Is The Major League Portion of the Rule 5 Draft Still Good For Baseball?

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This article looks at demographics and statistics for players drafted in ML Rule 5 drafts from 2015-2024 and in the one year, 2021, when no ML Rule 5 draft occurred. The minor league phase of the R5 will not be considered in this article as there appears to be no evidence that the status quo for that phase will negatively impact future competitive balance or player opportunities to make the major leagues.

The data from my research showed that, while the ML R5 draft is one method to give some players a chance at playing in the ML before they would through normal development:

• The ML R5 draft was only slightly more effective at giving players the opportunity to play in the majors and become successful than if those players had just stayed with their original team.
• The R5 draft caused a number of players to have to play in the ML after having not played much, if at all, at levels above AA.  
• The threat of potentially losing prospects to the Rule 5 has caused teams to roster players to protect them from the Rule 5 draft too early in their careers, resulting in needlessly use up some or all of their minor league options before they are ready for the majors.
• In the one year, 2021, where no ML R5 draft was held, a number of prospects who likely would have been drafted wound up having ML success the next year (2022) and beyond with their organizations.
• If we exclude a few players who had good careers after being drafted in the ML R5, most R5 draftees, even if they had long careers in the majors, were mostly used in low leverage situations (e.g., middle relievers, backup position players/role players)
• R5 draftees often have very limited playing time in the season following when they are drafted. The impression is that many are simply being stashed on the ML roster for the requisite one year (actually 90 days on the active roster)
• Rostering of players not ready for the major leagues to protect them from the R5 draft creates 'dead spots' on the 40-man roster being taken for years by players who weren't ready to help the ML team.  This limits a team's roster flexibility and causes more experienced players to be DFA'd to make room for these young, not-ready-for-MLB prospects on the 40-man roster.
• The R5 draft, in its current form, does little to redistribute talent from the richer teams to resource-limited teams. Instead, it mostly just shuffles prospects between the middle and bottom teams in baseball.
• In summary, the ML R5 draft is not effective in improving the competitive balance in baseball and does very little to get players chances at playing meaningful roles in the majors. It also doesn't appear to give players chances that they wouldn't have if they had just stayed with the team they were R5 drafted from.  The ML R5 draft should be eliminated so teams can build their 40 man rosters to be more competitive each year and prospects can develop at a normal rate and not pushed to the major leagues by an artificial construct like the ML R5 draft.

BACKGROUND

The Rule 5 draft has, in some form, existed for over 125 years.  The intent, before the Rule 4 draft was instituted in 1965, was to prevent the wealthiest teams from hoarding talent by offering the largest bonuses to, essentially, buy up all the best amateur players.  Once a player was signed by a team, he was considered perpetually bound to that team as long as they continued to offer him even a minor league contract.  A number of rule changes have been made to try to stop this practice:

• The original Rule 5 - Teams could draft players from other teams as a way to negate, to some extent, this hoarding.
• In 1965 the amateur draft was started with the goal of allowing all teams to have more equal access to amateur talent BEFORE they were signed by the wealthiest teams.
• In 1975 this 'reserve clause' was challenged and an arbiter made a ruling that abolished the reserve clause and established free agency. ML players could then become free agents after 6 full seasons in the majors.  
• Shortly after the reserve clause was invalidated, it was also established that players not on a team's 40-man roster could become minor league free agents after they had 6 full years in professional baseball.  
• Shortly after that, the rules were changed so that players on a team's 40 man roster could only be sent to the minors in three different seasons without having to pass through waivers before they could be sent down a 4th time. [NOTE: in some cases MLB grants a 4th option year to teams for certain players]
• Players who have been DFA'd one time can elect free agency if they are DFA'd a second time.
• Players with enough ML service time can elect free agency instead of being sent to the minors
• In 2022 the number of players a team can have in their US minor league system was limited to 165.

All these rule changes have, when considered together, addressed a lot of what the original Rule 5 was intended to address. Amateur players are now acquired more equitably and players are allowed to move from organization to organization more freely. 

So, the question becomes:

HAS THE MAJOR LEAGUE PORTION OF THE RULE 5 DRAFT OUTLIVED ITS USEFULNESS?

We have calls for a salary cap to keep well-financed teams from just buying championships.  We have calls for a salary floor to make the owners with limited resources spend more money to at least attempt to be competitive and/or keep their own players instead of trading them as they approach free agency.  Both these proposals, like the original intent of the Rule 5 draft, is to improve competitive balance.  

But is the Rule 5 draft, at the present time, really improving competitive balance?

[Note: All the data below comes from me counting up players.  Even though I checked my work, it is quite possible that I overcounted or undercounted by 1 or 2 in some of these categories.]

