The Rule-5 Draft is Coming!

The Rule-5 Draft is Coming! Here’s Where the Yankees Stand Currently

…Late-October Thoughts from Cary Greene

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Last week I put together a piece centering on the International Scouting Catastrophe that the Yankees organization punctuated with the firings of international scouts Jose Sabino, Arturo Peña Jr., Moises Brito, Miguel Mojica, Jose Gavidia, Victor Deyan, Edgar Rodriguez, and longtime scout Victor Mata (who was the lead scout for the Yankees over the past 30 years, having been involved with prospects like Gary Sanchez, Melky Cabrera, Robinson Cano, Luis Severino, Alfonso Soriano, Jasson Dominguez, Miguel Andujar and many others).

The Rule 5 Draft is currently expected to take place during the 2026 MLB Winter Meetings in December, though baseball analysts note that an uncertain offseason landscape exists without an agreed upon collective bargaining agreement in place. Mid-November is usually the deadline for teams to finalize their 40-man rosters and in doing so they’ll both prevent exposed prospects from being selected by other organizations at the Winter Meetings, while also inevitably exposing prospects who will be therefore determined eligible for the Rule5 Draft.

Glancing over the pool of currently unprotected Yankees prospects, who have not yet cracked the 40-man roster, there are no less than 20 unprotected players between the Rookie Developmental, Low-A and High-A levels of the Yankees system and there are another 35 unprotected players in the higher levels of the Yankees system, including  Double-A and Triple-A. Cashman’s main pre-Rule 5 Draft goal will be to create enough space on the Yankees 40-man roster to protect the prospects deemed worthy of a roster spot.

Out of the 55 prospects I’m projecting will be Rule-5 Draft eligible if they are not added to the Yankees 40-man roster, 18 of them were signed by the Yankees as International Amateurs and that’s a very high number. What’s even more concerning is that 13 of them are spread between the Rookie (3), Low-A (3) and High-A (7) levels of the Yankees system. All of them will have exceeded service time and will be Rule-5 eligible.

After the season ends, the Yankees will have a smidge over $202.8 million on the books for 2027. Remaining under contract on the positional side of things  will be Aaron Judge; Cody Bellinger; Giancarlo Stanton and Ryan McMahon. Pitchers Gerrit Cole; Max Fried and Carlos Rodon are also under contract. Nine other Yankees players will be in various stages of arbitration eligibility: Luis Garcia Jr; Clarke Schmidt; Fernando Cruz, Ryan Weathers, Anthony Volpe; Luis Gil, Jose Caballero; Austin Wells and Heliot Ramos. 

Barring a surprise decision by Cashman to release any of these players, we can project these 16 players to occupy spots on the Yankees active roster. The Yankees have no less than 10 free agents who will be dropping off the roster as well: Trent Grisham; Paul Goldschmidt; Tim Hill; Ryan Yarbrough; Amed Rosario; Paul Blackburn; Michael Fulmer; Jazz Chisholm, David Bednar and John Schreiber.

Other players currently occupying 40-man roster spots are: Brendan Beck; Kevin Castro (IL-60); Yerry De los Santos; Luis Gil; Bradley Hanner; Elmer Rodriguez; Max Schuemann and Clarke Schmidt (IL-15).

It appears that the Yankees will have some room to maneuver prior to the Rule-5 Draft taking place - assuming it does take place that is. It’s hard to project how many spots the Yankees will be able to create on their 40-man roster. Some of the current 40-man roster members could be traded or intentionally exposed to the Rule-5 Draft and there might even be a few big names DFA’d as well - like Giancarlo Stanton or Ryan McMahon..etc. Of course, the Yankees would be on the hook for any monies owed to these types of players, but the point of DFAing them would be to open roster spots to protect otherwise exposed prospects.

There’s no doubt that a few of the soon-to-be free-agents are players the Yankees might like to bring back, but that won’t happen until well after the Rule-5 Draft and remember, with each signing, a corresponding roster decision must be made in order to create room. Paul Blackburn and David Bednar appear to be two that Cashman may attempt to sign. Beyond those two, I don’t think that any of the other pending free agents will be brought back - including Jazz Chisholm.

I’ve poured over the list of all 55 Rule-5 Draft eligible players in the Yankees system and there are some names that do jump out, like Carlos Lagrange; Kyle Carr; Eric Rayzelman; Roderick Arias; Garrett Martin, Cade Smith; Brock Selvidge; Jace Avina; Harrison Cohen, Trent Sellers and Coby Morales among numerous others. The Yankees will absolutely protect Lagrange and Arias and they’ll have plenty of room to protect a deep tranche of others they deem worthy.

Could any of these players that I’ve identified help the Yankees in 2027? It’s certainly an interesting list and keep in mind, any of these prospects who the Yankees decide to protect will need to be given spots on the Yankees 40-man roster. The Yankees have a number of prospects ahead of some of these players also, but that will all shake out when & if the 2027 season gets rolling along.

I thought it would be fun to start bouncing around the names of prospects that our readers and/or our writers believe should be protected, so let’s do that in the comments section below. This should make for some interesting discussion.