Today is the deadline to add players to the 40-man roster ahead of the Rule 5 draft. Just ahead of that deadline, the Pittsburgh Pirates added Mitch Keller, Cole Tucker, JT Brubaker and Jason Martin to the roster. They traded Tanner Anderson to the Oakland A’s to clear the final roster spot (see separate article for that deal). The roster is currently full at 40 players.
Keller and Tucker were the only two choices that were certain to be added, but Brubaker and Martin were the top choices after them and seemed like safe bets. Keller is the top prospect in the system, while Tucker was already the #3 prospect in the system before he went on to have an outstanding season in the Arizona Fall League. Brubaker was named by the Pirates as the minor league pitcher of the year after he posted a 2.81 ERA in 154 innings between Indianapolis and Altoona. Martin also split the season between Altoona and Indianapolis, though he put up outstanding stats in Double-A, before struggling during his time in Triple-A, posting a .589 OPS in 59 games.
We posted yesterday about the possible additions to the 40-man roster. That link includes the rules of the Rule 5 draft, as well as the list of 46 players in the system who are now eligible for the draft on December 13th. For a large portion of the list, there is no chance they will be selected in the draft. Some of them will also be available in the minor league portion of the draft, which comes with a $24,000 price tag per pick and the selecting team can assign the player to any minor league team in their system. Any minor league free agents signed between now and the draft will be eligible to be selected.
There are some players of note left unprotected, including pitchers Eduardo Vera, Tyler Eppler and Brandon Waddell. All are possibilities to be selected in the draft, though it should be pointed out that teams lose about one player every three years on average and many of the pitchers taken are hard-throwing relievers. Not all players selected during the draft end up sticking either, so there is also a chance that one of them gets picked and returns to the team by the end of Spring Training. We will have more on the possible Rule 5 draft losses later.
