Rule 5 Draft (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Rule 5 draft is a Major League Baseball player draft that occurs each year in December, at the annual Winter Meeting of general managers. The Rule 5 draft aims to prevent teams from stockpiling too many young players on their minor league affiliate teams when other teams would be willing to have them play in the majors. The Rule 5 Draft is named for its place in the The Official Professional Baseball Rules Book. The June Rule 4 draft, known as simply "the draft," "amateur draft," or "first year player draft," is a distinctly different process in which teams select high school and college players. Prior to its current incarnation, from 1959 until the creation of the Rule 4 draft in 1965, top first-year prospects of teams were exposed to the rule 5 draft. This was in some ways an outgrowth of the Bonus Rule that existed in 1946-50 and 1953-57.