Identifying Statistical Benchmarks For Successful Rule 5 Picks — College Baseball, MLB Draft, Prospects

“What can the previous season’s performance tell us about successful Rule 5 draft selections?”

That was the question that stuck in my brain like a splinter as J.J. and myself began our dive back into the postponed 2021 Rule 5 Draft. I thought of different angles in which I could answer that question, which led me to another question. Was there a common baseline of production in the season prior to Rule 5 selection that portends future success?

In order to answer this question I had to answer what a successful Rule 5 pick looked like and how to quantify that. I then had to compile a common group of statistical markers to measure production in the season prior.

The first question seemed fairly simple to define. A successful Rule 5 pick must do two things; first, stick with the team that selects them in the Rule 5 draft. Second, they must produce a positive career WAR following their Rule 5 selection.

The second part wasn’t as easy. I first needed to compile all of the hitters and pitchers drafted in the Rule 5 draft since the year 2000. I then needed to decide on statistics to use to identify thresholds of production in that prior season. More advanced statistics that have come to be commonplace aren’t available much prior to 2016, so I had to make a decision on the sample and which metrics to use. For hitters I looked at batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and isolated power. Imperfect, but it at least provided a baseline across the entire sample that measured hit tool, on-base ability and power.

Pitchers were not nearly as clean. I wanted to avoid ERA for a few reasons—avoiding it minimizes environmental factors like ballparks, altitude and poor team defense. I felt it was important to get a clearer picture of the previous season’s production. For this reason, FIP seemed to make the most sense.

Beyond FIP, I looked at strikeout percentage, walk percentage, innings pitched and starts made in the season prior to selection. This gave me a good idea of each pitcher’s role the year prior to their selection, and their ability to both miss bats and throw strikes.

After filtering through all Rule 5 picks that stuck, I then filtered by all Rule 5 picks that stuck that have produced a positive career WAR. This left us a sample of 18 position players and 43 pitchers since the year 2000.

The final step was to identify the average of each statistic for all successful Rule 5 picks in the season prior to selection—then identify the outliers from those averages. This helps inform J.J. and myself in future Rule 5 articles and directs our attention toward players with a certain level of production in the prior season.

Now that we’ve outlined the parameters of our study, below are the findings of this exercise.

Position Players

There have been 18 position players with a positive career WAR that have stuck since 2000. In their season prior to being selected, they averaged a .291/.368/.450 slash line.

The average age of successful position players was 23.

Of that group, all but three position players had done two of these three things in the season prior to their selection.

Hit .260 or above
Had an OBP of .340 or above
Slugged .400 or above

Akil Baddoo didn’t do any of the three in 2019 prior to his 2020 selection.
Josh Hamilton hit .260 but had an on-base percentage of .327 and a slugging percentage of .360 in 2006.
Victor Reyes missed the on-base percentage threshold by .008 and the slugging percentage threshold by .001 in 2017.

Of those 18 hitters only two position players hit below .260 in their active year prior to their Rule 5 selection.

Delino DeShields Jr. (2014)
Akil Baddoo (2020)

Baddoo is an odd case because there was no 2020 minor league season—his data is based on a season two years before he was selected.

Josh Phelps is the only successful player who was 26 or older at the time of his selection. There have been four 25-year-olds who were successful.

Ten of the 18 players who have stuck and provided a positive career WAR since 2000 were 23 or younger at the time of their selection.

Only one position player, Akil Baddoo, was younger than 21 at the time of their Rule 5 selection.

The Tigers’ Victor Reyes is the only Rule 5 draft pick since 2000 to stick and provide a positive career WAR with a WAR under -0.5 in his initial season after being selected.

Pitchers

Since 2000 there have been 43 pitchers selected in the Rule 5 draft that have stuck and produced a positive career WAR.

Here’s the average prior year for a pitcher selected in the Rule 5 who stuck and produced a positive career WAR:

9 games started, 86.1 IP, 3.32 FIP, 23.68 K%, 8.78 BB%.

Of those 43 pitchers only nine failed to reach Double-A in the year prior to their selection.

