Winter Meetings Day Five: Rule Five.

“I have forgotten the sun,” one team official texted yesterday from a secluded suite high above the sprawling central Florida complex “where dreams come true”. So have the rest of us—Florida has spent the Winter Meetings trying to freeze us into skepticism about its nickname. Now it is Thursday morning. Team officials and media and scouts alike are filing into to the ballroom on the second floor of the Dolphin resort in varying states of exhausted, either from the week’s social activities or from the lack thereof, and taking their seats for the Rule Five draft.

The teams sit at their tables as the master of ceremonies conducts a roll call of the teams and their current 40-man roster allocations. “Oakland, forty…” comes the call. “Correct.” comes the response. “Texas, thirty-seven…” “Correct.” and so on until each team has been accounted for. It is time for the draft.

A Tigers representative hastily makes his way to the sort of mic stand you might expect to see at a City Council meeting. It is the pole-shaped straight stand that is always either too tall or too short for the person trying to lean in and use it, not the boom stand, which is shaped like a mangled number 7. Boom stands are much more convenient, but they also tip over more often. The straight stand is the safe (if irksome) choice.

“Detroit selects outfielder Victor Reyes from the AA Jackson roster of the Arizona Diamondbacks,” says the man before returning swiftly to his seat. Then everything goes silent as five middle-aged men huddle around a computer, trying to figure out why it isn’t working. The hushed reverence of the crowd swells from a trickle to a stream, then to a sound like the even HHHHSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH of infinite tiny drops making a mighty river as they crash into thousands of rocks and careen down a mountain pass. After a couple of minutes, there’s an announcement that they’re a “computer issue” and “thanks for your patience”.

“You’re supposed to log out and then…” someone accidentally says into a hot mic.

Ten minutes later, they resume. “The Giants select Julian Fernandez, right-handed pitcher from the Rockies,” says another man, trying to find the microphone, which is still exactly Bermuda Triangle feet tall.

The crowd squeezes the faucet back to a slow drip, with just a few jokes being made here and there. “We have to bring Jets fans to this next year,” someone says behind me. “Can you imagine? ‘BOOOO WE WANTED GONZALEZ!!'”

The Phillies take Nick Burdi from the Twins. There had been a pipe dream among some (myself included) that he would fall to the Rangers at #15, but it was never a realistic hope. Philadephia will later trade him to Pittsburgh.

“The White Sox take outfielder Carlos Tocci from the AA roster of the Philadelphia Phillies”.

Tocci (pronounced “TOE-chee” if you believe Baseball Reference, and TOKE-see if you believe the Rangers press release) is a member of the White Sox for about 14 minutes before he is officially traded to the Texas Rangers (who—having planned this—will pass at #15) for cash, which is where we shift from a story about a draft to a story about a player.

“He’s a center fielder, a plus defender,” Jon Daniels tells us later. “He has really good instincts; a good swing, good bat to ball skills. He’s still kind of a thin guy, not a lot power at this point, but a very good baseball player, + defender, good baserunner, makings of a good hitter.”

Daniels isn’t joking when he says “thin”; Tocci is 6’2″ and weighs 160 pounds. That’s an inch shorter and twenty pounds lighter than Alex Claudio. But Texas has known about Tocci for awhile now, and pursued him when he was an amateur, before the Phillies snapped him up. “We’ve always liked him,” Daniels continued. “He’s a guy that we have some history with (…) really good makeup, good wk ethic, smart, high baseball IQ. It’s obviously a leap, skipping AAA, but I think his skills will play at the big league level; there’s probably still some question about physicality, but (he’s a) good baseball player.”

For a more thorough scouting report on Tocci, we have a guest contribution from Jarrett Seidler, of Baseball Prospectus. He lives about ten minutes from Lakewood, where Tocci played from 2013-15. 

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The draft continues with no further interference from the machines. Someone from the Mariners interrupts the MC to breathe heavily into the microphone: “THE MARINERS SELECT FIRST BASEMAN MIKE FORD FROM THE YANKEES”. Texas passes.  A few other names, a few other passes.

Then the Astros take their turn. “The Astros select Gose. We would like him to be listed as a left-handed pitcher. Anthony Gose.”

Anthony Gose told us last week that the Rangers were the only team that had given him the opportunity to play both outfield and pitcher, and that was something he wanted to do. He will not get that wish.

If he succeeds, however, he will get one wish: he won’t have to talk to us again.

NOTES:
The Rangers also announced that they have signed Kevin Jepsen to a minor league deal. Jepsen is 33, and has 365 career saves, mostly with the Angels, but has also spent time in Minnesota. 2014 was arguably his best season, when he averaged 10.65 strikeouts per nine innings. He last pitched in the big leagues with Tampa Bay in 2016, and spent the 2017 season in the Arizona and Washington systems.

Texas also made the Hanser Alberto reunion official, signing him to a minor-league deal. Both players will be given invitations to the big league camp during Spring Training . Zeke Spruill, formerly of the Diamondbacks, who the Rangers also signed to a minor-league deal, will not.

In addition to Gose, the Rangers also lost four players in the minor-league phase of the Rule Five draft, and drafted one themselves.

The addition: left-handed pitcher Locke St. John, who had been on the roster of Erie (Detroit’s AA affiliate). St. John had a 2.94 ERA in Low-A West Michigan last season, holding opposing hitters to a .224/.281/.336/.617 slash line. 

The four losses: RHP Daniel Duarte (taken by Kansas City, AAA phase 1st round), SS Tyler Smith (taken by Atlanta, AAA phase 2nd round), RHP Matt Ball (taken by LAA, AAA phase 2nd round), and OF Luke Tendler (taken by Boston, AAA phase, 2nd round).

Tendler was the most interesting one of this group, for me. He could hit the mess out of the ball.