Looking at the 9 R5 drafts from 2015-2024 (there was no ML portion of the R5 draft in 2021) here is what we find:

• 130 players were drafted in the MLR5 draft.  59 were NOT returned to their original team while 71 were offered back
• The Yankees had the most (21) players drafted but only 4 of them were not returned. The team with the 2nd most players drafted was Cleveland (9), followed by Tampa Bay and the Dodgers (8). Baltimore (12) and Philadelphia (9) drafted the most players.
• 23 of 30 teams had at least 1 player who was drafted and NOT returned, 28 teams (not LAD or NYY) selected at least 1 player with 25 teams selecting at least 2 or more in this period.
• No team had more than 4 players that were lost for good in this period.

These numbers clearly give the impression that, for the most part, teams were just re-arranging the deck chairs.

Let's look at some more numbers from the R5 drafts during this period:

• Of the 71players who were returned to their original teams
• 29 returned players (41%) NEVER played in the majors
• 8 returned players only played briefly for the team that drafted them before they were returned.
• 13 of the remaining returned 34 players (38%) made their major league debut the next season with their original team, 25 (74%) made their ML debuts in the first 2 seasons after they were drafted in the R5 and returned to their original team.
• 9 of those 34 players (26%) returned who played in the majors after they were returned have had major league careers of 5 years or longer, 21 (62%) have had ML careers of 2 years or longer so far.
• Of the 59 players who were NOT returned to their original team
• As said above, 59 of 130 (45%) of R5 drafted players were not returned to the team they were drafted from and, therefore, made their ML debut the season after they were R5 drafted.
• 21 (35%) have had ML careers of 5 years or longer and 38 (59%) have had ML careers of at least 2 years so far.
• 32 of the 59 (54%) players not returned have had ML careers as mostly middle relievers, 5 have been leverage relievers and 6 are starting pitchers. The remaining 16 are position players.  Aside from the SP and leverage relievers, most of the 59 players not returned have had careers as low leverage players.
• Notable players from these drafts include
• Players returned to their original team : Nester Cortez Jr., Trevor Megill, Will Vest
• Players who were not returned: Anthony Santander, Brad Keller, Shane Smith, Mitch Spence, Liam Hicks, Garrett Whitlock and Jordan Romano.
• Therefore, over these 9 drafts there was, on average, one player per year who had a career as a high leverage player and 70% of those were players who were R5 drafted and not returned.
• The highest playing level (using MLB's rookie definitions as a rough guide) at the time they were drafted were:
• AAA: not returned to their original team (19), returned (21)
• AA: not returned (26), returned (32)
• A+ : not returned (8), returned (10)
• A: not returned (3), returned (6)
• Rookie ball: not returned (1),  returned (1)
• Previous MLB experience: not returned (2), returned (1)
• Using the numbers above, players drafted in these R5 drafts were mostly at AA or lower in their development at the time they were drafted.
• 40 AAA
• 58 AA
• 18 A+
• 9 A
• 3 Rookie League
• The 59 players taken in these rule 5 drafts who were not returned filled the following roles in the ML careers:
• Middle reliever (32)
• Starting pitcher (6)
• Leverage reliever (5)
• Position player (usually platoon or backup) (16)
• Major league average for players making their ML debuts is 24-25 years old and the number of times players had to be sent to the minors after their debut before they stuck in the majors is twice.
• Players not returned averaged 2.2 times returning to the minors before they stuck in the majors
• Players returned and not returned both had an average age of about 24.5 years old at the time they made their ML debuts.

Looking at these second set of numbers gives the following impressions:

• Players who were returned to their original team actually had similar chances to make the ML, even in the year after they were drafted in the ML R5 draft to R5 draftees who were not returned.
• 88 of 130 (67%) drafted likely were not ready for the major leagues when they were drafted in the R5.as they had spent most or all of their careers up to that point in AA or lower levels.
• While players who were not returned generally had good major league careers, a number of players who WERE returned had good major league careers, as well.  This is even more compelling as you would guess that the players who were NOT returned had, by definition, a much greater likelihood of having good careers as they were likely more talented and ML ready than the playrs who were returned. 

WHAT IS THE TRUTH ABOUT RULE 5 DRAFTEES BECOMING ALL-STARS?

