Yankees Lose Jake Cave, Evan Rutckyj in Rule 5 Draft

The final day of the annual winter meetings always features the MLB Rule 5 Draft for teams who don’t have a full 40-man roster. For some, the Rule 5 Draft is a chance to snag a minor league prospect who can immediately impact their big league club. For others, the Rule 5 Draft can weaken their farm system, as it allows other teams to select valuable players who don’t have a current spot on their previous big league club just yet. Some notable players selected during the Rule 5 Draft are Jose Bautista, Josh Hamilton and Johan Santana, just to name a few.

Unfortunately for the New York Yankees, the 2015 Rule 5 Draft wasn’t all that great. In the first three picks of the draft the Yankees lost two of their top prospects, as the Cincinnati Reds drafted Jake Cave second overall and the Atlanta Braves drafted southpaw Evan Rutckyj third overall.

With 2nd pick of Rule 5 Draft, @Reds take OF Jake Cave, #16 on @Yankees Top 30: https://t.co/vY6JtT6x8N pic.twitter.com/3WmWEaj0fj
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) December 10, 2015

With 3rd pick of Rule 5 Draft, @Braves take LHP Evan Rutckyj: https://t.co/lwdHN0Fdxk
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) December 10, 2015

In 2015 Jake Cave had arguably his best season in the minors. The 22-year old slashed .269/.330/.345 with a.674 OPS in 125 games at AA with the Trenton Thunder. His All-Star season in Trenton earned him a call up to AAA Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre, where he slashed .458/.517/.667 with a 1.184 OPS in 29 plate appearances with the RailRiders. Prior to being drafted by the Reds, Jake Cave was ranked 16th overall on the Yankees Top 30 Prospects list by MLB Pipeline.

In 2015 the 23-year old southpaw Evan Rutckyj started in High-A with the Tampa Yankees and pitched to a 2.45 ERA with 59 strikeouts in 44.0 innings out of the pen. After dominating the competition in Tampa, Rutckyj was promoted to AA Trenton, where he pitched to a .306 ERA with 23 strikeouts in 17.2 innings pitched.

By rule both Jake Cave and Evan Rutckyj must remain on their new teams 25-man roster for the duration of the 2016 season, and cannot be designated for assignment or optioned back to the minors. They can however be placed on waivers, and if they clear waivers (which they probably won’t), they must be sent back to the New York Yankees. Also, both the Reds and Braves have to pay a total of $50,000 each to the Yankees for selecting their prospects.

After watching Jake Cave and Evan Rutckyj grow up and mature as ballplayers while covering the minor league’s on Yanks Go Yard, this is bittersweet to say the least. They were certainly going to be impact ball players for the New York Yankees in the not-so-distant future, but at the same time I’m excited to see them play in the majors as early as 2016.

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