The 2023 Rule 5 Draft will take place at the Winter Meetings in Nashville on Wednesday, Dec. 6. As always, it will give teams the opportunity to find future big leaguers at a discount, diamonds in the rough that weren’t protected on their current teams’ 40-man rosters.
It costs just $100,000 to take a player in the Major League phase of the Draft, and those players have to stick on the big league roster all year or get offered back to their former team for $50,000. And while it’s been rare for there to be true impact talent to come via the Rule 5, especially since the rules changed back in 2006, giving teams an additional year of evaluation time before having to make a roster decision, there have been big leaguers to come out of it every year.
Just take a look at last year’s Major League phase as proof. There were 15 players taken last December, and eight of them saw at least a little time in the big leagues during the 2023 season. Not all of them did it for the team that acquired them. (I’m not counting the teams that made Rule 5 trades, like the Giants acquiring Blake Sabol from the Reds or the Rays getting Kevin Kelly from the Rockies.) José López, for instance, was sent back to the Rays by the Padres before the start of the season, and he pitched in one game for Tampa Bay last June. Gus Varland started the season with the team that selected him, the Brewers, then got sent back to the Dodgers in May and got some time in Los Angeles later in the summer.
|
Three of the players finished with a bWAR above zero. Two of the players who finished in the negative still made major contributions, with Mason Englert tossing 56 innings for the Tigers and José Hernández also topping 50 innings pitched for the Pirates. The hero of the bunch might be A’s first baseman Ryan Noda, who played in 128 games and collected nearly 500 plate appearances. He’d be the Rule 5 Rookie of the Year if such a thing existed after hitting 16 homers and drawing 77 walks en route to a .364 OBP and a 2.3 bWAR. That was the second-highest 2023 total of any Rule 5 pick taken in the last 10 years, trailing only the Orioles’ Anthony Santander (3.0).
Kelly was the next highest at 0.7. He was a valuable member of the Rays’ bullpen all year, appearing in 57 games, finishing with a 3.09 ERA, 1.015 WHIP and .211 BAA. He topped all Rays’ relievers in innings pitched (67), though he was a tough omission from their postseason roster.
Finally, there’s Sabol (0.2 bWAR). He got 310 at-bats with the Giants during the season and hit 13 homers over his 110 games. He also provided some interesting positional flexibility, catching 55 games and appearing in 43 games in left field.
So we’re not necessarily talking about All-Stars here. The last Rule 5 All-Star was Ryan Pressly, a 2012 pick who has over 100 career saves, including back-to-back 30-plus save seasons, and was named to the American League All-Star team twice, in 2019 and again in 2021. But that doesn’t mean that teams can’t find valuable big leaguers who make solid contributions right out of the gate.
|
|
|
Which Rule 5 pick appeared in the All-Star Game as a rookie, his first year after being selected?
A. Shane Victorino
B. Dan Uggla
C. Josh Hamilton
D. Johan Santana
|
|
|
FROM FALL LEAGUE TO RULE 5? |
Teams will often send players to the Arizona Fall League to get a last look against good competition to help make decisions about roster spots. Sabol was in Arizona in 2022, for example, and while the Pirates opted not to protect him, the other 29 teams got some extra looks, too, and the Giants saw enough to acquire him from the Reds a year ago.
This year was no different. As we discussed on the MLB Pipeline Podcast last week, there were several players of interest in Arizona who were Rule 5 eligible. Juan Mejia of the Rockies earned a spot, while Oliver Dunn played well enough to get traded to the Brewers from the Phillies and get added to Milwaukee’s 40-man.
Not everyone who performed well was protected. Here’s a pair of arms who competed in this year’s Fall League who could follow Sabol’s path and be selected next month:
C.J. Van Eyk, RHP, Blue Jays: It’s not often a potential starting pitcher comes through the Rule 5, so Van Eyk should get some looks by rebuilding teams needing innings in a rotation. He’s a No. 4 or 5 type without a track record of durability (he missed 2022 following Tommy John surgery), but he has a legit four-pitch mix.
Anthony Hoopii-Tuionetoa, RHP, Rangers: While he’s yet to throw an inning above A ball, he’s the type of hard-throwing reliever who gets long looks come Rule 5 time. He’s up to the upper-90s with his fastball and has a hard slider to go along with it, and he didn’t give up a run during his AFL stint.
|
|
|
B. Uggla
Uggla hit 27 homers and drove in 90 runs for the Marlins in 2006 after they took him from the D-backs in the 2005 Rule 5 Draft. He represented them in the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh that July and finished third in National League Rookie of the Year voting. Victorino eventually was named an All-Star twice, in 2009 and 2011, but he was taken by the Phillies in the 2004 Rule 5 Draft. Hamilton went on to become a five-time All-Star and won an MVP Award, among other honors, but that didn’t happen until after the Reds traded him to the Rangers following a solid 2007 rookie campaign. Santana was a four-time All-Star who won two Cy Young Awards, but it took him a while to establish himself as one of the best left-handed pitchers in the game following the Twins taking him in the 1999 Rule 5.
|
|
|
FORWARDED FROM A FRIEND? SUBSCRIBE NOW
To subscribe to MLB Pipeline, visit your MLB Account page, check the "MLB Editorial" list under All League Newsletters and make sure you're following the Pipeline news section.
|
|
|
|