Various sources list up to 41 players drafted in the Rule 5 draft who became all-stars since the early 1960s. As it turns out, after looking at this closely:

• 17 players drafted in the ML portion of the R5 and not returned fit today's criteria for what a ML R5 draft pick looks like and who also became an all-star.
• 10 became all-stars AFTER being returned 
• Of those 17, three (Jeff Nelson, Willie Hernandez and Ryan Pressly) became all-stars 8-10 years after they were drafted in the ML portion of the R5
• 3 (George Bell, Paul Blair, Dave May) were drafted in the R5 when you could be drafted after playing as little as one year of professional baseball and May and Blair, in particular, were really not Rule 5 draft picks at all, rather being part of a different draft of players with one year of professional experience. [NOTE: Other supposed ML R5 success stories like Roberto Clemente were not actually R5 draft picks, either. He was drafted to Pittsburgh after one year of minor league baseball]
• One additional player (Jason Grilli) became an all-star after playing for 3 ML teams before he was drafted in the R5
• An additional five Rule 5 draftees became all-stars after being selected in the minor league portion of the R5 draft
• One of the 17 (Derrick Turnbow) appeared to have required 4 minor league options before he established himself in the big leagues and became an all-star
• One of the 17, Josh Hamilton, was not even playing baseball when he was selected in the Rule 5 draft and turned his career around to become an all-star

In summary, the data above suggest the following

• It is slightly more likely (17 to 10) that ML R5 draftees who are not returned become all-stars compared to those who are returned after the R5 draft.
• There were a number of players, e.g., George Bell, who are portrayed as R5 success stories when, in fact, their entry into the R5 did not even fit today's criteria for being R5-eligible
• The number of all-stars (5) who came out of the minor league phase of the R5 adds support to keeping this phase going in the future.
• The number of ML R5 draftees who became all-stars, when each example is looked at closely, implies that these cases are more anecdotal than a trend that supports continuation of the ML R5 draft.

ARE PLAYERS SELECTED IN THE ML R5 LIKELY TO JUST BE STASHED ON A ML ROSTER FOR A SEASON SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO BE RETURNED TO THEIR ORIGINAL TEAM?

Looking at the 59 players who were not returned, here is the usage data for those players in their first year after being selected in the ML R5 draft. 

If a player met or surpassed the usage limits below in their first year they were considered to be used appropriately and not just stashed on the ML roster to fulfill the R5 requirement.

Relief pitchers: 35 games

Starting pitchers/swingmen: 70 innings

Position players: 300 plate appearances

The number of players for each type who met these criteria

POSITION PLAYERS: 4 met the PA criteria, 13 did not and so were considered 'stashed'

STARTING PITCHERS/SWINGMAN: 6 met the criteria, 0 did not

RELIEF PITCHERS: 18 met the criteria, 9 did not

INJURED LIST - 7 could not complete requirements

From the data above it can be concluded that most (73%) of pitchers drafted in the ML R5 draft from 2015-2024 were used enough in their first year to not be considered just stashed on the major league roster so they wouldn't have to be returned. On the other hand, only a few (24%) of position players played regularly enough to NOT be considered 'stashed' on the major league roster.

It does appear that most of the pitchers drafted in these ML R5 drafts did pitch enough in their first year to NOT delay their development.  However, it does appear that the many of the position players were, met the criteria for low usage and, therefore, being stashed on the ML bench for their first year, likely delaying their development as baseball players.  This is not to say that these players had increased roles in their 2nd year after being drafted in the ML R5 draft, but at least their development was not terribly hampered by just sitting on the bench in their first year. 

WHICH PROSPECTS DO TEAMS TEND TO PROTECT FROM THE RULE 5?

It would have taken more time than I could devote to this project to look back for 10 years at which R5-eligible prospects teams chose to protect.  So I just looked at what the demographics were for the prospects teams chose to (and not to) protect against the upcoming 2025 ML R5 draft. Looking at the MLB article on which TOP prospects each organization protected (or did not protect) from the 2025 ML R5 draft by their roster additions this November, the highest level these players achieved (using MLB's rookie eligibility rules to establish if a player has had enough experience at the top level they had played in to have been able to graduate from that level), here is the breakdown of the top minor league level the protected and top unprotected prospects coming out of the November 2025 roster freeze had achieved.

• AAA: Protected (40), not protected (20)
• AA: Protected (37), not protected (36)
• A+ : Protected (6), not protected (21)
• A: Protected (1), not protected (3)

Looking at these numbers, teams in 2025 seemed to prioritize protecting players who were close to ML-ready, with emphasis on players with significant AAA experience. Although players with less upper level experience may have been better prospects, teams seemed to be gambling on their low minor league players not being drafted because of the small likelihood those inexperienced players would be drafted and, if drafted, would be able to stick with a ML team.

