As mentioned on the blog earlier, the Oakland A’s went Rule 5-crazy this season, trading up to the overall first pick in the annual scrub hunt, grabbing Cleveland’s best outfield power-hitting prospect, Ryan Goleski, losing Jared Burton (who had stalled in AA anyway), and then picking up a lefty sidearm reliever in the shape of the White Sox’s Jay Marshall.

Lesser reported, but still important, is the second part of the Rule 5 Draft - the minor league section. See, in the major league Rule 5 draft, you have to keep the guys you pick in your major league squad for a full year or offer them back to their original team for $25k.

The minor league draft is different - and the A’s continued their drafting spree, picking up two more players from other teams, and this time losing none. That means the A’s brought in four players, and only lost one that, let’s face it, was on borrowed time. Huzzah!

The minor league draftees are RHP Andy Shipman (seen left) from the Chicago Cubs (AAA) and RHP Josh Alliston from the Milwaukee Brewers (also AAA).

Shipman went 2-3 with a 3.81 ERA in AAA Iowa last season, and was an All-Star for the AA-West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx in 2005. Alliston is a pitcher who has been impeded by injury problems, and according to Scout.com, he has pitched in only one full season before last year, when he went 5-3 with a 2.28 ERA and 9 saves. Both players will move into a AAA Sacramento squad that REALLY needs a little youth after the San Francisco Giants-like lineup of last season.

So who is Andy Shipman? Well, he’s an Air Force brat who pulled a fish tank over his head as a child and lost an eye when the thing smashed into his face. He now wears a glass eye, and though that was an issue with scouts, a season in the Alaska League pushed Boston into signing him to a free agent deal, and a trade took him to Chicago a year later, where he’s shown he can throw a ball just as well as anyone - glass eye be damned.

As for Josh Alliston… He throws hard, gets injured doing so, and looks like the guy on the right. That’s all I’ve got.