MLB Rule 5 Draft quiet for Blue Jays, minor league portion sees some moves

Wednesday night saw the return of the in-person Rule 5 Draft for the first time since 2019.

To qualify for such an event, there are some specific rules put into place by the league.

If a player is brought into an organization at the age of 18, they must be placed on the respective club's 40-man roster within five seasons or risk being exposed to the draft. If a player is signed at 19 or older, the same rule is in place but it's four seasons instead of five.

As has been the common theme throughout this MLB offseason, many players found themselves selected and being shipped off to their new clubs, who must now keep said player on the active roster for the entirety of the upcoming season.

A grand total of 15 players were selected in the big league portion of the draft yesterday without a single one of them either entering or departing from the Blue Jays organization.

However, on the minor league side, where the same rules as above apply but for clubs' Triple-A rosters, a whopping 67 selections were made and now we're seeing some Blue Jays action!

Minor League Rule 5 Draft: Who's in and who's out of the Blue Jays organization

In round one of the Minor League Rule 5 Draft, the Blue Jays selected catcher Kekai Rios from the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Rios, 25, is a right-handed hitting catcher who has little to offer with the bat but is reportedly a very strong defender behind the plate. Last season, Rios played in 71 games between two minor league levels for the Dodgers and hit four home runs with 24 RBI paired with a .219 batting average.

In the second (out of five) round of the draft, the Blue Jays suffered their only loss of the evening, coming in the form of the Seattle Mariners selecting longtime minor league farmhand Logan Warmoth.

Warmoth, 27, had been floating around the Jays farm system since his being drafted in 2017, showing brief glimpses of promise but nothing more.

In 2017, Warmoth entered the Jays sytem with a bang, driving in 23 runs in just 45 games, stealing six bases and posting a .302 batting average. Unfortunately, in essentially every full season after that, his offensive numbers continued to decline to the point where his being selected by the Mariners is not a huge loss for Toronto.