The Rule 5 draft serves as the unofficial ending of the Winter Meetings with teams getting an opportunity to select unprotected players from each team’s roster.
Many teams choose to pass on taking a player during the Major League phase of the draft as the rules require that any player taken during that phase must stick in the big leagues for the entire duration of the following regular season. However, there have been many success stories of players being taken and thriving with new opportunity, one of those being former Devil Ray top prospect Josh Hamilton who when on to become an MVP with the Texas Rangers.