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"\"&lt;p&gt;LLAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.&amp;#8211;As the hours wound down before the Rule 5&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ndraft, several clubs that had early picks were considering selling them&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nor passing altogether.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;That didn&amp;#8217;t mean teams didn&amp;#8217;t have&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ninterest in the top of the draft, however. More than four teams had&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ncontacted the Devil Rays in hopes of buying the No. 1 pick overall, and&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nTampa Bay reportedly was asking for upwards of $100,000 for their slot. One scouting source had confirmed that the Athletics, who are at 38 on their 40-man roster, paid the Rays $100,000 for the rights to the pick.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;The&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nRays&amp;#8217;\\u2122 40-man roster is full, as is Kansas City&amp;#8217;\\u2122s, who picks second. The&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nCubs have the third pick, and both the Royals&amp;#8217; and Cubs&amp;#8217; rosters are at&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nthe limit.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Clubs picking in the middle of the pack or below are&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nvery interested to move up, but it is uncertain how much they&amp;#8217;\\u2122re&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nwilling to pay in what is deemed to be a rather thin crop of talent&lt;br \\/&gt;\\navailable this season, due to the extra year of protection that the new&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nCollective Bargaining Agreement imposed.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;But there are a few&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nintriguing power arms out there, most notably Rockies righthander Pedro&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nStrop&amp;#8211;who worked consistently in the mid-90s with his fastball in the&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nRookie-level Pioneer League last season. Strop is a converted middle&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ninfielder who ranked 17th in BA&amp;#8217;s ranking of Pioneer League prospects.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&amp;#8220;He&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ncan run it up to 95, 96 with good life,&amp;#8221; a scouting director from an&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nAmerican League club said. &amp;#8220;The breaking ball has depth and spin, but&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nhe&amp;#8217;\\u2122s inconsistent with it. Still, repeating his mechanics properly and&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nbeing able to locate his breaking ball consistently are all workable&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nthings. He could have some value out of the pen, but there has to be a&lt;br \\/&gt;\\npatience factor involved. He&amp;#8217;\\u2122s not very far along, obviously, but in&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nthe right situation it could work.&amp;#8221;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;The name with the biggest&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nbuzz attached to it the night before the draft was Padres righthander&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nJoakim Soria, a 22-year-old who spent most of the 2006 regular season&lt;br \\/&gt;\\npitching for the Mexico City Red Devils, with a 12-game stint in the&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nlow Class A Midwest League thrown in. Soria also has outstanding life&lt;br \\/&gt;\\non his fastball, which sits in the low 90s and tops out at 95. He also&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nthrows an above-average changeup, but his breaking ball remains a&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nquestion. &lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&amp;#8220;I know last year it was a problem&amp;#8211;he couldn&amp;#8217;\\u2122t locate it at all,&amp;#8221;&lt;br \\/&gt;\\na scouting director from a National League club said. &amp;#8220;But it&amp;#8217;\\u2122s gotten&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ntighter and the reports this winter have been very good and he&amp;#8217;\\u2122s shown&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ngood velocity. He&amp;#8217;\\u2122s the flavor of the week in a lot of ways just based&lt;br \\/&gt;\\non what he&amp;#8217;\\u2122s doing now.&amp;#8221;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;What Soria is doing now certainly is&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nimpressive. The 6-foot-2, 170-pounder is 8-0, 2.02 with a 64-19&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nstrikeout-walk ratio in 62 innings for Obregon in the Mexican Pacific&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nLeague. Those numbers have him leading the league in the pitching&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ntriple-crown categories. During the regular season, Soria went 1-0,&lt;br \\/&gt;\\n2.31 in just 12 innings at low Class A Fort Wayne after coming over&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nfrom the Mexican League.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Other names garnering interest (aside&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nfrom our Rule 5 preview we rolled out on Monday) were Indians&lt;br \\/&gt;\\noutfielder Ryan Goleski, a slugger with a right-field arm; Cubs&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nrighthander Lincoln Holdzkom, a hard thrower with an inconsistent track&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nrecord of throwing strikes; Tigers utilityman Ryan Raburn, who has&lt;br \\/&gt;\\npower and can play second base or left field; Marlins righthander Nic&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nUngs, a veteran strikethrower; Astros righthander Chance Douglass, a&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nsinker-slider guy; and White Sox lefthander Jay Marshall, who found&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nsuccess with a lower arm angle this year and profiles as a left-on-left&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nspecialist reliever.