Some quick links

Charlie's got a good look at the Rule 5 draft today. With the Evan Meek situation, it's a particularly relevant topic for discussion right now. To throw in my own two cents (because you know I can't resist), the draft has become more of a fishing operation than it was originally intended to be, I think. It was initially intended to be a tool to punish actions like the Dodgers stowing Roberto Clemente in AAA or to give a guy like Josh Hamilton another chance and some of that still happens today, but more and more often it's become a tool for a team like the Pirates to try and snag a useful player out of the blue, even if he's not ready for the bigs it hurts his development.

Along the same lines, this story about the Pirates' new value on power arms is interesting. It's got a telling quote from Ian Snell:

"Are you kidding?" said Ian Snell, the Pirates' lone power starter. "Did you see Atlanta's bullpen? Every one of those guys came out throwing flames against us. And you know what? You look around at other teams' bullpens, and you see a lot of that now. Hopefully, Neal and the new people he's brought in will do a better job of finding guys like that for us."

It must be incredibly frustrating to play for a team run by Dave Littlefield.