The Rule-5 Draft decision day is the deadline for teams to protect their players from the Rule-5 Draft by adding them to their 40-man rosters. That deadline is 24-hours away at November 19, 2024 at 6 PM ET. Any Rule-5 eligible players who are not added to their team’s 40-man roster can be drafted by any of the other 29 teams.
The Washington Nationals have some tough choices to make, as do all teams. By giving up a coveted 40-man spot for protected players, that takes away a spot that usually leads to a corresponding roster move. In the Nationals case, they cleared several spots by DFA’ing Ildemaro Vargas, Joey Meneses, Michael Rucker, and Thaddeus Ward. The irony is that Ward was a Rule-5 draft pick by the Nats two years ago, and they carried him as a struggling pitcher on their 2023 roster. Last year, the Nats drafted Nasim Nunez and that might work out.
If you look at Roster Resource, they list 33 Rule-5 eligible players. TalkNats has named three players as locks for protection to include: Robert Hassell III, Andry Lara and Andrew Alvarez. There could be more. There are currently four open spots on the 40-man roster. The Nats will certainly need more slots for signing free agents and if they make trades.
The Rule 5 Draft allows teams to select any remaining Rule-5 eligible non-40-man roster players from the other 29 teams. The draft is held in reverse order of the previous season’s standings on the last day of the Winter Meetings in Dallas on Wednesday, Dec. 11. This year, there is a total of 96 players on organizational Top-30 lists that must be added or exposed to the Rule 5 Draft. There are only four players on the Top-100 prospect list, and all will be protected. Hassell at one time was the No. 1 prospect on the Nats at the time he was traded to the Nationals. After some wrist injuries, he fell off of the Top-100 list, but just finished with a good Arizona Fall League showing and finished the 2024 season in Triple-A.
After the Nats drafted Ward and Nunez in consecutive years in the Rule-5 draft, don’t expect the Nats to draft anyone this year due to the tight roster as the team emerges from this rebuild.
Here are some other important details about the Rule 5 Draft:
- Selection order: The team with the worst record in the previous season starts the draft, and the order continues to the team with the best record.
- Draft costs: The club that selects a player pays $100,000 to the club that previously rostered the player.
- Roster placement: The drafted player is added to the drafting team’s active 26-man roster.
- Waivers: To remove a player from the 26-man roster in the following season, he must be offered back to his former team for $50,000.
- Major league bracket: Players selected in the major league bracket must stay on their new team’s active major-league roster for the upcoming season after the draft.
Additional background, players who were first signed at age-18 or younger must be added to their team’s 40-man rosters within their first five seasons or they become eligible to be for the Rule-5 process. Players signed at 19 years or older have to be protected within four seasons. For this year, that means an international prospect or high school Draft pick signed in 2020 at age 18 or younger must be protected. A college player — or 19-year-old high school player — taken in the 2021 Draft would be in the same position. For perspective, of the hundreds of eligible players, only a few on average will be added to their team’s 40-man roster by the deadline on Tuesday.
On MLB Pipeline, the Nats only have three Rule-5 eligible players on the team’s Top-30 that include Hassell ( No. 13 ), Lara ( No. 17 ) and shortstop Kevin Made ( No. 25 ) who TalkNats does not think will be protected. Made was acquired as part of the Jeimer Candelario trade with DJ Herz at the trade deadline in 2023.
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