Last year, the Padres acquired Miguel Diaz, Luis Torrens, and Allen Cordoba in the Rule 5 draft. The year before, they acquired four players and wound up keeping Luis Perdomo and Jabari Blash in the organization. Coming into the 2017 version of the Rule 5 draft, A.J. Preller’s reputation all but assured that the Padres would scavenge one or more player from other teams’ systems.
That didn’t happen. For the first time since 2014, the Padres chose to abstain from adding minor league talent to their major league roster through the Rule 5 draft.