Rule 5 Draft

[Bob_Meteors]

A Rule 5 draft would allow minor league players to have a chance in the major leagues. From the OOTP manual, these are the eligibility requirements for Rule 5:
The player has at least three but fewer than six years of professional service time, and the player was age 19 or older when he first signed a contract.
The player is not on the team's secondary roster.
Note: Players who were age 18 or younger when they entered the league are eligible if they have at least four, but fewer than seven years of professional service time. In other words, young players get an extra year before they become eligible for the Rule 5 draft.

Professional service time refers to time spent in any level of the league, which in our league is just how much time has passed since they were drafted.

OOTP does not allow for much customization of the Rule 5 draft. As far as I can tell, the following rules are not changeable:
1. A team can make a selection in the Rule 5 draft if they have empty spots on their 40 man roster. However, Rule 5 selections must remain on the active (25 man) roster or disabled list for the entire season.
2. Rule 5 draftees can be waived or traded, and their new team must keep them on the active roster or DL for the entire season, unless they are waived or traded again.
3. A player selected in the Rule 5 draft must spend at least 90 days on the active roster (in other words, a team cannot dump a Rule 5 pick on the DL for the entire season). If this does not happen, the requirement can extend into the following season.

I ran a test league Rule 5 Draft and it seems like there are only two customizations the commissioner can make: whether to have a straight or serpentine draft, and the draft order. The default draft order is reverse order of standings, which I think is reasonable, but it can be customized (meaning theoretically Rule 5 picks could be tradable, but that would probably not be a good idea). In my opinion, we should vote between a straight draft in reverse standings order, and a serpentine draft in random order, but that can be a later vote if the Rule 5 draft is agreed to.

There is no set length of a Rule 5 draft - it continues until every team has either ran out of room on their 40 man roster, or decided not to select a player. They typically last between 3 and 5 rounds. No team is required to make a selection, and teams can make as many selections as they want (provided that they have room on their 40 man roster).

The fact that essentially no aspects of the Rule 5 draft are customizable is a mixed blessing. It means we don't have to argue about tweaking the eligibility requirements - you either like them or you don't, and should vote accordingly. It would be theoretically possible to have a Rule 5 draft without using OOTP - someone (me) would manually gather a list of players who are eligible according to modified rules the league decides on, and then we could hold a draft in Slack. I wouldn't mind doing that, but it would be much less convenient for GMs to not be able to view the draft pool in-game, so for now I suggest we stick to the OOTP Rule 5 draft if anything. GMs could submit draft lists in-game. If a team is managed by the AI, they would probably not make any picks, and almost definitely no more than two - the AI doesn't draft very often in Rule 5.

I think having a Rule 5 draft would be helpful to improve parity - plenty of AAA players for good teams could be starters for bad teams, and are young and on league minimum contracts. There are currently over 1000 players in the WBA who are eligible for Rule 5 selection (weirdly, despite the WBA not having a Rule 5 draft, it's still a filterable option, so if you want to see the entire list yourself just pull up a list of all WBA players and filter by Rule 5 eligibility). There are some good prospects on that list, but anyone who a team *really* wants to keep (for example, Ethan Gloyn or Rajeshh Vasava) will be added to the 40 man roster if we do pass this amendment, so nobody will be losing any genuinely good prospects. But there are definitely a fair number of minor leaguers who could possibly cut it in the majors, and they deserve a chance.