Johanna Wagner, a lifelong baseball fan, visited all 30 MLB stadiums in one season, alone, for her book The View from the Stands.

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Editor's Note: Hunter Manchak has been away, so I thought I would dabble in the prospects corner and give a little lesson on the upcoming Rule V draft. Hopefully, Hunter will be back to give us some insight into it after the fact! --Thanks, Johanna

The Rule V draft is one of those interesting things you hear much about in baseball, but never really understand, so I thought, just before the 2007 winter meetings begin, it might be a great time to spell out all there is to know about this commonly referenced yet little explained phenomena of baseball.

The Rule V was first installed into the rules of baseball to keep teams with strong farms systems and lost of money from hoarding all the good players, and to allow those players drafted into good farm systems from getting stuck in a logjam.

The basic rules are pretty simple and are based upon your age at the time of signing your contract. If a player is signed at the age of 19 or older, spends four or more years in the minors and isn't on the 40-man roster, he's eligible for the Rule V draft. If he is 18 or younger its the same, except that they get to spend five years in the minors before having to be added to the 40-man.

Until the 2006 Collective Bargaining Agreement came into place, the criteria was three and four years, respectively. The new rules though allow teams to keep their best young prospects off the 40-man a little longer, thus sapping the Rule V talent pool. In the past couple of week, you may have noticed many teams adding players to their 40-man rosters. November 20th was the deadline to get your guys on your 40-man to keep them out of the draft. This is the time of year, when teams add players to protect them from other teams.

The draft itself will be held Thursday morning, December 6th. Its really the last event of the Baseball Winter Meetings. Like the June Amateur draft it goes in reverse order of finish from the previous season. A team who claims a player from another organization pays that organization $50,000 dollars, and must keep them on their 25 man roster the entire next season. If they fail to do so, they must offer the player back to the club he was claimed from, for $25,000. If the original club does not want him, then the player must pass through waivers, and if he makes it though waivers then he can be sent to the minors.

There is some strategy to this game, as sometimes a player will be removed from a team's roster because he makes enough because of a large contract and his skills have not matured enough, that a club might feel fairly secure that no one else will be willing to claim him and commit both another $50,000 and a season long roster spot. They also may have other players that are cheaper, and could be in more danger of being snagged, at least for a shot during spring training. Also, a team has to leave some space on their own 40-man to draft someone. That might be why it takes a couple of weeks to write a contract for Torii Hunter or Jorge Posada, so their teams don't need to add them to their roster until after the draft.

Though I am not as up on who is out there this year, keep your eyes peeled on the blog during the winter meetings, as I will share what I hear. Oh, and remember, there can be some impactful players that change hands on Thursday. Last year, the Reds got Josh Hamilton from the Devil Rays, when the Rays decided it was time to cut their losses. Hamilton was huge for the Reds this year. Oh, and there is a free agent this season you might have heard of that got his start in the big leagues through the Rule V draft: Johann Santana.

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