In ordinary circumstances, the Rule 5 draft doesn’t matter very much. A team that diligently makes selections, as the Orioles have done first under Dan Duquette and now under Mike Elias, might eventually get lucky and pick a player who has a modestly successful season in the near future. Last year’s pick of Tyler Wells looks like it might have found a useful piece of the back end of a good bullpen. This is not nothing, but it’s also not very consequential. Already good teams aren’t filling holes in the Rule 5 draft.
Even less significant than the MLB portion of the Rule 5 draft is the minor league phase of the draft.