the Pirates could select in the draft. He is a genius when it comes to minor league and draft stuff, so I definitely recommend reading his article. So since Tim has already done the dirty work, I'm just going to give my opinion on who the Pirates should take.

My guy is Adam Miller. This Cleveland Indians prospect was one of the top prospects in the major leagues just a few years ago, but has missed the last 2 seasons due to multiple finger surgeries and some other issues. Miller used to throw in the high-90's and even touched 100 mpg, however he has lost a lot of that velocity and now sits more in the low to mid 90's. In 2007, Miller had a 9.4 K/9 ratio in 65.1 IP, however, his ERA was a mediocre 4.82. In 2008, he posted a much better ERA of 1.88 but dropped to 6.3 K/9 in 28.2 IP. As I said, he has not pitched in a real game since then.

The injuries definitely raise a lot of flags, but reports are that he is finally healthy and ready to pitch again early this summer. The injuries could actually end up helping the Pirates, as they would be able to have him on the DL for the first month or so and get him some work in AAA before he is forced to the majors. If Miller still has the ability he used to have, he could be an effective big league starter at the age of 26. The Pirates would have to get him to the big leagues in time for him to get 90 days of service time in the 2011 season to avoid having the Rule 5 Restrictions on him in 2012. There are some questions about his injuries, but it doesn't seem like it would be a problem to have him active for those 90 days.

This is basically a free player situation, so the Pirates should take the guy with the highest ceiling with the best chance of helping us at the major league level in 2011. The rotation is going to be ugly at the beginning of the season, and Miller could definitely help out if some things go right. At the very worst, he's ineffective and doesn't get over his injury problems and the Pirates lose him for nothing. It's a low-risk situation with a potential high reward.