St. Louis Cardinals: Three Potential Rule 5 Picks

With the Rule 5 Draft coming up, who might the St. Louis Cardinals have interest in?

The St. Louis Cardinals are now only a week away from the annual Rule 5 Draft. For those who don’t know, the Rule 5 Draft is a minor league player draft, that occurs during December’s Winter Meetings.

The purpose of this Draft is to help minor league players, who are potentially major league ready, who are being stockpiled in their teams minor league system. This could be because they are being blocked by a current player, their team has no room for them on the 25-man roster, or because they are being undervalued by their organization.

In order for a player to be eligible for the draft, the player must have have been signed when he was 18 years old and have played in the minors for five years, or signed when he was 19 years old or older and have played in the minors for at least four years.

If and when a player is selected in the draft, the team that drafted him must pay $50,000 to the team from which they took him.

In addition, after being drafted, the player is added to that team’s 40-man roster, and the player must remain on that team’s 25-man roster for the entire season. If the team wishes to remove the player from their 25-man roster, they must first offer the player back to the team he was selected from for $25,000.

Last year, the St. Louis Cardinals took a chance with the former Mets AAA pitcher Matt Bowman, who not only made the 25-man roster, but became a critical piece of their bullpen.

The Rule 5 Draft, while risky, can be a rewarding and valuable tool for teams who wish to partake. With names like Jose Bautista, Josh Hamilton, Johan Santana, and Roberto Clemente being taken with former picks, every draft has the possibility of leaving a substantial impact on the team that is willing to take the chance.

With the Rule 5 Draft coming up on Dec. 8, let’s take a look at a couple of players the Cardinals might be interested in taking.