Rule 5 pick Herrera looks like a smart gamble

CLEARWATER, Fla. - A decade from now, Rusney Castillo and Yoan Moncada might be the best players in baseball. If that's the case, the Boston Red Sox will probably have added a World Series trophy to their showcase at Fenway Park, and the Phillies will likely be publicly flogged in all five of the city's squares.

Even now, long before we know what is to become of Castillo and Moncada, there is a great divide between the perceptions of the Red Sox and Phillies, two teams that finished at the bottom of their divisions a year ago. Only one of the two is expected to finish there again in 2015, and it's not the Red Sox.

Boston charted its rapid rebuilding project with a flurry of moves that started at last season's trade deadline and continued right through the news Monday that they had agreed to sign the highly touted Cuban infielder Moncada for $63 million.

Castillo, an outfielder from Cuba, signed with the Red Sox for $72.5 million last August and joined the team in September.

The Phillies claimed in both cases that they had interest in the two Cubans, but they were not prepared to invest the combined $135.5 million it took to get them. Likewise, they balked at signing power-hitting Cuban Yasmany Tomas, who went to Arizona on a six-year deal worth $68.5 million.

Fan frustration over the Phillies' reluctance to finish at least one deal with the influx of young Cuban position players in the last few years is understandable. The Phillies desperately need offensive help, and they have the cash it would have taken to get one of those deals done, so why not take the plunge into the deep end of the international talent pool?

The reality is they chose not to, and time will determine whether it was a good decision or a bad one. History tells us that moves never made can become the best ones and that glossed-over transactions can be more valuable than the ones that required news conferences and millions of dollars.

Pat Gillick's three-year tenure as general manager was proof of that.

Gillick's best move was the $850,000 free-agent signing of Jayson Werth, and his worst was the free-agent signing of Adam Eaton for three years and $24 million.

Two years before the Werth addition, with Ed Wade in the role of general manager, the Phillies selected Shane Victorino in the Rule 5 draft, and he will return one day to be placed on the team's Wall of Fame beyond the center-field walls.

It's possible the Phillies made a similar move this offseason when they selected Odubrel Herrera from the Texas Rangers with the eighth pick in the Rule 5 draft. Those kinds of picks are always a crap shoot, but this one looks like the best selection since Victorino for a number of reasons.

It should be easier than ever for the Phillies to keep Herrera on the 25-man roster the entire season, because they do not have the pressure of trying to contend.

Herrera, 23, has also given them plenty of reasons to be excited about his selection. He won the double-A Texas League batting title last summer and hit a combined .315 with 19 doubles, five triples, and two home runs between high-A Myrtle Beach and double-A Frisco.

The Rangers still did not feel the need to protect Herrera because they considered him a utility infielder with little power. He has just 13 home runs in 2,597 minor-league plate appearances.

But then Herrera went to winter ball in his native Venezuela this offseason and hit .372 with 23 extra-base hits and a .988 OPS in 58 games. He also stole eight bases without being caught and started to make the transition to the outfield, where the Phillies want him to play.

"That's nothing but a positive," general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said. "It doesn't mean he made our club, but after watching the bat speed he generates, it's exciting. Can he play in the major leagues? I don't know. Is he going to get an opportunity to be on our club? Absolutely. One of our goals is to try to get younger and more athletic. He is younger, and he is more athletic, and he's a pretty good hitter."

Mike Ondo, the Phillies' director of professional scouting, has organized the team's Rule 5 draft since 2004, the year the team picked Victorino, and when Herrera's name showed up on the list of unprotected players, he was excited.

"The name was there, and we knew we liked the offense," Ondo said. "We always did, and, obviously, he took off this year, and he carried it over in winter ball. We had a lot of information on him, because [Phillies assistant minor-league field coordinator] Jorge Velandia was running the club in Venezuela. He was with the kid on a daily basis. It was fun the way he finished up down there. It makes you feel good about your pick."

Herrera felt good about being picked, too.

"Jorge told me Philadelphia was trying to get me," Herrera said Tuesday, after the first full-squad workout at the Carpenter Complex. "I was happy when I woke up and looked at Twitter and I read they took me."

Asked whether he knew who Victorino was, Herrera flashed a smile and said he did.

The Phillies, of course, would be pleased if Herrera could repeat Victorino's Philadelphia story, and those Cubans they did not sign would do well to duplicate the Flyin' Hawaiian's big-league career.

@brookob