Rangers general manager Jon Daniels noted recently that only two pitchers taken in the Rule 5 Draft in recent memory have lasted the requisite full season for a team that reached the playoffs: the less-than-essential duo of right-hander Mike Neu (Oakland, 2003) and left-hander Lenny DiNardo (Boston, 2004).

Daniels and the rest of the Rangers front office, believing the 2006 Rangers have a meaningful shot to play post-season baseball, made the decision that the club had a better chance of getting there without devoting a bullpen spot to 21-year-old project Fabio Castro.

Kansas City owned the first pick in the December draft by virtue of finishing the 2005 season with baseball's worst record. But rather than take Castro or another eligible player left off his team's 40-man roster for themselves, the Royals accepted the Rangers' offer of 27-year-old utility infielder Esteban German for the draft rights to Castro, a 5-foot-7 left-hander who hadn't pitched above Class A in four seasons as a White Sox farmhand.

Rule 5 requires the drafting team to keep the player on its active Major League roster (or disabled list, with limitations) for the entire ensuing season, after which he becomes property of that team without any further special constraints. If at any point in time, whether in Spring Training or during the season, the drafting team decides not to keep the player in the big leagues, it must place him on waivers, giving every other organization the opportunity to take him on under Rule 5. If the player clears waivers, he must be offered back to his original team for $25,000, which is half of the original purchase price.

There are a number of examples of the drafting team, after getting the player through waivers, working out a trade with the original team in order to keep the player in its farm system instead of selling him back (Mitch Williams, Cecil Espy, and Marshall McDougall are Ranger examples).

But there are also trades engineered before a Rule 5 pick ever hits the waiver wire, and it has happened twice with Castro: the Royals, procedurally, were the team to draft Castro on December 8 before dealing him to Texas for German; and on June 29, the Rangers shipped the southpaw to Philadelphia for Double-A left-hander Daniel Haigwood, transferring to the Phillies the requirement that Castro spend the rest of the year in the Major Leagues.

It surprised some fans that the Rangers designated Castro for assignment on June 24 -- meaning they had 10 days within which to trade him, or place him on waivers and either lose him for nothing to a claim or get him through waivers and be forced to return him to the White Sox for $25,000 -- and yet, despite effectively cutting ties with the lefty, were still able to get a legitimate pitching prospect for him.

But Daniels knew he had serious offers from three clubs before he designated Castro, two of which interested the Rangers. Rather than go ahead and make one of those deals, the designation for assignment afforded Texas the opportunity to basically put the entire league on notice that Castro was going to be traded. It gave all interested teams a finite window of time within which to ante up. Philadelphia's offer of the 22-year-old Haigwood -- who ironically pitched on the same Class A staffs with Castro in the Chicago system in 2004 and 2005 -- prevailed, and Castro became a Phillie before ever hitting waivers.

Texas used Castro in only four big-league games (4.32 ERA, .200 opponents average in 8 1/3 innings) in his three-month tenure as a Rangers pitcher, half of which was spent on the disabled list due to a groin strain. Philadelphia got Castro into a game the day after acquiring him, getting three no-hit frames from him in an 8-1 loss.

The Phillies are done, with the Mets hopelessly out of view in the NL East and with seven teams ahead of them in the Wild Card chase. While it's certainly not what they had planned for this season, it does give them an opportunity to audition Castro that Texas, in a tight AL West race, felt it could no longer afford, especially with the Ranger rotation forcing the bullpen to work so hard. There are no spots in the Rangers' 'pen to experiment with.

Frankie Francisco and Josh Rupe could be back in the next month, and there's some thought that Kameron Loe could return to the club as a reliever once he's activated from the disabled list. It was going to be tough for Texas to keep Castro around if all three were to return to health and enter the bullpen picture. Daniels had a deal he liked with Philadelphia, and he moved.

As a result, Castro has gone from having never pitched above Class A to being Major League property of the Royals (briefly), the Rangers and the Phillies. If Texas was basically out of contention, as Philadelphia is, Castro might well have ended the season as a Ranger.