April 1, 2009
The Rule 5 Experiment
On December 11, 2008 the Arizona Diamondbacks selected catcher James Skelton from the Detroit Tigers as part of the Rule 5 Draft. Many Diamondbacks fans were left scratching their head wondering first “who is James Skelton” and second, “what in the world do the Diamondbacks need another catcher”. A Rule 5 selection is a dicey proposition at best. Sometimes you strike it rich like in the case of Johan Santana, Josh Hamilton, and the Diamondbacks very own Dan Uggla but in most cases the player fails to pan out and the team is left for all intents and purposes with a 24 man roster. I’m not going to go into the minute details of the Rule 5 process, I’ll leave that discussion to the baseball academia or those who get even less sleep than I do. Instead I wanted to give my read on the James Skelton situation and what I think it says about the Diamondbacks and their farm system.
