The Rule 5 Draft is one of the bigger agenda items at the Winter Meetings. Big in the sense that it’s in the biggest room they have here, everyone goes to it and, unlike so many of the other official events, it’s one of the things that people may talk about throughout the season when discussing actual baseball. As opposed to, you know, a seminar about how to maximize bobblehead promotion days. Of which there are many similar events this week.
But it’s also a pretty nothing-event in person. There is no Rule 5 Mel Kiper. There is no equivalent to those crazy Jets fans who scream at their team’s picks.I just left it. The Major League portion lasted less than 15 minutes. About half the teams passed, either because they already had 40 men on the roster or else because they didn’t see anyone who they thought could make the team. The minor league portion lasted another 25 minutes tops. The whole thing began at 9 AM. People started leaving the room at 9:38.
The Rule 5 is explained nicely here, but I think the most important thing for casual fans to know about it is that if you take someone, they have to stay on the big club all year or else they must be offered back to their old team for a pittance. Which is why so many Rule 5 picks wind up on the disabled list with phantom injuries in the middle of the season: “we don’t want this guy on the major league team anymore, but we sure would like to keep him around,” the teams think. And then suddenly the guy has tendinitis or dead arm or some non-specific bone bruise someplace and gets stashed on the DL. It’s uncanny, really.
As for the picks, I know stuff about exactly two of them: Scott Diamond, a lefty on the Braves AAA team went to the Twins. He was kind of nice to have around, but really, if he was anything special the Braves wouldn’t have left him unprotected. Also, the Nationals took the Mets’ Elvin Ramirez, a pitcher who supposedly throws really hard but doesn’t know where he’s throwing it. There are a lot of guys like that in this thing.
Later on someone who knows more about non-elite AAA roster talent (i.e. the guys who get picked) will do a summary and we’ll point it out for you. The upshot, though: no one around here thinks that there’s any kind of real talent in this year’s Rule 5, and almost everyone who gets picked will be forgotten about by everyone except the hardcore prospect trackers by the time we all get to the Orlando airport.
