As I'm sure you've probably heard, the stock market isn't doing particularly well these days. So naturally, you should look to invest elsewhere: bonds, t-bills, Indians minor league pitchers.

Yep, there's an Indians minor leaguer named Randy Newsom who's currently on the market.

Real Sports Investments is offering four percent of the future Major League salary of the pitcher, a reliever in the Cleveland Indians system. RSI is selling a total of 2,500 shares at $20 per share. Each share will entitle the owner to 0.0016% of Newsom's future earnings in the big leagues.

Now like any potential investor, you probably want to know how good Newsom is. The 25-year-old pitcher split last season between Single-A and Double-A. In 57 games, he went 4-2 with 18 saves and a 2.80 ERA. Not bad, but he's pretty low on the totem pole for someone who's 25.

Currently, the Major League minimum is $390,000 per year. Newsom would have to make $1,250,000 in his career for you to break even at $20 per share at 0.0016 %. Basically, he would have to be good enough to hang around for three years in the Majors. That doesn't seem real likely.

But the concept here is pretty interesting. Imagine if you could do this for all MLB farmhands. If you had been able to put money down on guys like Ken Griffey Jr., Bonds, and A-Rod when they were coming up, you'd have made a few bucks by this point in time.

Of course, there are also some negatives to this strange idea, like a starter suddenly "disappearing," thereby giving a bench player - who's got a lot of financial backing from, say, the mob - the chance to climb the minor league ladder faster.

In all honesty, I'm not sure why baseball is even letting this stunt go on. But hey, if they open this to prospects that aren't perpetual Single and Double-A players, I might have to throw a few bucks down on one of them at some point.