The Rule 5 draft

UPDATE: No Tigers players were selected in the major league phase of the draft.

At 9 a.m. the 30 teams will come together and try and find the proverbial diamond in the haystack. The Tigers have historically been fairly active on this front, none more so than in 2003 when the Tigers ended up with 3 rule 5’ers on their big league roster. Chris Shelton was also a rule 5 pick. This year the Tigers will just be watching and hoping not to lose any of their players.

The way the rule 5 draft works in the quickest sense is that players who are 3 (sometimes 4) years removed from signing their big league deal and haven’t been protected on a 40 man roster are eligible to selected. The selecting team surrenders $50,000 and then has to keep the selected player on their big league roster all season. If the player is removed from the roster they have to pass through waivers and if they do the team that lost the player can have him back for $25,000.

MLB.com has a preview of the draft, and it will be tracked at their website as well. One thing to watch is Scot Drucker who offered to pay a selecting team the $50K fee if he is taken. I don’t know if this is serious or legal, but it could be fun.

3 thoughts on “The Rule 5 draft”

    1. Or maybe the diamonds are in the haystack and nobody sees them because they are foolishly looking for the same needle.

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