What in the name of Billy Beane is going on out there?
Honestly, deciphering the action of last Thursday's Major League Baseball first-year player draft puts organic chemistry to shame.
Robert Langdon had an easier time cracking the Da Vinci Code.
Sitting in front of my TV watching the first round of the MLB Draft left me as dazed and confused about a sporting event as I've ever been.
And I'm a Dolphins fan.
Last time I checked, there were 30 teams in the major leagues, but there were 46 picks in the first round of the draft.
You thought the National Football League draft was getting long, try being Mr. Irrelevant after 50 rounds of fun.
Even still, 2008 marked only the second year that the draft has been shown on television (the first couple rounds at least) and there was something to be said for actually watching my favorite team (the Mets) select guys I've never heard of, instead of just reading about it the next day.
There were even a couple of players I had heard of: Buster Posey (FSU), Yonder Alonso (Miami) and Gordon Beckham (Georgia) all went in the top 10.
Worse than my limited recognition of the player pool was my limited understanding of the proceedings and rules.
I can best compare it to watching a rugby match. You can tell it's something you should like, and you can tell who the badasses are, but if asked to explain it to a friend, you'd have no shot.
With UF sophomore shortstop Cole Figueroa going in the sixth round to the San Diego Padres and the taste of the first round selection of former first baseman Matt Laporta still fresh on the palate of Gators fans, the draft has become something to watch in Gainesville.
Even if it holds no more clarity than a bunch of Aussies giving each other what can only be described as piggy-back rides and getting into "scrums."
Figueroa alone represents an educational talking piece for casual fans attempting to immerse themselves in the complexities of the draft.
A player is draft eligible right out of high school, at any point in a junior college career or after three years at a four-year university.
I know what you're thinking, Figueroa did, in fact, play for the Gators. Not only that, but UF is handing out more than AA degrees and he just completed his sophomore year. Put all those observations together and Cole doesn't seem to meet draft criteria.
Except for the fact that he's turning 21 in June.
If a player turns 21 before the signing period ends, he becomes draft eligible regardless of the other conditions, making Figueroa a "draft-eligible sophomore" as my draft-savvy friend put it.
And if you read the Alligator on Tuesday, you also know that the Texas Rangers wanted to select him in the third round, but didn't based on something those in the bizz call "signability."
Since Figueroa has ample leverage in shunning a contract he deems unattractive and returning to school to raise his stock (and potentially his signing bonus), teams are wary of drafting a player of that sort.
No team wants to throw away a pick they have no chance of signing, which explains why he fell to the sixth round.
If the draft is California, then signability has a thick Austrian accent,because it is that concept which governs the draft itself.
It explains why teams often draft players they don't have at the top of their boards. They think they might have trouble signing them, so they play it safe with a player they know they can get into their farm system.
Another contributing factor to the head-scratching theory that teams don't take the player they perceive to be the best available, is the fact that picks cannot be traded.
Teams are locked into their slots (determined by worst-to-best records of the previous season and a few other convoluted stipulations) whether it makes sense to take the player they want at that spot or not.
Imagine the Dallas Cowboys had the fifth pick right after the Oakland Raiders in this year's NFL Draft. Jerry Jones knew for sure that he wanted a running back and nothing else, but there clearly wasn't another running back to be taken with the fifth pick after Darren McFadden was selected. Now had it been the MLB draft he would've powerless to trade that pick, inevitably reaching for Jonathan Stewart - or his guy Felix Jones - with the fifth pick.
In basketball and football, organizations don't have to worry about signability and they have the freedom to trade their picks. In baseball, you draft where you're designated to draft and you like it.
The anonymity of the players, inability of the organizations to draft the top talent and mind-numbing length make baseball's version of the draft look like the ugly red-headed sister of professional sports' drafts.
Furthermore, fans want star power at the top of the draft, and baseball largely fails to deliver in that category.
Since the first draft in 1965, not one No. 1 overall pick has made his way to Cooperstown. By comparison, the NBA inducted No. 1 overall picks David Thompson, Bill Walton, James Worthy and two guys named Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson over that same time span. You may have heard of O.J. Simpson, Terry Bradshaw, Earl Campbell and John Elway - the football equivalents.
Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Chipper Jones have all but punched their ticket to the Hall of Fame, so that trend won't last much longer, but while Dwight Howard and Carson Palmer were the first players off the board in their respective sports in 2004, the Padres took some guy named Matt Bush.
If baseball can offer one thing through its draft that the other sports cannot, it's a true Cinderella story.
Mike Piazza, a 62nd rounder, just retired as the best hitting catcher of all-time. The fact that he made the impossible journey from hearing more than 1,500 names called before his to being called "the best" at anything is a testament to the system that makes every last round of the marathon count.
So here's to hoping Avery Barnes (40th round) is the next Mike Piazza.
And here's to not being disappointed if shortstop Tim Beckham (first overall) isn't the next Alex Rodriguez.
