The Rule 5 draft is usually much ado about nothing, the least exciting hour on the baseball calendar, at least since the 2006 CBA gutted the player pool for the draft in an abject reduction of player rights. This year was a marginal exception, with a couple of legitimate prospects taken in the major league phase. They are not impact players (certainly not any top-100 types), but players who do project to some major league value.

The Twins were aggressive in exposing some big-name pitching prospects to the draft, but didn't lose Kohl Stewart (the fourth pick in the 2013 June draft) or Ryan Eades (their second-round pick the same year). They did lose Nick Burdi, their 2014 second-round pick, a right-handed reliever who is 98-100 with a plus slider that can be 88-92 when he's healthy … which he's not, as he had Tommy John surgery around last year's midpoint and likely won't return to the mound at any level until July. The Phillies took Burdi and swapped him to Pittsburgh for international bonus pool space.