Five Rule 5 Picks the San Francisco Giants Should Consider

Last week, the San Francisco Giants were required to put players on their roster to protect them from the Rule 5 draft.

Most notably, they left outfield prospect, Sandro Fabian, unprotected. Other teams had the same dilemmas, so here are five rule five picks the San Francisco Giants should consider.

The Rule 5 draft is one of the great, weird things about the MLB offseason. The rules? If you draft the player for the major league portion of the draft, they must remain on your big league roster, unless injured. What players are eligible?

Any player who was 19 years or older when they signed their big league contract, has three years to make it to the 40-man roster of that team. If they don’t, they are eligible to be picked. If they are 18 or younger, they have 4 years. It’s supposed to keep teams from stashing big league level players in their farm system for years upon years.

Last year, the San Francisco Giants selected Julian Fernandez, a wild flamethrower from the Colorado Rockies. He didn’t make it through Spring Training and landed on the 60-Day DL and out for the year with Tommy John surgery.

The Rule 5 draft garners a lot of attention. This article is an example. But the reality is, most of the time, teams don’t make the picks because they are forced to keep the player on their big league roster for the entire season. However, we’d be remised if we didn’t highlight a few players available in the draft who might be able to help the San Francisco Giants. So let’s dive in!