There are two key questions regarding the Rule 5:
How many players do teams lose?
What do the eventual careers look like for these players?
After all, if teams are losing players who are below replacement level, what does it matter? Right?
So let's look, in the last 10 years, how many players have made a difference with their new teams or later in their career, or both.
I will rate these guys in 4 categories: No impact (cup of coffee, maybe some potential for the future); some impact (a few years in the majors as say a middle reliever or utility infielder/outfielder), low- or high-medium impact (trending toward good long-term impact) or long career (starter level performance touching all-star level or higher). I excluded the 12 players drafted in 2020 because we don't have enough information on how they will turn out although for guys like Trevor Stephan and Akil Badoo, there is potential
In my non-scientific, non-analytics view, here is what I found when looking at the 56 of 127 players drafted in the Rule 5 in 2011-2019 who were kept by their drafting team:
Long career or high-medium impact: 7 (Marwin Gonzalez, Mark Canha, Odubel Herrera, Ryan Pressley, Anthony Santander, Hector Rondon and TJ McFarland)
Low medium impact: 8
some impact: 14
no impact: 27
SUMMARY
About 50% of the players kept by teams after the Rule 5 (25% of all players drafted) had some or large impact on the team that drafted them or their subsequent team(s). Seven (7) had significant impact with 3 of the 6 Indians' prospects drafted before 2020 but after 2010 falling into that significant impact group.
So, what did we learn from this? Teams tend not to protect guys in their low minors (e.g., Anthony Santander) because they think they won't get selected because they are too far from the majors. Sometimes teams have roster crunches which make them more inclined to try to not protect prospects who won't be truly ready to help them the next season (e.g., low minors guys, quality prospects coming off injuries, one-tool (e.g., 100 mph fastball but no other redeeming value like Juan Mota this year) guys. Anecdotally it has happened in the past (e.g., Hector Rondon) where a guy was having a great fall/winter season and teams didn't take that into account when they were deciding whether to protect a guy or not.
Sometimes teams have every reason to think a guy won't stick with another team (see TJ McFarland for example). The new team can have patience with them because they are rebuilding whereas the team that doesn't protect that player sees them as being someone who is not going to hit cleanup or leadoff or close games or be a #3 starter for years, or maybe ever. Like the amateur draft sometimes teams just whiff (e.g., Albert Pujols when he was drafted and even Shane Beiber and Corbin Burnes, if you want to look at first round talent who went later in the draft and then just developed in the minors.
Judging talent is not an exact science. However, if the choice exists to roster a prospect who won't be ready in 2022 or gamble to not protect him because you have to keep enough ML ready guys on your 40 man roster to field a ML team next year or leave roster spots to sign low- to mid-level free agents or minor league signee guys (e.g. Bryan Shaw) to keep your team having an outside shot of being a wildcard team next year, THAT is where you can really get burned long term. This is especially true with franchises who have low payrolls and count on pre-arbitration year salaries to keep that payroll down.
That's it for now on the 40-man roster/Rule 5 topic. After the season we will break down the 40 man roster to see who should be traded, DFA'd or just released. Until then I will post on other topics related to the major leagues and our minor league prospects.
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