Bucs select John Raynor in Rule 5 Draft

With the second overall pick in the 2009 Rule 5 Draft, the Pirates selected OF John Raynor from the Florida Marlins. Raynor will hope to follow in the footsteps of both Evan Meek and Donnie Veal, who were the Pirates last two Rule 5 picks.

The rules of the Rule 5 Draft state that Raynor must be on the Major League roster for all of 2010 or he will be returned to his former team. The Pirates were able to keep their last 2 picks, however Raynor will be a little more difficult to retain.

The Pirates' outfield is crowded as it is and GM Neal Huntington said in a press conference that Raynor is "going to have to come in and compete" to make the club out of spring training. That line of thinking is a little different than the cases of both Meek and Veal where there was essentially no way the club was going to return either of them.

Now let's get into some information about John Raynor:

He was selected by Florida in the 9th round of the 2006 draft and was named the Marlins' Minor League Player of the Year in 2007 after winning the South Atlantic League Player of the Year Award with a very impressive campaign where he hit .333/.429/.519 with 54 stolen bases. He followed that with another solid year in AA in 2008 where he hit .312/.402/.489 with 48 stolen bases.

However, Raynor suffered a setback in 2009 in his first season in AAA as he hit just .255/.326/.357 with just 18 stolen bases.

I was pretty surprised when I heard about this pick because I thought Huntington would surely take another pitcher. I also think it will be pretty tough for Raynor to get a roster spot, but if he impresses in March, he will come up north as the club could use him for his speed and his defense. And who knows, if last year was just a minor hiccup, the Pirates could have possibly found someone pretty special.