The Rule 5 draft took place this morning. It’s traditionally the last thing that happens at the Winter Meetings, so there’s a bittersweet element to it I suppose. We all have to go home today. We all get to go home today. It’s like any vacation story I suppose.
It’s not a terribly interesting event in and of itself, however. It moves quickly. Most “rounds” as it were involve teams passing on a selection. As it is limited to players who (a) have a good amount of minor league service time; but (b) are still not on their club’s 40-man roster, the vast majority of names of available and selected players are anonymous to all but the most hardcore fans and/or prospect watchers.
Of course there are some notable historical exceptions. Johan Santana was a Rule 5 guy once upon a time. As was Josh Hamilton and Shane Victorino and Dan Uggla. But finding good major league regulars in the Rule 5 is pretty rare. And they have to be good enough to be major leaguers at least, because anyone who selects a player in the major league portion of the Rule 5 draft has to keep them on their big league roster -- the 25-man roster, not the 40-man -- all year or else he is returned to his original club. Of course teams can and often do DL Rule 5 guys with dubious injuries in order to stash them, but that’s another topic altogether.
In any event, 45 guys were selected in the Rule 5 draft this morning. Only nine of those were in the major league portion:
- The Astros drafted lefty Patrick Schuster from the Diamondbacks;
- The White Sox drafted catcher Adrian Nieto from the Nationals;
- The Phillies drafted righty Kevin Munson from the Diamondbacks;
- The Rockies drafted righty Tommy Kahnle from the Yankees;
- The Blue Jays drafted lefty Brian Moran from the Phillies;
- The Brewers drafted lefty Wei-Chung Wang from the Pirates;
- The Diamondbacks drafted righty Marcos Mateo from the Cubs; and
- The Orioles drafted third baseman Michael Almanzar from the Red Sox
Beyond that? a lot of minor league selections of no real note. Save one: Russell Wilson. Yes, the Seattle Seahawks QB. He was a second baseman in the Rockies system once upon a time. And though his baseball days are clearly over, the Texas Rangers selected him. Why? According go Ken Rosenthal of Fox, the Rangers want him in-house, in effect, to give motivational speeches and stuff next spring. For real.
Which, when you look at the value of most of the Rule 5 picks, you realize is not all that bad use of these particular resources.
