Cleveland Guardians Rule 5 Draft Decisions: Hernandez Exposed

It’s that time of the year already! As a Cleveland fan, we don’t get to dream about our team signing Juan Soto or Shohei Ohtani or any top free agents for that matter. Discussing the Rule 5 draft and which prospects to protect or not is one of the most fun and anticipating offseason topics. Nothing will beat the 2021 offseason when the Guardians added a whopping 10 prospects to their 40 man roster to protect them from being selected in the Rule 5 draft. They certainly won’t add anywhere close to that number this year, or likely ever again for that matter. The roster currently sits at 39 players, so they have one open roster spot, but that could obviously change in the next 24 hours. The official 40 man roster deadline is Tuesday, November 19th at 6 pm eastern. Here is a list of players that are eligible to be selected in the Rule 5 draft if they aren’t added to the 40 man roster.

It’s a long list of names, and many of them have a case to be added. Let’s talk about some of these prospects.

Prospects I would consider adding:

RHP Franco Aleman- This one is a no brainer to me, I think Franco Aleman is a lock to be added to the roster tonight. The Guardians moved Aleman to a relief role in 2023 and he has been absolutely dominant since then. In 2023, after his promotion to AA, he didn’t allow a single earned run and struck out 38 batters to just 5 walks in 24 innings pitched, an absolutely dominant stretch. He struggled with injuries in 2024 but was still dominant in AAA while he was on the field, posting an ERA of 1.99 with 34 strikeouts in 22.2 innings pitched. Aleman has the upside of a high leverage reliever as early as next season and in my personal opinion will almost certainly be selected if he is not added to the 40 man roster.

LHP Doug Nikhazy- If you would have told me this time last season that we’d be talking about adding Nikhazy to the 40 man roster, I would’ve said you were crazy, but the fact is, he took a ginormous leap in terms of improving his control in 2024. He has always been a fun prospect that was able to miss bats, but the amount of walks were just impossible to consistently overcome prior to this season. He went from having over a 17% walk rate in 2022, to then a 15.4% walk rate in 2023, all the way down to a 10-11% walk rate in 2024, which don’t get me wrong, is still higher than you’d like, but it’s doable. I think Doug has the potential to be a number 4/5 starter or a solid relief pitcher. I would definitely add him to the 40 man roster tonight but I do not think he is a lock.

LHP Ryan Webb- I am a huge Ryan Webb fan. He has shown the ability to succeed and miss bats at every level of minor league baseball. The control has gotten a lot better as he’s gotten further away from his Tommy John surgery in 2021, which is what you would expect from a pitcher after getting that surgery. He absolutely dominated the Arizona Fall League in 2023 and lead the entire league in strikeouts. Similarly to Nikhazy, I see a pitcher with a chance to be a solid back of the rotation arm, and those do not grow on trees. If it were my decision I would find a way to get Webb protected because I definitely think he would get selected by another team in need of pitching.

Prospects I would not add but may be selected:

Nic Enright- Nic Enright is an awesome pitcher that I would love to add to the 40 man roster, but as stacked as this bullpen is, I just don’t see a way to make the space for him. He has already been selected in the Rule 5 draft once before getting diagnosed with cancer. He beat cancer, came back and looked awesome again. For selfish reasons I hope he is not selected but I’d be extremely happy to see him get a shot again somewhere else, because he certainly deserves one.

Tommy Mace- After a somewhat disappointing start to his career, Tommy Mace had a really good bounceback season last year. He had a 3.71 ERA over 145.2 innings pitched in AA, while walking just 7.4% of the batters he faced, and forcing opposing hitters to a 44.3% groundball rate. That groundball rate is very important because the big red flag in Mace’s profile and the reason why I would not consider adding him to the roster is his inability to miss bats. He struck out just 16.8% of the batters he faced in 2024, a career low. Maybe the heavy groundball rate can stick again next year, but that’s too big of a risk in my opinion.

Final Prediction:

As I stated above, I do believe that Franco Aleman is a near certainty to be added to the 40 man roster. I would love to see both Doug Nikhazy and Ryan Webb added, but ultimately I think they will end up choosing between one of them and letting the other one be exposed to the Rule 5 draft on December 11th, 2024. Or maybe they will make a trade or two in order to open up a couple more roster spots to add all three of these prospects. Regardless of which decision they make, it should be an exciting couple hours for us Guardians fans.