ANECDOTALS

In my research and listening to people argue for and against the ML R5 draft over the years, I have encountered (or propagated) the following anecdotals regarding the ML R5:

• The ML R5 draft gives players who might not be developing in a system a chance to move to another system where they CAN develop. [NOTE: I have seen no evidence of that in my research and, even if it did occur, it would be very anecdotal]
• Players drafted in the ML R5 process are likely to have their development stunted by the lack of playing time they receive while they are simply being 'stashed' on the ML roster so that they don't have to be returned to their original team [NOTE: While this ie eminently reasonable, I have found no concrete evidence of this and it would be difficult to prove as there are too many variables for the relatively few players chosen in the ML R5]
• Teams dedicate a lot of time and money analyzing their prospects, analyzing other teams' trends in the Rule 5 and analyzing players available in the Rule 5 after the roster freeze is announced. [NOTE: While this is another one of those things that appears obvious, I have found no evidence that this is true.  I will say this, though. For small market teams that are resource -challenged, they could probably find a better way to use their analytics and team resources if they didn't have to worry about the ML R5 draft.] 
• Fear of the R5 draft causes teams to protect players earlier than they should, just to avoid the risk of losing a prospect.  [NOTE: While there is anecdotal evidence of that (e.g., Jhonkensy Noel protected by Cleveland when he barely had played in A+ and Juan Brito being protected when he had just completed a season of A ball) I did not see any evidence that teams routinely protect large numbers of A+ or A players (or lower) against the R5.  It does happen, but it does not appear to be common.]
• The ML R5 gives players a chance to get to the major leagues quicker than they normally would.  [NOTE: My research has shown this may be a fallacy created just because it is impossible to look at an alternate future where a player stays with their organization instead of being drafted. I will acknowledge that this is possible but, to me, is unimportant as the issues the ML R5 creates for players AND teams greatly outweigh the benefits for these few players, if they exist, which I could not prove through my research]
• We need a R5 draft because, without it, there is a chance that a player could be held by a team for 9 years (6 as a minor leaguer and 3 option years if he is rostered near the end of his first 6 years).  [NOTE: I acknowledge that is a possibility, but I think it is probably just theoretically possible or, at best, very anecdotal.  Again, exceptions cannot drive the continuation of the ML R5 draft.] 
• Players are emotionally scarred if they don't make it to the make it to the majors as a ML R5 draftee. [NOTE: I have anecdotal evidence that this is true from interviewing players who have been ML R5 draftees but, to my knowledge, no studies have been done to show that this is true.]
• Players not returned suffer developmental delays in their baseball career as a result of being 'stashed' on a big league roster (and bench) for a season, seldomly playing. [NOTE: Another example of something that appears to be obvious.  My research did show that many of these players were sent back to the minors (sometimes the low minors) the season following their ML R5 draft season, staying in the minors, sometimes, for a number of seasons before they returned to the major leagues for good. However, my research failed to show that this stashing occured frequently nor was it necessarily a factor in delaying their development, nor did it show that players met the criteria of low usage in their first year that might lead you to believe they were just being stashed.  Rather, players who are returned to their original team don't appear to develop any faster or turn into better players than those who are NOT returned and are seldomly used in their first ML season.]

THE ML R5 DRAFT THAT NEVER HAPPENED

In 2021, teams set their ML rosters and their AAA reserve lists as usual, but the ML R5 draft never happened that year due, in part, to the lockout as the new CBA was still being negotiated.  This gave a unique chance for study of what would happen if the ML R5 draft was abolished and prospects who might have otherwise been drafted just stuck with their original team until they were rostered or just became 6 year minor league free agents..  That is, a lot of the proponents of the ML R5 draft point to the all-stars, MVPs and HOFers that have come out of this draft without considering whether those players would have achieved the same status if they had just staying with the organization that had spent years and lots of money to sign and develop them.

So let's take a look at some of the significant players who would have been available for the 2021 ML R5 draft and what happened to them in 2022 and in 2023-2025.  I will admit that, at this point, I am worn down from the research that I have done for this article.  I also acknowledge that I was not able to find, for 2021, an article like I found for 2025 that listed all the top prospects for each team that were or were not protected against the ML R5.  So the list I am about to give you is absolutely anecdotal, but it's the best I could do at the moment;  So here is the list of significant prospects I have found who were not protected against the 2021 ML R5 draft that never happened [NOTE: list is in no particular order]::

1. Yainer Diaz

2. Oscar Gonzalez

3. Will Benson

4. Joey Cantillo

5. Cooper Hummel

6. Lenyn Sosa

7. Kody Clemens

8. Jordan Diaz

Obviously this is just a cursory look.  I am sure if I could see a list of the top prospects team chose NOT to protect in 2021 more names would jump out.  In addition, teams had their lists of players they would consider drafting that migh be in addition to the list above.  Just by inspection, this looks like a pretty decent list of players who could have easily been lost had there been a ML R5 draft in 2021.  The takeaway for me from this list is that players succeed or fail, in many cases, irrespective of the organization they are in but, rather, based on how talented they are.  It supports the presumption that a number of the biggest success stories coming out of the ML R5 draft would have been successes if there had NOT been a ML R5 draft.  

In my opinion, this just adds to my feeling that the ML R5 draft is not needed and, in fact, can actually hurt the teams it should be helping, the resource-limited teams.