Rule 5 Draft – BA List, Athletics Nation, and Dustin Martin

The Rule 5 draft is held at the end of the Winter Meetings which run from December 7th-10th this year.  Always on the ball, Baseball America’s John Manuel posted his Early Rule 5 Draft Preview today.  In it Manuel gives us 10 names with a brief write-up for each, and quickly mentions another 10 players to watch on top of that.  On top of the 20 players Manuel identifies, there are some guys performing in the Caribbean Winter Leagues that might be worth a look.

Over on Athletics Nation in the midst of 2010 Offseason Blueprint 2.0, the author mentions the names of Yohan Pino and Aneury Rodriguez and gives fairly detailed write-ups on both players.  Manuel touched on Pino in his post, so check out both links to get two takes on him.  I’ve quoted part of what Athletics Nation had to say about Rodriguez.

"As a 21-year-old in the AA Southern League, Rodriguez allowed 122 hits in 142 innings with a K-to-walk ratio of 111-to-59. In 588 minor-league innings, Rodriguez has struck out nearly a batter per inning with a k-to-walk ratio of 8-to-3.1."

CF-Dustin Martin (25) was selected by the New York Mets in the 26th round of the 2006 draft.  On July 30th, 2007, he was traded to the Minnesota Twins along with C-Drew Butera in exchange for 2B-Luis Castillo.  Capable of playing LF and RF, Martin has spent 261 of his 323 games played in CF.  During the 2009 season he hit 0.254/.319/.351 in 422 AB for Triple-A Rochester.  It was his first taste of AAA, and the first time that his slash stats have deviated from his career marks of 0.285/.354/.418.  Martin is currently playing in the Venezuela Winter League for Tigres de Aragua.  In 138 AB he has hit 0.297/.402/.457 with 25 BB and 33 SO.  He is capable and ready to contribute at the major league level in 2010 and that fact alone makes him an attractive and reasonable selection for a team like the Royals.  If he can carry over the improved plate discipline he has displayed this winter, he could hold down CF in Kansas City for a year or two and then shift into a 4th OF role.  He doesn’t have quite the pop that Mitch Maier has, but he is almost 2 years younger and has maintained better SB numbers throughout the minors, which should pique the interest of Dayton Moore.  Martin over Maier could be a push in the long term, but Martin over Josh Anderson would be a fairly decent upgrade.  It doesn’t hurt his cause that he can actually play solid defense.  If you’d like to read more about him, click here.

So there you have tonight’s potential Rule 5 target: Dustin Martin.  I’m going to try suggest and profile at least one player each day leading up to the Rule 5 draft on the 10th.

(Wally Fish is Kings of Kauffman’s lead blogger.  Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)