What are the long-term talent implications of this deal for both clubs?

Getting out of Colorado will help Kile, although whether he can ever regain the form he showed with Houston in 1997 is in doubt. On the other hand, he will put up 200+ innings with a decent ERA, and that has value.

Veres goes into the bullpen, and should provide reasonable, if unspectacular, performance. Hackman is a standard Grade C pitching prospect, with an average fastball but decent secondary pitches. He was unlikely to experience success in Colorado (what pitcher is?), so moving to the Cardinals increases his chances of having a career from almost nil to below average.

Did the Cardinals give up too much to get Kile and Veres? If they made this trade to contend this coming year, then no. I've never been particularly excited about Jimenez. I know he threw that no-hitter last spring, and people like his sinker, but his minor league record is very mixed. His overall performance for the Cardinals last year does not give me great confidence.

I've always liked Aybar, but he hasn't quite put it together yet, and Colorado isn't the place to learn. Croushore did good work for the Cards last year, and I think he is a potential closer.

Butler is the biggest prospect name in the group. He looked like a potential star two years ago, but has developed little since. He is still young, makes contact, and has improved with the glove. The Cardinals have other options in the middle infield, so his loss is not catastrophic. He will probably play second base in Colorado, perhaps as soon as 2000, but more likely in 2001.

Overall, I think this trade works for both clubs. The Rockies get out from under Kile's contract, while picking up three cheap pitchers with the potential to get better. The Cardinals get two pretty good major league pitchers for their run at the wild card in 2000, in exchange for some players who have long-term value, but won't help much right away.

The Dodgers did some checking, and found that, indeed, Beltre's birth certificate from the Dominican showed that he was a year younger than they had thought. According to ex-GM Fred Claire, the Dodgers front office had never officially checked the certificate, trusting the scout who signed Beltre to follow the rules.

Similar cases have resulted in the player being named a free agent, which is the solution that Boras is pushing for. There are several interesting points regarding this case that I would like to discuss.

First of all, these rules exist to prevent major league organizations from taking advantage of desperate, poverty-stricken children in Third World nations. I believe that enforcement of these rules should be strict, and in general I think the usual remedy, free agency for the player involved, is appropriate.

On the other hand, there is no evidence that the Dodgers acted maliciously in this case. I suspect that we will never know the truth about exactly what happened here. Did the scout lie? Did Beltre lie to the scout about how old he has? Was it just a paperwork error?

Surely, Beltre knew that he was younger than everyone thought. I'm not faulting a 15-year old kid from the Dominican Republic from taking the money and signing. But it does seem awfully convenient that this came up just now, rather than two or three years ago when Beltre was just a prospect, rather than an established major leaguer.

I can see a bad precedent developing, where kids deliberately lie about their age, get signed, turn into prospects, reach the majors and do well, then reveal the truth if their financial demands are not met, hoping for early free agency.

Teams should be able to prevent this by strictly following the rules and always getting a valid birth certificate, but there are probably other cases just waiting to pop up. My gut tells me that Beltre's case won't be the last of its kind. Twenty-nine farm directors are probably rifling through their files as we speak, checking the birthdays of all their hot Latin American prospects.

It's tempting to want the rules changed, to say that teams signing a kid too young should just be fined, or lose a draft pick, or something like that, rather than the player getting to be a free agent. I don't think that's a good idea. What's to stop a team like the Yankees from signing 13-year olds, then just paying the fine from their spare change? Or from giving the kid a $10,000 bonus, then treating a $1 million fine as an investment, rather than a punishment? No, the rules need to be strict, to protect the kids. Yes, there is the potential for abuse with the current system, but abuse can be controlled if the rules are followed strictly.

Some people are using this incident as further evidence that Boras is the Anti-Christ. I don't think that's true; he's more like a mid-level demon, like many lawyers. Boras is really good at what he does, which is getting his clients as much money as possible. Personally, I think it is possible to do that without being excessively confrontational.

I've never had much use for Boras' hard-line, loophole-exploiting tactics. We don't know how long Boras sat on this information, waiting for the right opportunity. Until we know, it really isn't fair to speculate about it. Even if the worst is true, the situation is still ultimately the fault of the Dodgers front office. Boras may be ethically-challenged, but no side in baseball has a monopoly on questionable morality.

But we do know that the rules were broken, and I expect that Beltre will be granted free agency. It's not fair for Dodgers fans or for the organization, whose current leadership had nothing to do with the error. But that's what sloppy paperwork will do to you, as the Expos, Giants, White Sox, and Twins found out in the 1996 draft, when they lost their top choices because of a stupid administrative oversight.

How much money will Beltre get if he goes free agent? I doubt he'll get top-dollar, since he has just a year and a half of major-league experience. But he'll get a very substantial raise, and he will be worth it.

The whole thing means that Beltre hit .275 with 15 homers in the major leagues, in Dodger Stadium, at the age of 20. It's rare enough to do that at age 21, but at 20? That's Hall of Fame talent, folks.