As far as drafts go, the Rule 5 draft is among the most subdued. It involves minor league prospects — and typically not the best ones — and marks the end of the winter meetings. Executives will bring their luggage to the Nashville event then race out of the building (generally trying to avoid reporters) once the last pick is made. Other drafts come with excitement; executives are most excited when this draft ends and they can leave.
But if you need to be reminded about the occasional importance of the Rule 5 draft, just ask the Yankees, whose system has taken several hits over the past 10 years.
Go back to 2013, when the Yankees lost Tommy Kahnle. The then-minor league righty had a strong season at Double-A with the Yankees before he went unprotected, which allowed the Rockies to grab him. Kahnle’s first three-and-a-half major league seasons were spent elsewhere before the Yankees could reacquire him.
In 2020, it was prospect Garrett Whitlock whom the Yankees did not add to the 40-man roster, allowing the Red Sox to swoop in and draft him. Whitlock has been mostly strong for three seasons in Boston and recorded the final out in the 2021 wild-card game that knocked the Yankees from the playoffs.
Eleven picks after Whitlock, Cleveland selected Trevor Stephan from the Yankees’ system. The righty reliever has been a solid option out of the Guardians’ bullpen since and signed a four-year extension in March.
The Rule 5 draft does not have the hype or starpower that the actual MLB draft holds, but it does carry real stakes. The Yankees’ fortunes would have been even worse if Nestor Cortes, grabbed by the Orioles in the ’17 draft, had lasted with Baltimore.
That is the large conditional that waters down any excitement associated with the draft: Draftees must last an entire season in the majors with their new team. The new team cannot option that player to the minors; if removed from the major league roster (apart from injury reasons), the player must be offered back to his original team.
Kahnle lasted a full season with Colorado, Whitlock with Boston and Stephan with Cleveland, and thus all became full-fledged members of their new organizations (and thus, in ensuing years, could be optioned to the minors). Cortes pitched in four big-league games with the Orioles, who had seen enough and sent the lefty back to the Yankees, with whom he later emerged as a legitimate starter.
This year’s version of Prospect Christmas arrives Wednesday at 2 p.m., when the Yankees and Mets will hope their systems are ignored and may try to augment with selections of their own. The very best prospects are generally off-limits because only a segment of minor leaguers are Rule 5 eligible: Prospects need to have played at least four or five minor league seasons (depending on what age they signed) and cannot be on a 40-man roster.
So teams ensure that their most valued prospects become untouchable by adding them to their 40-man rosters. The Yankees have done as much with righty Clayton Beeter and catchers Agustin Ramirez and Carlos Narvaez. The Mets added outfielder Alex Ramírez to their 40-man roster.
The Rule 5 picks that work out the most tend to be relief pitchers and sometimes catchers. There are plenty of untested but big arms in the minors who break out with another team, and a quality backup catcher sometimes can be hidden on a roster for a full season without too much issue. The Mets — who have a thin bullpen with plenty of fliers — might be active, while the deep Yankees probably will not make a pick.
Dozens of prospects on both local teams were left unprotected. Who could become the next Kahnle, Whitlock or Stephan?
Yankees
RHP Mitch Spence: MLB teams are searching everywhere for innings, desperate for pitchers who can help them survive the full season. How about the pitcher who led the entire minor leagues in innings pitched? Spence was solid (if not spectacular) for the pitching-deep Yankees, posting a 4.47 ERA in 163 innings with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. His ERA was high, but so were many ERAs in a league that had adopted the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System, an experimental electronic strike zone that skewed results. Spence’s ERA was the 14th best among 64 pitchers who had logged at least 15 starts.
The Yankees’ minor league workhorse is 25, has a deep repertoire with a low-90s fastball with cut and several secondary pitches, including a strong slider. Would his stuff play up in another team’s bullpen?
LHP Edgar Barclay: As a soft-tossing, 5-foot-10 lefty who excels partly with deception, the Cortes comparisons always will follow Barclay. The 25-year-old from Hawaii uses a different arsenal, though — primarily a go-to changeup — to work his way through lineups. Barclay bounced between the bullpen and rotation last season (which finished with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and with a combined ERA of 3.91) and could stick in the majors as a long arm out of the bullpen.
RHP Matt Sauer: The Yankees’ second-round pick in 2017 — the same draft that netted Clarke Schmidt — has faced a long, injury-filled road. He needed Tommy John surgery in 2019 and missed the first two months of his 2023 season with a forearm strain. Sauer, throwing in the mid-90s and with a good slider, was excellent down the stretch with Double-A Somerset, though, and might be targeted as either rotation depth or bullpen help.
