The Rule 5 draft well embodies a quirk common among much of baseball fandom: fascination with the inconsequential. The yearly event serves more to force teams to prioritize their top prospects than to infuse the major leagues with talent, a fact which is well borne out by the eventual fates of the players selected. Yet, that doesn’t stop most fans, myself included, from engaging in the annual ritual of examining every possibility in the search for a shiny new toy for their favorite team.
The Tigers are poised to draft third in the 2020 Rule 5 draft, which will be general manager Al Avila’s sixth as the leading man in Detroit.