Welcome to my annual exercise in futility — a ritual of public humiliation so consistent in its annual wrongness that I can take solace if my predictions haven’t been proven incorrect before the post publishes — predicting who the Giants might protect from the Rule 5 draft at the upcoming Winter meetings. Will I up the ante by predicting a shutout for the Giants’ system this year? Perhaps!
But first, for the uninitiated, how about a clear and simple recap of the groundrules: players are eligible to be selected in the Rule 5 draft if they are 1) not on their team’s 40-man roster as of 8 pm EST tomorrow (Wednesday, 11/20) night and 2) experiencing their fourth Rule 5 draft if they were 19 or older on June 5 of the year they signed their first professional contract or their fifth Rule 5 draft if they were 18 or younger on June 5 of the year.