The Rule 5 Draft Cometh

The Major League Rule 5 draft will be held on December 8. Teams have already made most of their 40-man roster decisions in preparation for draft day, but there’s still time for a few more cuts or trades to open spots. The owners are also threatening to enforce a lockout beginning on December 1 which would probably push back the Rule 5 draft to an undetermined time.

If you’re not familiar with the Rule 5 draft, it’s an opportunity for teams to steal players from other clubs. Said players must not be on a 40-man roster now and must remain on the active roster of their new club for a full service year. There’s more to it than that, but it’s unimportant to us as fantasy players. All we need to know is that some relatively untouted prospects are going to be jammed onto major league rosters for an entire year.

In 2015, the big names (from a fantasy perspective) were Joey Rickard and Tyler Goeddel. Not a big deal, eh? Rickard was useful very early in the season while Goeddel was a star in May and otherwise awful. The 2014 draft included Odubel Herrera, Delino DeShields, and Mark Canha. They contributed to some fantasy titles.

This time around, there’s another complicating factor – the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Discussing that drama is better left to the folks on the main site. However, one bargaining point is relevant here – the potential expansion of the active roster to 26 players.

A larger roster would make it easier for a team like the Phillies or Padres to invest in a long term project like Jairo Beras. He’s a high upside, raw prospect in the Rangers system. He’ll turn 21 in a month. Beras hit 22 home runs at High-A last season, but he also showed terrible plate discipline with a five percent walk rate and 27 percent strikeout rate. Overall, he hit .262/.306/.511. With the current 25-man rosters, it would be exceedingly difficult to hang onto Beras. If a 26th spot was available, the lost roster flexibility would be easier to swallow.

Players like Beras are of interest to dynasty league owners. However, the general population of fantasy managers want instant gratification. Baseball America put together their early preview of the best available players. This year, it’s headlined by a bunch of arms and a utility man. They’ll put out a larger list for subscribers in a few days. Chris Mitchell of the FanGraphs prospect team has also released KATOH’s review of the Rule 5 eligible players.

Baseball America is probably the best place to evaluate Rule 5 eligible players. It requires a lot of resources and scouting contacts to scour the minors so thoroughly. Even so, BA is prone to missing on some top picks. The aforementioned Class of 2014 was headlined by Herrera. Prior to the ’14 draft, J.J. Cooper profiled over 80 eligible players. It was an excellent and thorough article – seriously, go back and scan through it, you’ll recognize several names. Herrera was conspicuously absent.

This time around, Mets utility man Phillip Evans looks like an early contender for the most useful fantasy pick. Regardless of whether or not rosters expand by a player, Evans’ nose for contact, modest power, and defensive utility should give him a shot at 300 plate appearances for a new club. Last season, he hit .335/.374/.485 in 386 Double-A plate appearances with eight home runs. Teams will have to decide if they believe in his power breakout – his .150 ISO was twice what he posted over his previous 1,500 minor league plate appearances.

At this stage of the game, it seems unlikely any Rule 5 picks will be worthy of fantasy consideration next March. As we did with Herrera, DeShields, Rickard, and Goeddel, we’ll have to wait and see who garners a regular role in the lineup. As for pitchers, the best Rule 5 relievers usually emerge later in the season as they slowly work their way out of mop up duties to high leverage work. Starters, like Sean Gilmartin, usually take more than a year to emerge.