IF Jared Serna: In a free-agent market with limited position-player options, could a team take a swing at Serna? The Yankees’ No. 20 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, is a 21-year-old with excellent minor league numbers but no upper-minors experience. He was signed out of Mexico in July 2019, and the pandemic pushed his debut until 2021. By 2023, he was showing good strike-zone discipline and an advanced approach with Class-A Tampa and High-A Hudson Valley, with whom he slashed a combined .284/.350/.463. Asking him to make the jump to big-league pitching seems steep, but perhaps a non-contending team doesn’t mind carrying a flexible backup infielder for a season.
Other possibilities: RHP Sean Boyle, C Josh Breaux, OF Elijah Dunham, OF Brandon Lockridge
Mets
RHP Coleman Crow: This would be an outside-the-box selection. Crow came to the Mets from the Angels in the Eduardo Escobar trade but still has yet to make his organizational debut. The righty required Tommy John surgery in August, which should keep him out until at least next August (and perhaps until 2025).
But a savvy team could take a flier on Crow and hope he returns as strong as he had looked with Anaheim, with whom he posted a 1.88 ERA in four Double-A starts last year. If another team is willing to pay for Crow’s rehab and then see how he looks when he returns, the Mets could lose him.
RHP Justin Jarvis: The return from the Brewers in the Mark Canha swap, Jarvis pitched poorly after the trade (8.04 ERA in nine starts with Triple-A Syracuse). Still, the Mets’ 15th-ranked prospect has good stuff that includes a high-in-the-zone four-seamer and a splitter that he plays off the fastball. Maybe he could stick somewhere as a fifth starter or a swingman.
RHP Eric Orze: The numbers — a 5.31 ERA with 41 walks in 61 innings with Syracuse last season — are not strong. But it wouldn’t be a surprise if another team took a shot on Orze, a 26-year-old who has beaten cancer twice. The righty reliever is capable of working multiple innings and has a splitter that continually makes batters look foolish, helping him rack up 81 strikeouts last season. A team with a bullpen need might hope it can help harness Orze’s excellent stuff.
UTIL Jeremiah Jackson: The 23-year-old was the prize who came over from the Angels in the Dominic Leone trade. Jackson does some of everything: With Double-A Binghamton, he saw time at second base, shortstop, third base, left field and right field. He strikes out too much (144 times in 500 total plate appearances in Double-A last season), but has an enticing blend of power (22 homers) and speed (27 steals).
Other possibilities: RHP Joander Suarez, RHP Wilkin Ramos, IF Luke Ritter
Two developments interrupted the quietest winter meetings in recent memory. The first was not a signing but a statement.
Will Dodgers manager Dave Roberts acknowledging the team recently met with Shohei Ohtani matter?
Ohtani’s camp reportedly has warned clubs against divulging any bits of information regarding his free agency; the Blue Jays appear to have met with Ohtani on Monday night, a development that was discerned when media availabilities were rescheduled because their manager and GM suddenly were no longer at the winter meetings. Blue Jays personnel have since declined to comment about the alleged meeting.
The Cubs have not publicly discussed meeting with Ohtani. Neither have the Giants nor the Angels, two other believed finalists. But speaking to reporters in Nashville on Tuesday, Roberts was disarmingly honest.
“Clearly,” Roberts told reporters, “Shohei is our top priority.”
He went on to say that the team met with Ohtani “a couple days ago” for two or three hours and believed the meeting went well.
Roberts’ comments were surprising to everyone — including, apparently, Dodgers brass.
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and GM Brandon Gomes then talked to reporters and refused to offer any clarity on the meeting, declining to confirm it existed. Gomes said he was surprised at Roberts’ candidness.
There is so little known about Ohtani the person, a two-way superstar making history on the field but silent off of it. He clearly has valued his privacy during this silent free-agent chase. Will Roberts’ rare honesty affect the sweepstakes?
The second item that finally jolted the meetings into action: a rare Yankees-Red Sox trade that broke Tuesday night.
The Yankees traded for a lefty-hitting outfielder, but not the one everyone is waiting for.
It is not (at least not yet) Juan Soto who is coming to The Bronx but Alex Verdugo, a solid outfielder who hits righty pitchers well (against whom he posted a .793 OPS last season). The 27-year-old is not the superstar fans are clamoring for, but he is a decent defensive outfielder with history at all three spots and who is a more established option than the likes of Oswaldo Cabrera, Estevan Florial and Everson Pereira. GM Brian Cashman has said he wanted two lefty outfielders, and now one is checked off.
