The close of the MLB winter meetings every year is the Rule 5 draft, held Thursday morning. What exactly is it, and who was selected?
How the Rule 5 Works
Because it’s been widely reported over the years how MLB executives will show up to the Rule 5 with their luggage packed, if the primary team executive even bothers showing up, the Rule 5 draft has been seen as an after-thought of the winter meetings by many baseball fans over the years.
This couldn’t be farther from the case. While it is true that you don’t happen to find a Hall of Fame player, a Cy Young Award winner, or an MVP winner in every Rule 5 draft, the truth is that they have been part of the Rule 5. Roberto Clemente was originally selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates from the Dodgers organization as a Rule 5 selection. Johan Santana was selected as a Rule 5 selection in 1999. Josh Hamilton was selected as a Rule 5 selection in 2006.
Many people are aware of the major league portion of the Rule 5 draft, which leads to the drafted player needing to stay on the drafting team’s 25-man roster the entire next season or be offered back to the original drafting team. There are some ways around this, like selecting a player who has just had Tommy John surgery and placing him on the DL all season, but that simply delays the inevitable as the player is still required to achieve one year’s worth of service time before being sent to the minors, or be offered back to his original team.
What less people are aware of are the AA and AAA portions of the draft. These portions of the draft were originally put in place to facilitate movement of minor league players when there were terrible imbalances in the amount of minor league teams and finances available to fund those minor league teams for all organizations. It was supposed to allow for players in deep organizations to have a chance at the majors if they were stuck in a system with no major league job for the foreseeable future. The AA portion has been phased out starting this season, so it’s just referred to as the “minor league phase” or the AAA phase now.
The modern minor league portion of the Rule 5 is used primarily for roster filler purposes, i.e. getting a lefty reliever for the AAA club or getting a catcher for the upper levels, but there still are guys that come through that portion and are quite productive, including two World Series relievers in the last 20 years, Jeff Nelson and Guillermo Mota, who each were minor league Rule 5 selections.
Let’s take a look at this year’s selections, starting with the Major League portion of the draft!
Next: MLB Portion