The Rule 5 Draft is less than half an hour away, beginning at 10am ET as this week’s Winter Meetings in Nashville, Tenn. draw to a close. Those unfamiliar with the Rule 5 Draft can check out MLBTR’s full primer on the event here, but the short version of the story is that teams with open 40-man roster spots can select players with four to five years of pro experience from other organizations if said player hasn’t been protected on the 40-man roster. Players that signed at 18 years of age or younger but have five years of experience can be selected, as can players signed at 19 or older that have four years of experience. Clubs don’t have to make picks — many will not — and players that are selected must be carried on a team’s active roster (or MLB DL) throughout the entire 2016 season or be exposed to waivers and then offered back to their original club. Teams can also work out trades with the original organization to keep the selected player in the organization but send him to the minors.

The Rule 5 Draft order is based on the reverse order of last year’s standings. It’s already been reported that the Phillies are likely to take Rays outfielder Tyler Goeddel with the No. 1 pick, and Baseball America’s J.J. Cooper hears that the Reds are leaning toward selecting outfielder Jake Cave from the Yankees with the second pick. Both Cooper (link here) and Callis (link here) have listed plenty of names that could be selected and provided brief rundowns of each player, for those who want to brush up before the event approaches. Furthermore, Cooper took a stab this morning at projecting the early portion of the draft.

We’ll track the results here once the draft is officially underway (current 40-man roster count listed in parenthesis; hat tip to Callis on that info)…

Round 1

Round 2