Going to Boston are righty Richard Fitts (their No. 12 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline), righty reliever Greg Weissert and righty Nicholas Judice, who was an eighth-round pick this year.
Let’s hope for a louder Wednesday to finish off the winter meetings.
During a winter meetings when little else has happened, Roberts’ slip might be the most newsworthy occurrence of the week.
Here is what happened in Jets-land on Tuesday:
• The quarterback they started two days previously was cut. Tim Boyle is gone and will be replaced by 27-year-old quarterback Brett Rypien. It is still unclear who will start Sunday against the Texans.
• The quarterback who was injured Week 1 blasted anonymous members of the organization who had informed reporters about Zach Wilson’s hesitation to play. Aaron Rodgers called the people who relayed Wilson’s thoughts to The Athletic “chickens–t” and added, “It has no place in a winning organization.’’
Rodgers spoke one day after the report, which stated the Jets were leaning toward giving the starting job back to Wilson, but Wilson was reluctant to step back into the role. The report cited multiple team sources. Head coach Robert Saleh later said he spoke with Wilson, who “wants the ball.”
Rodgers appeared to take less issue with the validity of the report and more issue with the fact Jets personnel had leaked it to the press.
“When you use sources and whether intentional or unintentional try to assassinate someone’s character like that report does for Zach, I have a hard time with that,” Rodgers said on “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN. “You’re basically saying that this kid is quitting on the team and doesn’t want to play and is giving the middle finger to the organization.
“What is your impetus, what is your motivation to try and bury someone like that? That’s a problem with the organization. We need to get to the bottom of whatever this is coming from and put a stop to it privately, because there’s no place in a winning culture where this is not the only time. There’s been a bunch of other leaks.”
• Saleh, meanwhile, received an apology from Joe Benigno. A day earlier, the WFAN host misinterpreted a text from the head coach and told the station’s audience that Saleh “don’t like Zach.”
Saleh’s kindness — being willing to chat/text with Benigno, a diehard Jets fan with a platform — had backfired on him. Benigno took to the air and to The Post to say sorry, but damage had been done.
The disaster of a season still has five games left.
Bucks 146, Knicks 122: The Knicks had an opportunity to put their stamp on the NBA’s In-Season Tournament. Instead, “the only thing the Knicks got out of the commissioner’s beloved NBA Cup was a harder schedule,” writes Stefan Bondy after the Bucks blasted the Knicks behind 23 3-point makes.
Senators 6, Rangers 2: The Ottawa Senators were relentless in attacking the Rangers with “a surplus of odd-man rushes, puck battles won and, well, goals.” Put it all together and you get a loss for the Rangers that broke a three-game winning streak. Mollie Walker was there.
Sharks 5, Islanders 4 (OT): “One of the traits that has defined these Islanders through 24 games is that they are the George Costanzas of the NHL, always doing the opposite,” writes Ethan Sears. Wednesday night was no different as the Isles took a 4-1 lead early in the third period only to blow it and then lose to the woeful San Jose Sharks in overtime.
⚾ The thought that the Yankees would be a good fit for Juan Soto is nothing new, and at the winter meetings neither Brian Cashman nor Aaron Boone shied away from the possibility, Greg Joyce writes. “He’s a transformational bat,” Cashman told reporters.
⚾ Speaking of Soto, Joel Sherman details how the Yankees’ deal for Alex Verdugo does not preclude them from going after the Padres slugger, and had re-engaged with San Diego in talks for him.
???? The Knicks’ 24-point loss in Milwaukee was eye-opening to Mike Vaccaro, writing the game was “a humbling, a hammering, a humiliating … dismantling” of the Knicks and the notion they are in the Bucks’ class as a contender.
???? As if getting blown out by the Bucks wasn’t bad enough, Quentin Grimes made it clear he is not happy with his role, telling Stefan Bondy: “it’s tough going out there and just standing in the corner the whole game. Then you got to make the shot when you shoot the ball one or two times per game. It is what it is.” Grimes hasn’t played in the fourth quarter in any of the Knicks’ last three games.
⚾ In opting to allow Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio and Mark Vientos battle for the third base job, David Stearns isn’t just opting to do what’s prudent but also trying to bring some order to a system of prospects brought in under different front offices with different philosophies. Joel Sherman explains.
???? That Brian Daboll chose to stick with Tommy DeVito as the Giants starting quarterback made a lot of sense, Paul Schwartz writes, but adds that it doesn’t mean the decision was fair to Tyrod Taylor, who only lost the job because he suffered four broken ribs in a game.