Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Rule 5 Draft

Padres Place Three Rule 5 Picks On 25-Man Roster, Designate Keith Hessler

By | at

The Padres have announced their Opening Day roster, and, in an example of unusual roster management, it includes three Rule 5 Draft picks. Those three were the first three selections in the draft — the Padres got the No. 1 pick, righty Miguel Diaz, in a trade with the Twins, and the No. 2 pick, catcher Luis Torrens, in a deal with the Reds. They also took shortstop Allen Cordoba with their own pick, the third overall selection.

Diaz headed into the Rule 5 Draft as a member of the Brewers organization, while Torrens was with the Yankees and Cordoba with the Cardinals. Obviously, the Padres have no immediate plans to clear any of the three from the roster, meaning they won’t be offered back to their previous organizations anytime soon. The three will join a young Padres 25-man that includes four other players who haven’t yet turned 24: top outfield prospect Manuel Margot, infielder Luis Sardinas, righty Luis Perdomo and lefty Jose Torres.

[Related: Updated San Diego Padres Depth Chart]

Diaz will take a spot in the bullpen. Torrens will be one of four catchers listed on the roster, along with Austin Hedges, Hector Sanchez (whose contract the Padres selected today) and Christian Bethancourt. (Bethancourt can also pitch out of the bullpen.)

The Padres have also optioned infielder Cory Spangenberg to Triple-A El Paso. The idea is for him to play every day, as Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune tweets, and Spangenberg missed most of the 2016 due to a quad injury. It’s perhaps worth noting, though, that Spangenberg would have given the Padres a more experienced infield option than Cordoba, who played in the short-season Appalachian League in 2016 and posted a .179/.247/.194 line in camp. Both he and Torrens stand out as highly sub-optimal roster choices for the Padres’ immediate needs. But the team’s inclusion of three Rule 5 picks suggests the Padres are more interested in protecting potential long-term assets than winning games in 2017, which perhaps should come as no surprise — the Padres don’t project to contend this season, given the weakness in their rotation and elsewhere on their roster.

To clear space on the 40-man roster for Sanchez, the Padres designated lefty Keith Hessler for assignment. The 28-year-old pitched 18 2/3 innings of relief with San Diego after arriving from Arizona via a waiver claim, and posted a 3.38 ERA, albeit with 11 walks and just nine strikeouts. The Padres also announced that they placed lefties Christian Friedrich and Buddy Baumann, righty Carter Capps and outfielder Alex Dickerson on the 10-day disabled list.

Pirates Return Tyler Webb To Yankees

By | at

The Pirates have returned lefty reliever and Rule 5 pick Tyler Webb to the Yankees, the Yankees have announced. An impending transaction involving Webb seemed inevitable yesterday, when the Pirates opted to place Tyler Glasnow in their rotation and gave Wade LeBlanc and former rotation candidate Trevor Williams the last two spots in their bullpen.

The 26-year-old Webb did his best to impress the Pirates in camp, posting a 2.77 ERA with 11 strikeouts and just one walk in 13 innings. But his chances of making the team seemed limited given the Bucs’ heavily left-handed bullpen, which currently includes Felipe Rivero, Antonio Bastardo and LeBlanc, along with closer Tony Watson. Webb posted a 3.59 ERA, 10.2 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 72 2/3 innings with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate in 2016.

Cubs Return Rule 5 Pick Caleb Smith To Yankees

By | at

The Cubs are returning left-hander Caleb Smith to the Yankees, reports Patrick Mooney of CSN Chicago (Twitter link). Chicago selected Smith in the Rule 5 draft in December.

The 25-year-old Smith potentially could have made the Cubs’ bullpen as a southpaw swingman, but they’ll instead go with Mike Montgomery and Brian Duensing as their lefty relievers. Smith didn’t see much spring action with the Cubs, having tossed 6 1/3 innings and given up three earned runs on eight hits. Impressively, he struck out seven batters and only issued two walks.

