I’m at the Winter Meetings in Dallas, Texas, this year, and one of my favorite things of the entire offseason is the Rule 5 Draft, which happens here live! The draft will take place Wednesday, Dec. 11, at 2 p.m. ET at the Hilton Anatole. The Mets have the 21st overall pick.

The Mets were active in the major league and minor league Rule 5 Draft last season. In the majors portion, the Mets selected right-handed pitcher Justin Slaten, though they almost immediately traded him to the Red Sox for left-handed pitching prospect Ryan Ammons. On the minor league side, the Mets drafted two players (UT Donovan Antonia, RHP Alan Perdomo) and lost five players (RHP Brendan Hardy, 1B/OF Yeral Martinez, LHP Tyler Thomas, RHP Daison Acosta, RHP Benito Garcia).

The Mets’ most recent Rule 5 Draft success was lefty Sean Gilmartin, who went on to play a key role in the 2015 bullpen. In 2019, they drafted righty Adam Oller in the minor league portion and ended up using him in the package to acquire veteran pitcher Chris Bassitt from the A’s.

Overall, in 2023, 10 players were drafted in the major league portion, and six of them stuck with the drafting team throughout the 2024 season.

Jonathan Mayo of MLB Pipeline reports that right-hander Shane Smith (Brewers) will be the No. 1 pick by the White Sox.

Before we look at the available players in the Rule 5 Draft and players the Mets didn’t protect, let’s go through the draft rules.

  • Teams must have open space on their 40-man roster to make a selection in the Rule 5 Draft. They can make as many selections as they have open spots and the draft order is based on record (unless of course, a team has no open 40 spots).
  • The drafting team must pay the player’s original team $100K.
  • Player must stay on the 26-man roster for the entirety of the season.
  • If the drafting team wants to remove player from the active roster, they are placed on waivers. If not claimed, they are offered back to the original team for $50K. If they clear waivers and the original team doesn’t want them back for that price, they can then be sent to the minors by the team that drafted them.
  • A Rule 5 pick can be placed on the major league injured list, but he must be on the active roster for 90 days to avoid the aforementioned roster restrictions during the next season.
  • Teams can trade drafted players, and the roster restrictions stay the same.
  • The drafting team can also work out a trade with the player’s original team to acquire his full rights, thus allowing them to option him to the minors without roster restrictions.
  • Players that need to be added to the 40-man roster to protect from Rule 5 Draft: players signed at 18 or younger who have spent five seasons in the minors or players signed at 19 or older who have spent four seasons in the minors
  • There’s also a minor league portion of the Rule 5 Draft that has no roster restrictions for the drafting team, the player assumes his contract when they draft him and that’s the case until they become a free agent. The drafting team pays the player’s old team $24,000. In addition to the 40-man roster, teams submit a list of 38 players they want to protect from the minor league portion of the draft.

Players the Mets Could Lose

The Mets decided not to add any prospects to the 40-man roster before last month’s deadline, exposing a couple of their top 30 prospects to the draft. The two players who surprised Mets fans the most and have the best chance of getting drafted are righties Mike Vasil and Dom Hamel. Both of them were taken in the 2021 draft—Hamel in the third round and Vasil in the eighth—and have primarily pitched well until they hit Triple-A.

Vasil, 24, has a 5.78 ERA in 45 Triple-A games over two seasons, and Hamel, 25, had a 6.79 ERA in 27 Triple-A starts this year for the Syracuse Mets. Now, the International League is a hitter’s haven, with a league ERA of 4.83 this season, and 9 of the 20 teams had an ERA over 5.00. That said, you’d hope either of these guys would adjust, but Vasil had a higher ERA in his second taste of Triple-A and Hamel had a higher ERA in the second half of last season.

MLB Pipeline listed Hamel as the Mets’ most intriguing player available in the draft, and I’m sure some teams think they can build around Dom’s high-spin slider to make him an effective reliever. Baseball America mentioned Hamel and Vasil as players to know in their most recent Rule 5 preview.

Utility player Luke Ritter and right-handed pitcher Joander Suarez are two other notable Mets prospects who were left unprotected. In the latest edition of their Rule 5 Draft preview, Baseball America also mentioned Mets prospects 1B/3B/OF JT Schwartz and RHP Raimon Gomez as players to know.

Alex Santos II. Via Fayetteville Woodpeckers

Players the Mets Could Draft 

I’m only going to look at a few of the available arms I liked the best when researching players available in the Rule 5 Draft. I highly recommend reading the Baseball America preview to see a wider range of players.

