While many fans identify baseball’s Winter Meetings as a hotbed for trades and potential free agent signings, few realize that the event also features the annual Rule 5 Draft, which is held on the final day of the gathering.
Heading into the meetings next month, the Dodgers need to add two players to the big league 40-man roster or else risk losing them to rival clubs in the draft. Both are right-handed pitchers—sinkerballer Trevor Oaks and the hard-throwing Dennis Santana.
Oaks is heading into his fifth season in the Dodgers’ system after being selected in the seventh round of the 2014 first-year player draft.