Smith, whom the Yankees chose in Round 14 of the 2013 amateur draft, ascended to Triple-A in 2015, though he has only thrown 4 1/3 innings at that level. In 367 1/3 Double-A frames (94 appearances, 69 starts), he has logged a 3.41 ERA with 8.3 K/9 and 3.4 BB/9. Smith is the second Rule 5 pick the Yankees have gotten back in the past few days – the Diamondbacks returned righty Tyler Jones to them last Friday – and will now head to their minor league camp.

Indians Return Rule 5 Pick Hoby Milner To Phillies

By | at

The Indians have returned lefty Hoby Milner to the Phillies, per a club announcement. Milner, 26, was taken with the 27th pick in last winter’s Rule 5 draft.

Fresh off of a World Series run, Cleveland obviously would’ve needed to be rather impressed to give the 26-year-old an active roster spot. He did rack up nine strikeouts against three walks in his seven spring innings, though he also coughed up seven earned runs on nine hits.

Milner could factor into the Phillies’ depth plans entering the year now that he’s back in the fold. He did have a rather impressive 2016 season. Despite carrying pedestrian strikeout totals for most of his career to that point, Milner averaged 10.5 K/9 against just 2.1 BB/9 in his 65 frames in the upper minors, with a shiny 2.49 ERA on the year.

Diamondbacks Return Rule 5 Pick Tyler Jones To Yankees

By | at

The Diamondbacks have returned righty Tyler Jones to the Yankees, the clubs announced. Taken in the Rule 5 draft, Jones evidently wasn’t going to crack the Arizona active roster; instead, he will head to Triple-A after the Yankees accepted him back.

Jones, 27, enjoyed something of a breakout season in 2016. Working at Double-A Trenton, he turned in 45 2/3 innings of 2.17 ERA ball with an excellent 13.2 K/9 against 2.2 BB/9. That wasn’t enough for New York to put him on the 40-man, but evidently caught Arizona’s eye. The D-Backs took him with the seventh pick in last December’s Rule 5 draft, meaning they needed to keep him on the MLB roster all year to take over his control rights.

Jones didn’t do enough in camp to earn a shot at the majors, but did rack up eight strikeouts without a walk in his 6 2/3 spring frames. With no other organizations electing to take over the Rule 5 rights given up by the D-Backs, Jones will have to try to master the highest level of the minors and wait for an opportunity to open in the Bronx.

Padres To Acquire Rule 5 Picks Miguel Diaz, Luis Torrens

By | at

TODAY: Cincinnati will pick up infielder Josh VanMeter from the Padres in the trade for Torrens, per club announcements. The 21-year-old struggled after a promotion to Double-A last year, but earned that bump up with a strong .267/.355/.443 batting line over 401 High-A plate appearances. Notably, he ended up hitting 14 total home runs in 2016 — a rather significant tally for a player who had hit just three total long balls as a professional coming into the year.

YESTERDAY: The Padres will acquire the top two Rule 5 Draft picks, righty Miguel Diaz (in a trade with the Twins) and catcher Luis Torrens (in a trade with the Reds), MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo writes (Twitter links). (Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper tweeted that the Reds would trade Torrens to San Diego.) The Padres already had the third Rule 5 pick and used it to select infielder Allen Cordoba, so it appears they’ve ended up with the first three Rule 5 picks.

The Reds will receive a player to be named and cash from the Padres. The Twins will receive a player to be named or cash, LaVelle E. Neal III of the Star Tribune tweets, and they’ll also get Rule 5 pick Justin Haley, who the Padres had previously acquired from the Angels. Diaz and Torrens were previously with the Brewers and Yankees, respectively. Haley had been with the Red Sox.

That’s all incredibly confusing, so here’s a different way of representing where each player went this morning:

Diaz: Brewers –> Twins –> Padres
Torrens: Yankees –> Reds –> Padres
Haley: Red Sox –> Angels –> Padres –> Twins

The 22-year-old Diaz ranked 21st on MLB.com’s list of the Brewers’ top prospects. He throws in the mid-90s from a three-quarters arm slot, and he has the makings of a good slider, according to MLB.com. He’s a bit small, at 6’1″ and 175 pounds, and he’s had elbow trouble in the past. He fared well for Class A Wisconsin in 2016, however, with a 3.71 ERA, 8.7 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in 94 2/3 innings.

