A New Perspective.

are you looking for the mother lode?
no! no, my child, this is not my desire,
and then he said,

i'm digging for fire
i'm digging for fire
i'm digging for fire
i'm digging for fire

one of the most interesting parts of the beautiful construct that is major league baseball is the rule 5 draft.

now, my wonderful friends, we have been introduced to the magnificent josh hamilton story, which has magnified the importance of the rule 5 draft.

***editor's note*** in 1999, when hamilton was originally drafted, i, being 15, jumped all over his bowman chrome rookie card, purchasing it for a sum around $6. i am finally starting to see a return on that investment. ***end editor's note***

here are the rules:

any team can take a guy from another team if that guy:

isn't on the 40-man roster
has been in the minors for at least 4 years if age => 19
has been in the minors for at least 5 years if age < 19

it's important to note that the rule 5 draft, historically, hasn't normally worked; most teams are stuck with a player who eats a hole in the roster. although, it's important to note that most teams that consistently need players from the rule v draft ain't tearin' it up with the sexiest 25 man rosters known to man.

still, the rule 5 draft allows us to test the concept of immersion, which has often been considered an effective way to teach the individual. for example, it is often posited that the best way for someone to learn a language is to go to a country and pick it up. some ambitious individuals communicate the entirety of a language class in that language from the start, and let people sink or swim. in some sense, this is what major league baseball has done in the past few years.

this is more pertinent than it has been in the past, mainly because teams are getting a whole lot better at picking the individuals who swim. the reds picked well this year with hamilton, although you have to wonder what the d-rays were exactly thinking leaving him off the roster. he had always been talented and still showed the flashes, which should have been enough credibility for any former #1 pick. however, the twins' ace, johan santana, was one of the rule 5 draft stars; the nl rookie of the year, dan uggla, was from this place, and other teams have found some legitimate players. in fact, the royals' joakim soria has been good this year as well.

now, here is the relevant question: why is it that these teams fail so horrendously in the talent evaluation department? particularly damning in this category is the uggla/padres case: why was uggla left off the 40-man roster? if you want me to spell it out for you, i will refer you to the following website: specifically, to the 2004 and 2005 seasons. link. what did uggla do wrong, exactly? what suggested he couldn't hit on a big league level?

i point to the following: age.

sabermetrics has come a long way, but one of its puzzling failings in the past few years has been related to player age. i can only assume that the d-rays and the padres gave up on hamilton and uggla because of age, but many players are maturing later and later in their careers. for one thing, college players may need a few years in the minors, particularly if they are drafted in the lower rounds. this is purely a logistical issue: you aren't going to start a tenth-round pick in aaa, aa, or really even high-a. however, by the time they get to aaa they are around 25 or 26 and are frequently considered too old to be prospects. a nice example of this might be ryan howard, who had a perfectly normal progression through the minors, but took some heat for being "old" for a prospect.

i could go on with the anecdotes, but let's look at these guys for guidance: along with ryan howard, we have seen an intense resurgence from adrian gonzalez (the #1 pick in 2000), a dominant tear by jack cust (it's been a few years since he was a legit prospect), and a "blue hot" start at aaa indianapolis from the #1 pick in 2003, bryan bullington. honestly, we gave up on these guys because... we don't really know anything about future performance?

no, that can't be it, because sabermetricians have gained some degree of infallibility over the past few years. in fact, for a long time i believed sincerely that the stats told a better story than my own eyes. k/bb ratios, age-level comparisons, those were the true eyes to the soul that is baseball immortality.

to some degree, it worked for billy beane, although for beane's genius, his best players were consistently no-brainer studs: chavez, zito and mulder were all first round picks, tim hudson was picked in the second round, and tejada had all the scouts salivating from day one. in some sense, moneyball backfired most severely with jason kendall: the stats couldn't project the magnitude of kendall's flaws. kudos to beane, however, for engaging in the "we're paying him a disastrous sum and he will play" logic. i like that.

i'm not saying that moneyball doesn't work, but i'm starting to believe that scouting works just as well, if not better. at long last, put me among the purists.

I WILL OVERANALYZE NO LONGER. and i will never give up the faith.

helton's last stand.

don't miss the end of an era.

it's early, but todd helton is hitting .383 and appears to be in the groove that he was in during the late '90s, which is a treat. and you had better watch it now, because helton's days are numbered in colorado.

when cardinals broadcaster wayne hagin openly accused helton of taking steroids, he unwittingly shook the confidence of one of the greatest pure hitters of our generation. this is a shame: a now-marginalized helton had the stigma of "doper" attached to him without due process. helton "over-reacted" at the time, but the damage had been done: when helton couldn't replicate the power numbers of the late 1990s, an anecdotal case was easily made that helton was using, and it's pretty likely that he'll be convicted by baseball writers when it's hall time. hopefully, that's not the case.

what compounds this problem for helton is the humidor effect: helton has had to reconstruct his swing to account for the fact that what the baseball used to do in colorado doesn't happen anymore. this has led to a pure emphasis on line drives, which is no longer good enough in our day and age. so helton had pressure to hit more home runs, but the baseballs were designed to make him hit less.

helton was one of the first players in colorado to be legitimized as being good without the "coors effect": you can make the case, of course, that galarraga was the first, but helton is the first home-grown rockie to really make it big. helton could hit anywhere, not just coors: he frequently hit over .300 on the road, with some power. coors aided his totals, but like tony gwynn and mark grace before him, helton could hit anywhere. that wasn't all: helton won three gold gloves, and is frequently viewed as a decent guy.

now, colorado has been looking to replace helton for some time now. helton's huge contract, coupled with his significant reduction in power have caused the rockies to think that they might need to look in another direction. that's a shame, considering helton helped the franchise through many lean years. the rockies have been unconscionably bad at times: a complete lack of desire to acquire pitching, coupled with an equal lack of desire to acquire premium bats have caused a once-promising franchise to suffer and become one of the worst in baseball. prospects exist to replace helton, but the probability of them being as good as helton is pretty low.

important note: there was talk last year of a trade that would have involved mike lowell and julian tavarez being dealt for helton, or, as we like to call it in baseball terms, $.20 on the dollar. in fact, helton had "slipped" to the point last year that he was being talked of as a red sox reserve, despite the fact that the red sox haven't had a legit first baseman since mo vaughn. and no, my friends, the wonderful kevin millar doesn't count, nor does the greek god of walks, the "youk."

because of decision-making skills like this, it's not likely that we'll see the rockies in contention during the rest of helton's career: the team has frequently refused to sign dominant pitchers, only succumbing twice in their not-so-storied history, and failing to hit paydirt both times. mike hampton succeeded for about half a season, and darryl kile didn't even succeed that long. because of this, the rockies are forced to outscore teams, which only really worked when galarraga, burks, and walker were dominant. by the way, larry walker is an obvious revolutionary who needs to be recognized. we marvel for the promise of sizemore, but let me alert you to the truth: larry walker was sizemore in a pure way. one of the saddest baseball moments was the demise of the 1994 expos- that team could have changed baseball in a way we can't hope to understand.

but i digress, because this should be all about the last stand of a proud warrior. helton is challenging .400 this year: maybe it won't last forever, but it will last for a time. helton is one of the only current players who even could hit .400: he has the eyes of a hawk (check out the BB/K ratio) which means he won't hack himself out of it; and he can hit line drives. in short, he is tony gwynn. there's something to be said for that.

so tune into your heroes now, before they get snatched from you. it's a tale that baseball has told for many generations.