Blue Jays grab Glenn Sparkman in Rule 5 Draft
By: Jay Blue
Blue Jays From Away
The Winter Meetings have concluded and the Blue Jays were active once again in the new Rule 5 draft. The draft had a couple of tweaks this year with the new CBA. The price for selecting a player has doubled (to $100,000 in the major league phase and $24,000 in the minor leauge phase) and the Double-A portion was dropped.
The major-league phase of the Rule 5 Draft is pretty complicated. Created to ensure that teams couldn’t sign and horde talent, the draft helps disburse players, forcing teams to make a decision to start their 40-man roster time or not.
Basically, any player in a club’s system who is not on the team’s 40-man roster is eligible provided that they haven’t been in the system for four Rule 5 drafts (or five, if the player signs with the club at the age of 18 or younger). This gives teams four or five seasons to decide on whether a player merits inclusion on the roster.
In the draft, teams select players and must pay $50,000 per player to select them. The player then must remain on the club’s 25-man roster for the entire season (barring a limited amount of time on the DL) or he must be offered back to the original team for $25,000. There is also a minor-league phase where players will generally be kept with no restrictions.
Last year’s Rule 5 selection for the Blue Jays, Joe Biagini, worked out pretty well, so the Jays decided to grab Glenn Sparkman, a former 20th-rounder in the Kansas City Royals’ system. While Biagini had a full season of starting at the Double-A level for San Francisco, Sparkman, 24, has made a grand total of eight starts (with 37 2/3 innings) at that level. Coming back from Tommy John surgery, Sparkman returned to Double-A with a less-than-stellar ERA at 4.58 but his strikeout to walk ratio was excellent (4.00) which is excellent for pitchers coming off UCL replacement surgery. That K/BB ratio was actually in the ballpark (pun intended) of his stellar 2014 mark of 4.68 when he was in Advanced-A Wilmington.
This article at Kings of Kaufmann noted that Sparkman could have a similar profile to Marco Estrada, when it comes to giving up hard contact. While he gave up fewer ground balls than average, he had a higher rate of infield fly balls and lower home run rate. Because he’s not a particularly hard thrower, it’s unclear what he’ll do in the Jays’ bullpen.
He could very well be like Joe Biagini and see his velocity tick up in a limited role but he certainly won’t come out with elite velocity seen in today’s brand of late-inning reliever.
In the minor-league portion of the Rule 5, the Jays didn’t select anyone but lost three players.
The Philadelphia Phillies selected plucky infielder Jorge Flores. Flores struggled last year in Double-A but had a great season (.276/.360/.347) the year before, entirely with Double-A New Hampshire. Flores is good fielder and is tough to pitch to (at 5-foot-5).
The Yankees selected Jays’ minor league catcher Jorge Saez. Saez was a personal favourite of mine. While he was mostly a backup, Saez reached Double-A last year after tearing up Dunedin with a .313/.361/.612 slash line in 18 games, hitting six home runs (already a single-season career high for him). In New Hampshire, he struggled a bit with the bat, hitting .232/.290/.432 but also saw his home runs remain at a high level (he hit another six in just 40 games).
The power spike for Saez could be a big turning point for the 26-year-old as his defense is already very good (he threw out 40% of would-be base stealers last year and has never averaged below 34% for a full year).
The Texas Rangers selected 6-foot-8 lefty Matt Smoral. Smoral has been developing slowly and showing a lot of regression over the past few years. With difficulty staying healthy, Smoral has also struggled to find control.
The 22-year-old has only 13 innings under his belt at full-season ball and has walked at least 18% of batters at every level except for a 33 2/3 inning stint in Bluefield in 2014.