RHP Alex Santos II (Astros)

Santos is the name that immediately jumped out at me during research for various reasons. First, Santos was drafted by the Astros in 2020 out of high school in the Bronx. At the time, current Mets vice president of amateur scouting Kris Gross was running the Astros’ drafts. The second thing that immediately jumped out to me was the amount of strikeouts (26) in 17 2/3 innings during the Arizona Fall League. He had a 3.57 ERA and allowed only 13 hits in the AFL–where hitters tend to dominate.

Santos made a change from throwing a slider in the regular season when he had a 7.83 ERA in Double-A to a sweeper in the AFL where he had significantly more success. He also throws a mid-90s fastball with above-average carry and a cutter.

The red flags are pretty obvious with Santos struggling much of his minor league career before pitching well in the AFL, but the Mets have a connection with Gross and the 22-year-old looked like a different pitcher against better competition in the AFL. David Stearns has also shown he will leave no stone unturned to find value in the bullpen.

LHP Ryan Webb (Guardians)

The lefty isn’t going to light up the radar gun, but he is coming off a very successful season between Double-A and Triple-A in the Guardians organization. He had a 2.80 ERA and only allowed seven home runs in 141 1/3 total innings (34 2/3 innings in Triple-A). He struck out 151 and gave up only 126 hits in 2024.

Webb features a low-90s fastball and works in a slider, curveball, and changeup. As you’d expect for a guy having success without a big fastball, Weeb commands his offspeed stuff above-average and gets whiffs on all three of the pitches.

From a Mets standpoint, they have only two lefties on the 40-man roster: David Peterson and Danny Young. I’m sure they would like to add to that, and Webb would come from an organization strong in developing pitching.

RHP Griff McGarry (Phillies)

Arguably the best pure stuff of any pitcher available in the draft. However, the 25-year-old has a career 6.8 BB/9 in the minors to go with his 13.1 K/9. McGarry had a 4.70 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 30/2 innings in Triple-A. During that span, he allowed only 23 hits but issued a whopping 36 walks. More of the same in the AFL when he allowed only eight hits but walked 11 batters and struck out 15.

McGarry has worked as a starter (42 starts) and reliever (40 bullpen appearances throughout his four years in the minors. He features a big fastball in the mid-90s that has been up to 99 mph. His best secondary is a mid-80s slider that generates a ton of whiffs.

The obvious red flag is McGarry walking a lot of hitters, as he’s never been able to show consistent command with any of his pitches.

RHP Jose Acuña (Reds)

Mets fans should be familiar with the name because New York traded the right-hander (along with OF Hector Rodriguez) to the Reds for outfielder Tyler Naquin in 2022. The 2024 season for Acuña was a mixed bag with a 0.81 ERA in nine Double-A appearances (seven starts) and a 9.95 ERA in four Triple-A starts. The former Mets prospect finished the year with a 2.77 ERA in 13 Arizona Fall League innings.

Acuña missed a large portion of the 2024 season with a flexor strain, though he did throw 100 innings in the Red system during the 2023 season.

He uses a fastball that sits 92-24 and tops out at 96 mph. He mixed in a slider and changeup and showed good command of both pitches during the 2024 season.

LHP Bryan Magdaleno (Rangers)

The 23-year-old lefty reliever was limited to 42 2/3 innings in 2024 but was stellar, with a 1.27 ERA, only 19 hits allowed and 68 strikeouts. Most of that action was in Low-A, with eight innings at High-A, and he finished the season with four innings at Double-A. He allowed only one home run and ran a 58.3 groundball percentage.

Magdaleno uses a cross-body delivery that makes his mid-90s fastball and slider even tougher to pick up. He was equally as good against righties (.446 OPS) as he was against lefties (.456 OPS) this season.

RHP Evan Reifert (Rays)

The 25-year-old dominated during the 2024 season in Double-A for the Rays. In 35 relief appearances, he had a 1.96 ERA, allowed only 22 hits, struck out 65 batters, and walked 16. For his minor league career, Reifert has a 3.01 ERA and 242 strikeouts in 146 1/3 innings.

Reifert uses his 82-85 mph fastball 50% of the time and backs it up with a mid-90s fastball that can reach 97 mph. Walks, mostly outside of 2024, have been an issue, with a 5.4 BB/9 rate over four seasons.

Other arms who could get drafted:

Some of the position players who could get drafted:

I could certainly see the Mets potentially taking an arm during the draft, and a lefty would be a good spot to focus on. They will enter the Rule 5 Draft with 33 players on the 40-man roster, so they have plenty of room if they decide to make a selection.