Will Former Rule 5 Guys Help A's Rule Roost in 2020?

Athletics will have at least three former Rule 5 players - Mark Canha, T.J. McFarland and Joakim Soria - who could play major roles for the club in AL West this season

The Rule 5 draft each December is one of those only-in-baseball kind of things.

Major League teams are allowed to protect up to 40 players in the organization, and those left unprotected are eligible to be drafted by other big league clubs, but only clubs who aren’t carrying the maximum 40 players.

Players selected have to remain on the roster of the new team for the entire Major League season or be offered back to the club from which they were plucked.

The idea is to make sure that teams with powerful and productive minor league systems don’t keep all the goodies to themselves.

For the most part, the goodies aren’t that good. Most Rule 5 players wind up either being return or not having much of a Major League impact.

There are some notable exceptions. At the top of the list, now and probably for forever given the depths of MLB scouting now, is Hall of Fame right fielder Roberto Clemente, taken by the Pirates from the Dodgers, who thought they could sneak Clemente through after his first pro season showed a .257/.286/.372 slash line at Triple-A Montreal.

All Clemente did was get 3,000 hits, win 12 Gold Gloves and make 15 All-Star teams. As good as the Sandy Koufax-Don Drysdale-Tommy Davis-Frank Howard-Maury Wills Dodgers teams were in the early 1960s – they made it to the World Series four times from 1959-1966 – you have to wonder how good they could have been with Clemente in their lineup.

Bring this up because the A’s, perhaps more than any other team in the big leagues, will be relying on former Rule 5 prodigies in 2020. Left fielder Mark Canha (2014), lefty reliever T.J. McFarland (2012) and righty reliever Joakim Soria (2006) are all members of the Rule 5 club, although only Canha came straight to the A’s (through Colorado, which took Canha at Oakland’s bidding and traded him to the A’s in a cash deal the day of the draft.

McFarland moved to the Orioles from the Indians and Soria went to the Royals from the Padres.

All three have found considerable success, although not always right away. McFarland found himself in 2018, going 2-2 with a 2.00 ERA in 47 games and 72 innings. Soria was an All-Star twice in his first four seasons, both times with 40-plus saves and a sub-2.00 ERA. Canha had unexpectedly good numbers in his Rule 5 year of 2015, hitting .254/.315/.426 with 16 homers and 70 RBI. He floundered the next couple of years but has rebounded nicely with a .273/.398/.517 season in 2019 that included a career-best 26 homers.

And, because head honchos Billy Beane and David Forst like having a Rule 5 guy around as often as possible, Oakland has a fourth Rule 5 player on the roster. Scout Will Schock recommended Vimael Machin, who was in the Cubs’ organization.

In a prearranged deal, the Phillies took Machin in the Rule 5 draft and sold the product of Virginia Commonwealth to the A’s. A left-handed hitter, he went .295/.390/.412 in 129 games split between Double-A and Triple-A last year. He has a little power – seven homers – but walked more than he struck out last year, 69 walks and 62 strikeouts, which the A’s brass loves.

He’s something of a longshot to be the team’s second baseman, but being a Rule 6 player is all about being a long shot.

The other three are anything but long shots in 2020.

The A’s are probably going to use Canha as their regular left fielder now that Ramon Laureano is back in center after filling for much of last year in right with Stephen Piscotty injured. He served as cleanup hitter when Khris Davis was struggling with great success -- .298/432/.543 with nine homers and 24 RBI in 44 games (40 starts).

McFarland, a sinkerball specialist who was claimed off waivers from the Diamondbacks in December, is something of an unusual case in that he’s a lefty who is comfortable pitching more than one inning. In 2018 and 2019 he got at least four outs 38 times in 98 games, more than one-third of the time.

With baseball rules now mandating relievers face at least three batters in an inning, McFarland’s ability to face both right-handers and left-handers and get multiple outs could be essential for manager Bob Melvin getting the most out of his bullpen.

Soria, who has pitched in more games, 710, than any Mexican-born pitcher in history. is coming off a career-worst 4.30 ERA. But Soria, who has had two Tommy John surgeries, finally got healthy at the end of the season and gave some promise for 2020 by finishing 2019 with a September in which he didn’t allow a run in eight games (7.2 innings) during the A’s playoff push. It was then that he got his velocity back up to 95 mph, something the A’s are hoping they’ll see again come April.