Torrens, 20, ranked as the Yankees’ 17th-best prospect. The Yankees signed him out of Venezuela for $1.3MM in 2012. He hasn’t hit much, batting .250/.350/.337 in the lower levels in 2016, and his experience is limited, due to shoulder troubles that cost him much of 2014 and all of 2015, but MLB.com praises his work behind the plate. He seems hard-pressed to stick in the Majors all season, but perhaps it’s not out of the question he could make the Padres out of Spring Training as Austin Hedges’ backup.

Brewers Trade Caleb Smith To Cubs

By | at

The Brewers have traded Rule 5 Draft pick and left-handed pitcher Caleb Smith to the Cubs, Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes (Twitter links). The Brewers will receive a player to be named or cash.

The Brewers had selected the 25-year-old Smith out of the Yankees system. He pitched 63 2/3 innings for Double-A Trenton in 2016, making seven starts and 20 relief appearances, and posted a 3.96 ERA, 9.9 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9. The Yankees selected him in the 14th round of the 2013 draft. He seems unlikely to stick on a stacked Cubs roster, but the Cubs had been looking for left-handed relief help.

Rule 5 Pick Justin Haley Traded To Twins

By | at

The Angels have agreed to trade Rule 5 Draft pick and right-handed pitcher Justin Haley for cash, Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times tweets. His ultimate destination will be the Twins, as Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press and others tweeted. When the Angels announced the deal, however, they announced that they had traded Haley to the Padres. The Padres also acquired first overall Rule 5 pick Miguel Diaz from the Twins, so it seems that Haley was part of that deal as well.

Haley was the eighth pick in the draft from the Red Sox system, and the Twins had already selected a player, Miguel Diaz, by that point. (Diaz is also a candidate to be traded at some point today.) The 25-year-old Haley pitched 146 2/3 innings between Double-A Portland and Triple-A Pawtucket and posted a solid 3.01 ERA, 7.7 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9. He was a sixth-round pick of the Red Sox in 2012.

2016 Rule 5 Draft Results

By , and | at

The Rule 5 draft begins at 9.a.m ET as this year’s Winter Meetings in National Harbor, Md., draw to a close. Those unfamiliar with how the draft works can check out MLBTR’s full primer on the event here, but the short version is that teams with open 40-man roster spots can select players with four to five years of pro experience from other organizations if said player hasn’t been protected on the 40-man roster. Players who signed at 18 years of age or younger but have five years of experience can be selected, as can players signed at 19 or older who have four years of experience. Each selection costs $100K, but it’s not mandatory for teams to make picks. Clubs must carry chosen players on their active rosters (or the major league disabled list) throughout the entire 2016 season. Doing otherwise would expose them to waivers, and they’d then be offered back to their original club. Teams can also work out trades with the original organization to keep the selected player in the organization but send him to the minors.

The Rule 5 order is based on the reverse order of last season’s standings. The Twins own the No.1  overall pick, but they’re set to trade it to the Padres – who hold the No. 3 choice – according to Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com (Twitter links). Minnesota will still make its selection at No. 1 and San Diego will do the same at No. 3. The teams will then make their trade, likely with money changing hands, as Mayo notes.

Courtesy of Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper, here’s a rundown of the players garnering attention entering the draft. And here, via Mayo, is the draft order and the number of players on the teams’ 40-man rosters:

