Bucs on Deck: Who should the Pirates protect from the Rule 5 draft?
The writers of the site give their thoughts on who to protect
The deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 draft is on Tuesday. This year’s edition may lead to much less excitement than usual, as the two more prominent names that would have needed to be protected—Billy Cook and Nick Yorke—were added at the end of the season.
A few of the writers on the site went over who, if any, they would protect here at the deadline. To keep this from running too long, I will have my own feature where I go in-depth on my picks and go over some of the notable names that are eligible.
WTM: This is the least intriguing Rule 5, from a “protection” standpoint, that I can remember. Bad timing, too, because the Pirates have a very weak 40-man roster. They’re only at 38 already, and once you get past the core guys, it’s loaded with totally fungible, replacement-level players.
So the opportunity is there, but the upper levels of the system are barren once you get past guys already on the roster or ones like Bubba Chandler, who aren’t at risk yet. But there are only two players worth even a passing discussion.
Sammy Siani somewhat put himself in the discussion with a big Arizona Fall League stint. It’s awfully hard, though, to see a team springing for a potential fourth outfielder who just put up a .692 OPS in AA just because of a big season in a league where you see a lot of PlayStation-hitting stats. The one thing that may help Siani is that he’s significantly changed his approach from the one that had him mired at Greensboro for over two years, so the showing in the AFL may have some reality behind it. But I doubt that’ll be enough.
The other possibility would be Omar Alfonzo. There are a lot of factors in his favor: he’s a left-handed hitting catcher with some power and impressive EVs, his plate discipline has always been pretty good, and he made a lot of progress in 2024. He hit the ground running in High A just after turning 21 and might even be able to make a case for opening 2025 in AA. The case against him boils down to being a catcher still in Class A. A team might figure, though, that they can get some use out of him as a left-handed bench bat and backup at first base so they could carry him as a third catcher. If the Pirates were facing a roster crunch, I think you’d rather take the chance on Alfonzo not getting drafted, but they’ve got more of a roster vacuum, so I’d probably add him.
Ethan: Generally, I think about these things in terms of what I think will happen, not what I want to happen, because personally it really doesn’t matter to me. In this case, I just don’t see the team protecting anyone else on Tuesday. I tend to focus on newly eligible players because, more often than not, there’s a reason that a player was unprotected (and unselected) in the past. From that group, there’s just really no one left after Yorke and Cook were selected.
Sure, I know Sammy Siani is getting some love after a solid AFL performance, but there is plenty of sample outside of the last few weeks that suggests the team has little reason to worry about losing him. The front office is smarter than to fall for a couple of strong weeks in a hitter-friendly environment. I suppose if anyone else is going to be selected, it would be Siani, but I just don’t see it.
And to get this out of the way—if they had plans on protecting him, the team would have just selected Eddy Yean’s contract before he hit free agency as opposed to signing a successor contract. Basically, he would have been added already if he was going to be, so you can get that out of your head as well.
Nola: As many would assume, I have to make the case for adding Sammy Siani to the 40-man roster. Starting with how Siani essentially reinvented himself over the last year.
The former first-round pick had spent the majority of his professional career taking big cuts and frequently missing. He spent the previous off-season reworking his swing, as he discussed recently with Jonathan Mayo of MLB. He showed a step forward with his ability to make contact beginning with his third stint with Greensboro, maintained it after being promoted to Altoona, then took his talents to the Arizona Fall League where he once again continued to hit. Add in the fact that Siani is a very capable defender in all three outfield positions, I think they could easily add a spot for him.
Finding a spot for Sammy should be rather easy itself. Ji-Hwan Bae and Bryan De La Cruz would be hard keeps for me at this point. Trey Cabbage (listed as OF) was just added, but I could go either way on Joshua Palacios. For listed as infielders, Alika Williams and Connor Joe wouldn't be missed. I think they'll attempt to move Tristan Gray through waivers at some point. Then there's the fact they have four listed catchers at this point.
Players will obviously need to be added otherwise through trades and free agency, and there would be more that could be removed from 40-man.
So, add Sammy Siani. Siani > Head.
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Nobody who we protect or lose is going to alter the fortunes of the franchise. Been this way since 1954. Don’t expect this year to be different.
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