I'm currently researching something I've been wondering for a while, and I've came across a question that I can't readily find an answer to.

When reading about the Rule 5 draft it states

Players are eligible for selection in the Rule 5 draft who are not on their major league organization's forty man roster and:

- were signed at age 19 or older and have been in the organization for four years; or

- were signed at age 18 or younger and have been in the organization for five years.

Now I fully get what that says, I just don't get how it's calculated. Service time is easy, and well covered - this.. I'm not finding much.

For example:

If a player is drafted and signs quick and then goes and plays short season ball (or A, AA). Is his "years been in the organization" starting the day he signed? What about the draft picks that don't start until the next year? Or the ones that pitch a couple of games (IIRC, like Lynn) and get shut down for the season.

I guess I'm just trying to see what exactly constitutes a year in MLB eyes. Service time is very precise on how it's calculated, but I'm not sure *when* teams are required to use the 40 man. If I can define what they mean by "years", it should be easier to find out, but the CBA doesn't have anything that I can see.

Any idea?

I had a brutal year all in all. Top of my draft was HanRam due to getting a low draft spot. Struggled most of the year fighting to catch up to the El Hombre, Lincecum owners. Slid in and picked up Carp and things were looking really, really good.

Then Hamilton and Santana happened... I finished third. I think I'm getting tired of the draft approach as is and the way points are commonly awarded - though this could be some loser talk going on.

So I'm curious, how'd ya do? Any kickass trades/pickups that pulled you to the top? Where'd ya play? If the league you ran would do things differently, what would it be?

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When Glaus exited the game last night due to watering issues, I started looking up some stats in the small amount of games played so far. Honestly, I thought he was having a hard time of it and was pulled. I mean, striking out twice with bases loaded had to be demoralizing on its own. But when I caught the quip over at PD about him having issues seeing at night in St Louis I thought I'd take a look.

Wow, to say the least. Our 3B is seriously having some trouble. This is a seriously small sample size, for obvious reasons. But even still, consider this.

Games in St Louis this year : 12
In 7 night games (24 AB) he's done
.125/.214/.125 with 3BB, and 8Ks
In 5 day games (16 AB) he's done
.375/.500/.375 with 4BB and 2Ks

Something is clearly wrong with him here at night. That's just over 30% of the games we've played so far. It really dents his numbers.

For the record, if you take out his Home Night games this year and then look at his numbers, they really clean up quite a bit.

All games - Home night games : 16
In those games he's put up .328/.426/.517 with 19 hits (11 doubles) 10BB/9K

Hardcore's infamous 40 acres fanpost noted the following line as a guideline -.279/.375/.505 for a clean up hitter. Now, while Glaus' numbers will regress some, it's clear that we may very well have our guy, if we could pinpoint what's going on with him at home at night. Food for thought.

As with all things medical, finding out how long this issue has been going on from the Cardinals is something I'd highly doubt. But clearly, the watery eyes is far from excuse, there's something there.

I haven't dug around the entire SB blogs to gather sentiment and I really don't care to, I haven't really even looked at our own. But I wanted to take a post and say this real quick.

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