In the 10 Rule 5 drafts since 2011 only one pitcher that has stuck and produced a positive WAR came from below the Double-A level, 2018 Blue Jays selection Elvis Luciano.
66% of the players drafted out of High-A or lower that produced a positive career WAR were drafted between 2000 and 2006. The eligibility rules were different during those years. Starting in 2007, players were not eligible for the Rule 5 until they’d completed an additional season in their minor league career.

Only nine of those 43 pitchers reached Triple-A in the year prior to selection.
Just five of those 43 pitchers had a FIP above 4.00 in the season prior to selection.
58% (25) of those 43 pitchers made eight or fewer starts in the season prior to selection.
33% (14) never made a start in the season prior to selection.
Only 20% (nine) of those 43 pitchers made 20 or more starts the season prior to selection.

There have been 18 pitchers that have stuck and produced a WAR of 1 or greater. Of those pitchers, only five started 12 or more games in the active year prior to the Rule 5 draft in which they were selected.

Miguel Asencio (Royals—2001)
Ryan Pressly (Twins—2012)
Sean Gilmartin (Mets—2014)
Brad Keller (Reds—2017)
Garrett Whitlock (Red Sox – 2020)

Only five pitched more than 100 innings in the season prior to being selected.

Miguel Asencio (Royals—2001)
Aquilino Lopez (Blue Jays—2002)
Ryan Pressly (Twins—2012)
Sean Gilmartin (Mets—2014)
Brad Keller (Reds—2017)

Only two of those 18 pitchers had a FIP above 4.00 the year prior to their Rule 5 selection.

Ryan Pressly (Twins—2012)
Wesley Wright (Astros—2007)

Of those 18 only three pitchers had a walk rate above 10% in the year prior to their Rule 5 selection.

Miguel Asencio (Royals—2001)
Tommy Kahnle (Rockies—2013)
Wesley Wright (Astros—2007)

Since 2016, 10 pitchers have stuck with the organization they were selected by in the Rule 5 draft and produced a positive WAR.

None of those pitchers had a strikeout rate below 19% in the last active season prior to selection.
Of those 10 pitchers, only two had a strikeout rate below 24.5% in their last active season prior to selection. Those two pitchers are the Red Sox’s Garrett Whitlock (2020) and the Royals’ Brad Keller (2017—Reds). Like Baddoo, Whitlock is an unusual outlier in that there was no 2020 minor league season.
Only two of those 10 pitchers produced a FIP higher than 3.60 in their last active season prior to selection—the Blue Jays’ Elvis Luciano (2018) and the Rockies’ Jordan Sheffield (2020)
Strikes are important, and only two pitchers in that group of 10 had a walk rate higher than 10% in their last active season prior to selection—the Mariners’ Yohan Ramirez (2019) and the Rockies’ Jordan Sheffield (2020).
Eight of those 10 pitchers reached Double-A or higher in their season prior to selection.
All but the Marlins’ Elieser Hernandez produced a positive WAR in their initial season after selection.

Takeaways

Age and experience matter … but not too much experience. Over 75% of the successful Rule 5 draft picks have reached Double-A in the season prior to their selection.
But only 26% reached the Triple-A level the season prior to their selection.
50% of successful Rule 5 picks have been selected out of Double-A.
As you would expect, offensive production matters in the season prior to Rule 5 selection.
Only four successful Rule 5 picks have hit below .280 in the year prior to their selection.
On-base ability matters. Among the 18 position players considered successful Rule 5 picks, only four (22.2%) had an on-base percentage below .340 in the year prior to their selection.
Power matters less. Only five (27.7%) of the 18 successful Rule 5 position picks had a slugging percentage above .500 in the season prior to their selection.
The majority of pitchers taken in the Rule 5 draft that have produced a positive career WAR since 2000 were relievers or part-time starters the season prior to their selection.
Strikeouts matter. Over 75% of all successful Rule 5 pitchers had a strikeout rate of 20% or higher in the season prior to their selection.
Control matters. Over 75% of all successful Rule 5 pitchers had a walk rate below 10% in the season prior to their selection.
While starts in the previous season do not correlate well with Rule 5 success, innings do. Only five pitchers threw less than 50 innings in the previous season and two of those five were within four innings of 50.
Over 65% of all successful Rule 5 pitchers threw 70 or more innings in the season prior to their selection.