Cody Snavely
One of the key dates in the Major League Baseball offseason is the Rule-5 Draft, which will be held this winter on Wednesday, December 11th, during the annual Major League Baseball Winter Meetings in Dallas, Texas.
If you need a breakdown of how Rule 5 works, every player begins their Rule 5 clock when they sign their first professional contract. If they are 18 years old or younger on June 5 of the year they sign, they will not become Rule 5 eligible until after their fifth professional season. If they are 19 or older on June 5 of their signing year, they have four years before becoming eligible for Rule 5. Organizations can add Rule 5 eligible players to their 40-man rosters to prevent them from being taken by other teams.
Last year, the Los Angeles Dodgers added three players to their 40-man roster to protect them from Rule-5 draft selection: right-handed pitchers Landon Knack, Nick Frasso, and catcher Hunter Feduccia.
After the Dodgers DFA’d right-handed pitcher Connor Brodgon last week, with the righty opting for free agency, the Dodgers’ 40-man roster currently sits at thirty-seven players, leaving three spots open for Rule-5 eligible players they’d like to protect.
The current list of Rule-5 eligible players in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization goes as follows:
- Austin Gauthier, SS
- Damon Keith, OF
- Jack Dreyer, LHP
- Antonio Knowles, RHP
- Ben Harris, LHP
- Ryan Sublette, RHP
- Kelvin Ramírez, RHP
- Orlando Ortiz-Mayr, RHP
- Jake Vogel, OF
- Griffin Lockwood-Powell, C
- Michael Hobbs, RHP
- David Tiburcio, RHP
- Gabe Emmett, RHP
The deadline to add any of these players to the 40-man roster to protect their selection is Tuesday, November 19th. The only prospect that stands out on this list is shortstop Austin Gauthier, who hit .253/.374/.359 with a .733 OPS in between Double-A and Triple-A last season.
Unlike traditional drafts, a team does not have to make a selection, with most organizations opting not to take a pick at all. The reason is that when a player is taken in the Rule-5 Draft, said player would have to be added to the selecting team’s 26-man roster for the full season or return to the former team.
Last year, the Dodgers only lost two unranked players, Carson Taylor and Darlin Pinales, so it’ll be interesting to see who else could potentially be in another organization out of this pool.
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