Rule 5 draft

Once a Rule 5 draftee spends an entire season on his new team's active roster, his status reverts to normal and he may be optioned or designated for assignment.

This keeps teams from drafting players, then placing them on the injured list for the majority of the season.

Players are eligible for selection in the Rule 5 draft if they are not on their major league organization's 40-man roster and: These exemption periods (one year longer than those in effect previously) went into effect as part of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in October 2006.

Players may also be eligible to be selected due to having a previous contract voided and then re-signing with their original signing team within a year.

Notable players selected due to this rule include Wei-Chung Wang and Elvis Luciano.

A prominent example is Johan Santana, a member of the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame, who was chosen in the 1999 Rule 5 draft by the Florida Marlins when the Houston Astros declined to put him on their 40-man roster, and then traded to the Minnesota Twins in a pre-arranged deal.

He was briefly assigned to Triple-A at the start of the 2002 season, then returned to the major leagues at the end of May and established himself as an above-average pitcher; he went on to win Cy Young Awards in 2004 and 2006.

[1][9] Starting in 2022, the cost of selecting a player into Triple-A was doubled to $24,000, and the Double-A phase was eliminated.