You probably didn’t pay much attention to the Rule 5 draft last week, since not very much happened Cardinals-wise. In the minor league Rule 5 draft, they did lose Steven Hill — you can read more about that at Viva El Birdos.

And, also at Viva El Birdos, you’ll see the Cardinals drafted Jay Voss from the  Tigers and Matt Cerda from the Cubs in the minor league draft. Neither of those names likely means very much to you — Voss is a 26-year-old left-handed pitcher who’s recovering from elbow surgery and never pitched above Double A, and Cerda is a 23-year old third baseman who recently moved from second base.

Cerda also was — as Dan at Viva El Birdos describes it — “part of the whole Danny Almonte thing.” Yes, you’re remembering that name correctly. Almonte was the 12-year-old pitcher in the 2001 Little League World Series who was blowing everyone away … because he really was 14 and not 12.  Cerda was the final batter who faced Almonte in a semifinal game that Almonte’s Bronx team won.

ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” has a great, very long piece on both Cerda and Almonte that you can read here. It’s definitely worth the time it takes — very interesting and a terrific read, although it makes me wonder what Cerda’s minor league career has really been like up to this point.

Enjoy!