1. Twins (39) – RHP Miguel Diaz, Brewers
2. Reds (38) – C Luis Torrens, Yankees
3. Padres (33) – IF Allen Cordoba, Cardinals
4. Rays (39) – RHP Kevin Gadea, Mariners
5. Braves (39) – RHP Armando Rivero, Cubs
6. A’s (40) – No selection
7. D-backs (38) – RHP Tyler Jones, Yankees
8. Phillies (40) – No selection
9. Brewers (39) – LHP Caleb Smith, Yankees
10. Angels (39) – RHP Justin Haley, Red Sox
11. Rockies (37) – No selection
12. White Sox (38) – RHP Dylan Covey, Athletics
13. Pirates (38) – LHP Tyler Webb, Yankees
14. Marlins (37) – No selection
15. Royals (39) – No selection
16. Astros (39) – No selection
17. Yankees (39) – No selection
18. Mariners (40) – No selection
19. Cardinals (39) – No selection
20. Tigers (39) – LHP Daniel Stumpf, Royals
21. Giants (40) – No selection
22. Mets (40) – No selection
23. Orioles (36) – OF Aneury Tavarez, Red Sox
24. Blue Jays (38) – RHP Glenn Sparkman, Royals
25. Dodgers (40) – No selection
26. Red Sox (39) – IF Josh Rutledge, Rockies
27. Indians (38) – LHP Hoby Milner, Phillies
28. Nationals (38) – No selection
29. Rangers (39) – LHP Mike Hauschild, Astros
30. Cubs (35) – No selection

SECOND ROUND

Reds – C Stuart Turner, Twins
Orioles – OF Anthony Santander, Indians

Quick Hits: Int’l Pools, Verlander, Tigers, Brewers, Rule 5, Victorino

By | at

The details of the new bonus pool system for the 2017-18 July 2 class of international prospects has been reported by Baseball America’s Ben Badler, who provides a recap of how the July 2 market has been altered under the new collective bargaining agreement.  All teams have been assigned bonus pools of either $5.75MM, $5.25MM or $4.75MM, based on their revenues and market size.  Here’s more from around the game as news continues to pour in from the Winter Meetings…

  • Tigers GM Al Avila doesn’t expect Chris Sale’s departure from the trade market to have any impact on Justin Verlander’s status, he told reporters including MLB.com’s Jason Beck.  “I would assume there will be a domino effect, because that’s one more guy that gets taken up and maybe some teams now move on.  But I don’t believe it’s going to affect our situation at all,” Avila said.  While the Tigers are looking to be more cost-effective than usual this winter and are open to discussing deals of Verlander and other high-salaried players, the ace’s salary and no-trade protection are obstacles to a deal, not to mention the fact that Verlander is a necessary component since Detroit obviously still wants to compete in 2017.
  • Along those same lines, Tigers manager Brad Ausmus told Beck and other reporters that he doesn’t “think there’s going to be a ton of change” to his team’s roster give the difficulty involved in trading the high-priced stars.  “It’s so much easier to talk about trading people, and a lot [tougher] to actually trade them, especially when you’re talking about guys that have some sizable contracts….Quite frankly, even talking about being more responsible fiscally, we don’t want to trade,” Ausmus said.  “We like them, especially some of the names mentioned earlier in the season. Miguel [Cabrera], Justin, I don’t want those guys traded. Are you kidding me? That’s the last thing I want. I just think it’s easy to talk about and harder to do.”  Ausmus believes his team can contend if they get better health next year, and he said he wouldn’t be surprised if the Tigers bring in an external candidate for their vacancy in center field.
  • With Tyler Thornburg off to the Red Sox, Brewers GM David Stearns told media (including MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy) that the team could possibly have a need in the bullpen.  Stearns said he has had preliminary discussions with the agents of various free agent relievers.
  • The minor league portion of this Thursday’s Rule 5 Draft will no longer have a distinction between Triple-A and Double-A levels, Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper writes.  The change probably won’t have impact on how the draft operates, as Cooper notes that the distinction between the two minor league phases “has been archaic for years.”
  • Veteran outfielder Shane Victorino is working out in Las Vegas in case he decides to pursue a comeback in 2017, ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick tweets.  Victorino said in October that he could still consider returning to the sport.  His 2016 season was limited to just nine games for the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate, as Chicago released Victorino from their minor league contract in May and the “Flyin’ Hawaiian” turned down minor league offers from other teams later in the season.
Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

hide arrows FOX Sports Engage Network scroll to top