The Phillies protected three pitchers from the Rule 5 Draft ahead of Tuesday’s 6 p.m. ET deadline, as right-handers Mick Abel, Moisés Chace and Jean Cabrera were added to the 40-man roster.
Chace was one of two pitchers (along with Seth Johnson) acquired from the Orioles in the deadline-time Gregory Soto trade. He was recently ranked by Baseball America as the sixth-best prospect in the organization, after striking out 124 batters in 80 1/3 innings this year with a 3.59 ERA. He ended the season with a four-game stint at Double-A Reading and punched out more than 16 batters per nine innings.
Players selected in the Rule 5 Draft are automatically placed onto their new team’s 26-man roster and must be placed on waivers to be removed at any point in that upcoming season. Chace could theoretically factor into a team’s big-league puzzle next year (especially a less competitive team), so the Phillies deemed him worth protecting.
The same applies to Abel, the 2020 No. 15 overall pick coming off a rough first year at Triple-A Lehigh Valley: He walked more than six batters per nine innings with mild strikeout numbers and a 6.46 ERA. His development is certainly behind where the Phillies hoped it might be at this point, but he’s still just 23, so it’s early to completely give up on him.
Cabrera, compared to Abel and Chace, was less of a certainly to be protected. The six-foot, 145-pound righty had a 3.80 ERA across Single- and Double-A this year and turned 23 last month.
Notable Phillies omissions from the Rule 5 protections include Christian McGowan, Griff McGarry and Eiberson Castellano.
Injuries (Tommy John last year, then a back issue this year) have plagued McGowan’s Phillies career. He had a 6.29 ERA in Double-A and a 4.60 clip in the Arizona Fall League in his age-24 season. The enigmatic McGarry showcased his strikeout stuff in the Arizona Fall League but has dealt with dreadful control his entire professional career. Castellano had a solid Double-A stint with the Phillies this year and felt, of the three, like the best candidate to be protected.
All three could still end up as contributors; this doesn’t necessarily mean the Phillies are giving up on them. The team, though, evidently deemed their risk of selection — and retention on the new team’s 26-man roster all of next season — low enough to leave them unprotected. Or, at least, they deemed the risk of losing them not worth a roster addition.
Righty John McMillon cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A, so the 40-man roster is currently at 39.
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