Speculations

Now that we have the complete Rule 5 list…

If you have been following the campaign for EFL Commissioner, you know the incumbent’s air of invincibility, propped up by his never calling an election despite the Rules, has taken a hit this week. Only on his 5th attempt did he succeed in remembering to put on the Rule 5 draft list all the players dropped by EFL teams since the end of the 2016 season.  His repeated promises to make the trains run on time have now added incredibility to their irrelevancy.

On the other hand, now that the “last” 15 players have been added to the Rule 5 list, if you had unlimited Rule 5 draft picks, you could draft a pretty fair team:

Infield:  5.0 WAR  $17,250,000
Catcher:   Yan Gomes (1.3 fWAR)    2000
                 Carlos Perez (1.1)              500
1b:  Chris Carter   (0.8)      3750
       John Jaso      (0.7)      4250
2b:  Scooter Gennett (0.1)  1000
3b:  Mark Reynolds (0.1)    2750
ss:  Alcides Escobar (0.9)   3000
OF:  7.9 WAR   $  16,000,000
       Kevin Kiermaier  (4.5)   8750
       Carlos Gomez    (2.2)    5500
       Aaron Hicks        (1.2)    1750
Bench/ OH:  3.2 WAR   —  11,500,000
         Chris Iannetta      (1.1)     3250
        Alex Dickerson     (1.0)      2000
        Matt Adams          (0.6)      2000
        Scott Van Slyke    (0.5)      4250
SP:   12.8 WAR  –  $ 33,000,000
        Tyson Ross            2.7       9000
        Jason Hammel       1.7       6750
         Collin McHugh        2.7      5250
         Hisashi Iwakuma    2.5      6250
         Jeremy Hellickson  2.2      5750
Pen: 4.3 WAR    – $10,250,000
          Doug Fister           1.4      4250
          Corey Knebel        1.3        500
          Wade LeBlanc      0.3       2000
          Carson Smith        0.3         500
          Matt Wisler            0.8        500
          Rzepcynski             0.2     2500
That’s a 33.2 – WAR team. It would win, on average, about 78 games.   And you’d still have the Rookie and Free Agent drafts to get some better infield options, and maybe an ace pitcher, to put your team into playoff contention.
And look:  this team costs  just $88,000,000.   You would still have $4,250,000 left to fill those holes!

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