General Description - From this page, you may view the Rule 5 draft results for the current season. After the draft, your franchise's selected prospects will be listed on this page.

Rnd - This indicates the round in which this prospect was drafted.

Pick - This indicates overall pick in the draft at which this player was drafted.

Rank - This indicates the original overall rank of this prospect on your draft board. If the prospect's rank is lower than his pick number, then he was a bargain according to your advanced scouting rankings. If you have excellent advanced scouting, this is obviously good. That may not be the case, if you have poor advanced scouting. However, draft selections are also relative to other team needs and advanced scouting.

Pos - This indicates the player's projected primary position. Though you may later decide to change the player's primary position as he advances, your advanced scouting services have rated this player at this position.

Age - A player's age is a good indication of how close he is to his projected peak. Most players will peak in their late 20s.

Original Franchise - This is the team that originally had the player on their franchise. If you decide to move this player, this is the franchise that they will be offered back to.

How does it all work? - Baseball's Rule 5 Draft is a draft unique to the world of baseball. It was designed to prevent franchises from keeping talent in the minors. Players with at least 4 years of pro experience, not on the club's 40-man roster and not signed beyond the current season are exposed to the draft. To protect players from going into the draft, they must be added to the 40-man roster before the Rule 5 Roster Freeze following Free Agency. During the Roster Freeze, all eligible players form the draft class. At that time, you can rank all of your players and fine tune your settings. As a word of note, though, there are several stipulations to drafting a player.

1. You can't draft a player from your own franchise.
2. You can draft a maximum of 10 players.
3. You can only draft enough players to fill your 40-man roster. For example, if you have 38 players on your 40-man roster, you can only select two players.
4. You must have enough available player payroll to cover the $50,000 it costs to draft a player plus his salary. If his salary is below the big league minimum, it will be bumped up to the big league minimum.
5. And, of course, all of your draft settings will be adhered to.

What happens after I draft a player? - After you draft a player, he will join your franchise and appear in your group of players needing assignment. You then have until the end of Spring Training in which to put him on your big league roster. If you don't put him on your big league roster by then, the player will go through the Rule 5 Offer back process. The first step in this process is that the player gets put onto the waiver wire. If he is claimed by another owner, then he and his special Rule 5 status are tranferred to the new club. If he isn't claimed, he will be sent back to his original franchise. They then have 2 days to either accept the offer back for $25,000 or decline it. If they accept the offer back, the team that drafted him loses all rights to the player. If the original franchise decides to decline the option, the player then loses his unique Rule 5 status and becomes a player with no additional rights. If a Rule 5 pick is acquired via trade or waiver claim, the new club has 72 hours to assign the player to his big league team or else the whole Rule 5 Offer back process starts again.

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