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;The draft starts at 9 a.m. ET, and BaseballAmerica.com will have plenty of coverage during and after the draft, both of the major league phase and of the two minor league phases that follow.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;For a full explanation of the rules of the Rule 5, we present Alan Schwarz&amp;#8217; seminal work on the Rule 5 from 1995. The story has been amended to reflect the changes made to the Rule 5 in the newest Collective Bargaining Agreement.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style=\\\"font-weight: bold;\\\"&gt;Rule 5 Basics&lt;\\/span&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#8217;ve seen it written and referred to a zillion ways: the Rule 5&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ndraft, the minor league draft, the rule V drafts, that draft at the&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nWinter Meetings that&amp;#8217;s a little too complicated so I&amp;#8217;ll wait to see if&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nit matters later . . . &lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;\\nIt&amp;#8217;s actually not that involved, so as a public service we now present&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nto you an observer&amp;#8217;s guide to what Baseball America typically refers to&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nas the major league Rule 5 draft.\\n&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;The process doesn&amp;#8217;t shake baseball&amp;#8217;s rafters, but it does add a&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nwrinkle to the player-development game that&amp;#8217;s worth understanding.&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nEvery once in a while, a player makes a significant impact after being&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nchosen, Pittsburgh&amp;#8217;s Roberto Clemente in 1954 being the classic&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nexample.\\n&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;The Rule 5 draft has been a staple of the Winter Meetings&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nalmost from its beginning and sprung up as a method to prevent teams&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nfrom stockpiling talent in their minor league systems. Players not on&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nmajor league rosters would otherwise have little or no chance to find&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nan opportunity to play elsewhere, though that restriction was further&lt;br \\/&gt;\\neased in the 1980s when minor leaguers got the right to become free&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nagents after six full seasons.\\n&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Major league teams must protect players on their 40-man rosters&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nwithin three or four years of their original signing. Those left&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nunprotected are available to other teams as Rule 5 picks.\\n&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;Players who were 18 or younger on June 5 preceding the signing of their&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nfirst contract must be protected after &lt;span style=\\\"font-style: italic;\\\"&gt;five&lt;\\/span&gt; minor league seasons.&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nPlayers 19 and older must be protected after &lt;span style=\\\"font-style: italic;\\\"&gt;four&lt;\\/span&gt; seasons.&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;But here&amp;#8217;s the kicker: To prevent teams from drafting players&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nwilly-nilly, each Rule 5 pick must be kept in the major leagues the&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nentire following season or be offered back to his former team for half&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nof the $50,000 selection price. Few players are ready for such a jump,&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nso only about 10-15 get picked each year. Fewer still last the whole&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nseason in the big leagues.\\n&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&amp;#8220;They have to keep a guy for the whole year, so a lot of teams&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nare safe,&amp;#8221; says Paul Snyder, the Braves&amp;#8217; director of scouting and&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nplayer development. &amp;#8220;But there have been kids drafted out of A-ball.\\n&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&amp;#8220;(In 1984) Toronto got two guys (Lou Thornton&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nand Manny Lee) who could pinch-run and play defense. They&amp;#8217;re easier to&lt;br \\/&gt;\\ncarry in the American League because there aren&amp;#8217;t as many pitching&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nchanges.&amp;#8221;\\n&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;\\nOther miscellaneous Rule 5 rules and tidbits:\\n&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n&lt;ul&gt;\\n&lt;li&gt;The &amp;#8220;Rule 5&amp;#8221; moniker comes from its place in the Professional Baseball Agreement. The June draft, for instance, is Rule 4.&lt;\\/li&gt;\\n&lt;li&gt;Teams must file their 40-man rosters by Nov. 20, and only those not at the full allotment of 40 may select players.\\n&lt;\\/li&gt;\\n&lt;li&gt;Teams select in reverse order of that season&amp;#8217;s finish. The Devil Rays draft first, followed by the Royals and Cubs. \\n&lt;\\/li&gt;\\n&lt;li&gt;There are Triple-A and Double-A segments of the Rule 5 draft,&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nwith price tags of $12,000 and $4,000 respectively. Minor league&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nplayers not protected on the reserve lists at the Double-A and Class A&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nlevels are subject to selection, but almost no future big leaguers&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nemerge from this process. It&amp;#8217;s basically a tool for major league teams&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nto fill out affiliates rather than obtain talent.\\n&lt;\\/li&gt;\\n&lt;li&gt;In 1988, the Braves drafted a player from themselves. They&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nneglected to protect righthander Ben Rivera on the 40-man roster, had&lt;br \\/&gt;\\nthe first pick in the draft and took him.\\n&lt;\\/li&gt;\\n&lt;\\/ul&gt;\\n&lt;p&gt;&lt;\\/p&gt;\\n\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/rule-5-preview-devil-rays-looking-to-sell-first-pick-2977/>