Rule 5 Preview

Are there any candidates out there who might entice?

When I started writing this piece, I’ll admit that the prospect of the Giants diving back into the Rule 5 waters in 2025 seemed to be gaining prominence in my mind, and I had a certain jauntiness in my typing fingers as they clicky-clacked out information that could pertain to future Giants’ activities. The club appeared to be going into the winter meetings with an all-important empty spot on their 40-man roster that would allow them at least the option of participating in the Rule 5 draft (teams with full 40-mans are not allowed to take a player in the major league portion of the draft).

Ah, but then just Wednesday, the Giants spoiled my fun a bit by formally announcing the deal for left-handed reliever, Sam Hentges, thus closing up that enticing little gap. They didn’t have to! Teams can wait a good little while cleaning up the physical portion of a deal and announcing it to the public — I remember waiting what seemed like months for the original Wilmer Flores deal (back in 2020) to be formally announced.

As it stands now, the Giants will head to the meetings with a booked up 40-man, which means that they’ll either have to simply release a player in the coming days without any off-setting transaction (highly unusual!) or they would need to conduct a trade in the first couple days of the winter meetings that sends out more 40-man players than it brings in (at least hypothetically possible) in order for anything in today’s post to be meaningful.

Ah well! I know folks do love a good bit of Rule 5 content, so we’ll go through the exercise anyway. I’ll take one last look at players who the Giants might have to say goodbye to (at least temporarily), and then identify a handful of players who might be interest the Giants as they seek to rebuild their pitching staff in the annual There R Giants’ Rule 5 preview.