Rule 5 Decision: Erik Miller

A big lefty and the subtle art of kicking cans

Photo Credit: Mick Anders | Richmond Flying Squirrels

The Tampa Bay Rays, among their many other distinctions, have mastered the art of kicking the Rule 5 Protection can down the road. When facing their annual roster crunch, they hone in on the players who are on the outside looking in, and deal them elsewhere for a younger player whose protection date is still some years away, thus constantly replenishing the talent in their system in sometimes small and sometimes spectacular ways.

The most startlingly successful of these maneuvers came in November of 2021, when they decided not to add a left-handed pitcher named Tobias Myers to protect him from the Rule 5 draft. Instead, they dealt him to the Guardians in return for a 17-year-old coming off his pro debut in the DSL — scouting complex levels for potential breakout talents is another tactic pioneered by the Rays. Myers would be DFA’d by Cleveland three months into the following season, and has since been a part of three further organizations (including the Giants — did you recognize him as one of the 97 players who floated through Sacramento’s roster in 2022?). That 17-year-old DSL player, on the other hand, rose quickly through the Rays’ system, became one of the top prospects in baseball (#5 on Baseball America’s current Top 100), made his big league debut two months after his 20th birthday, and even made a brief appearance in this year’s playoffs. Yes, “Myers for Junior Caminero” seems destined to be one of those baseball boogeymen under the bed of future trade talks, along the lines of “James Shields for Fernando Tatis, Jr.,” “Yordan Alvarez for Josh Fields,” or “Luis Castillo for Casey McGehee.” Make sure what you have in your own back yard before entering on “small deal” talks — they could come back to haunt you.

Of course, most of these Rule 5 deals don’t turn out nearly that successful. Last year, for instance, the Rays made a similar deal with the Giants, trading Brett Wisely, who was hopelessly buried under their glut of middle infield players for Tristan Peters, a corner outfielder with good contact skills but somewhat lacking in power. Wisely was eligible for the 2022 Rule 5 draft, while Peters wouldn’t need protecting until 2024, so it made sense for the Rays. The Giants, meanwhile, were nowhere near so deep at middle infield as the Rays, so it made sense for them as well. (Peters, if you’re wondering, hit .276/.361/.422 this year in a return to Double-A, with seven home runs). Just Monday, the Rays got their annual can kicking process cranked up again, dealing a catcher facing Rule 5 protection to Seattle in exchange for a different catcher who was just drafted in 2022. Seattle fervently hopes that two years from now they won’t have dealt a catching Caminero.

The Giants are not yet at this level of player production. We’ve already covered a couple of likely “near miss” cases in this series, but we haven’t seen them get to the point where those on the outside looking in on the roster decisions are used to replenish lower levels of talent on annual basis — though they hope to be heading in that direction eventually. They did, however, manage to pull off a small deal last winter that did indeed kick the Rule 5 can effectively down the road a year.