The Rule 5 Draft is quickly approaching and teams had until 6:00 last night, Tuesday evening, to protect their prospects from being taken. The way that teams “protect” their prospects is by placing them on their 40 man roster, thus making them NOT eligible for the Rule 5 Draft.

The Rule 5 Draft was put into place to ensure that organizations couldn’t hoard prospects just to make sure other organizations couldn’t get them.

Per MLB.com

Players signed at 18 years or younger need to be added to their club’s 40-man roster within five seasons or they become eligible for the Rule 5 Draft. Players who signed at age 19 or older need to be protected within four seasons.

If a player is chosen, then the organization that chose them has to pay $100,000, and put the player they chose on their 26 man, then leave them there ALL of the next season. If, at any point, they choose to remove that player from their 26 man roster, they would then be subject to waivers, then offered back to their original team.

This is what happened to Gus Varland this past year. Gus was drafted by Milwaukee, got off to a great start, then spent some time on the IL. After coming off the IL, he had an outing that went sideways, got DFA’d, and then returned to the Dodgers.

This year, as with every year, the Dodgers have a whole slew of prospects eligible for the Rule 5 Draft, but, before yesterday, only had 5 spots available. If you’ve been following Dodgers Daily, we’ve been telling you the Dodgers were guaranteed to protect Nick Frasso and Landon Knack and would likely protect a 3rd and that person would likely be Hunter Feduccia.

And that is what happened.

Landon Knack, Nick Frasso and Hunter Feduccia are all now on the Dodgers 40 man roster and have reached the next milestone in their journey to the Major Leagues. This a a huge deal, because, now they get an extra months pay, an automatic invite to Spring Training, and, with as few spots the Dodgers had available, one would have to assume anyone that was deemed worthy to fill one of those spots is considered to be someone the Dodgers have MLB plans for.

So, congrats to those 3, now lets get to know them a little better. Keep in mind, I have interviewed all of these guys, and have written feature articles on them as well, so those features will go into much more depth than this article will. Thus, I will link the interviews and the feature articles and will make it as easy as possible to figure out how to access that content.

So, let’s get started!

Hunter Feduccia

**Click to view Full Feature on Feduccia**

No other outlet that exists, anywhere, has covered Hunter Feduccia anywhere close to as much as we have here at Dodgers Daily. And, quite honestly, I am very proud of that, because this guy deserves every bit of coverage he gets. Feduccia has a very sweet left handed swing, he hits fastballs at an elite level, and does a great job defensively.

Feduccia hit .279, OPS .838, had a BB% of 15.3% and a K% of just 20.8. He also posted a wRC+ of 106 and has been around 100 in wRC+ every year, which is above average for catchers.

Catchers typically average around a 90 wRC+, so, in comparison, he has been one of the most productive Minor Leaguer catchers in ALL of baseball.

Click the links below to watch Feduccia in action and to learn everything you might want to know about him.

Landon Knack

**Photo by Tim Campbell/MiLB Click for Full Feature on Knack**

Despite being placed on the Dodgers 40 man roster, which instantly puts you in the elite category, Landon Knack has gone under the radar the last couple of years, in my opinion.

A lot of that has to do with injury, however. In 2022 he dealt with forearm issues, then, after having a great season, finished 2023 on the IL again. But, no worries, he’ll be ready to go in 2023 and will surely make his debut.

Knack has had to be patient, as he was in AA for quite some time. In Fact, he made his AA debut on August 5th of 2021, then was with the Drillers until he got promoted just this past season in mid June.

His patience has paid off though, and through it all he has shown that, not only is he very talented, he is also a grinder.

Knack made 12 starts in AA this past season, and 10 starts in AAA. In those starts, combined, he posted a great ERA of 2.51, a FIP of just 2.93 and an xFIP of 3.79. FIP stands for Fielding Independent Pitching, so it tries to equal out any advantages one pitcher might have in ERA due to the defense behind them.

Knack also posted a K% of 27.4%, which is outstanding, and then a BB% of just 5.4%, which is equally as outstanding, as well.

His OPS against Right Handed hitters was just .635, so he threw strikes, and did so in a way where other teams didn’t square him up very often.

Click the links below to watch Knack in action and to learn everything you might want to know about him.

Latest Interview last August (At the Bricktown Ballpark)

Nick Frasso

If you follow Dodgers Daily on any kind of a regular basis, you would know that putting Nick Frasso on the 40 man roster was simply a formality. Frasso is one of the most talented young pitching prospects in the game with great length, an uncomfortable windup for hitters to face, a touch of crossfire to his delivery and 100 MPH velo behind it all.

Obviously. he doesn’t sit 100 MPH, but he has hit triple digits on multiple occasions. Frasso has dealt with the injury bug through college at Loyola Marymount, and even through his professional career. In fact, injury delayed his professional debut with Toronto, but when he got back, he hit 100 MPH on more than 1 pitch in his first outing back on the mound.

Frasso ended this past season on the Development list, but was pitching good, so it likely was more of innings countdown issue, or slight injury situation more than anything else. All indications are that he will be healthy in 2023 and stands a good chance at making his MLB debut this upcoming season.

Let’s all hope that happens!

Frasso had 21 starts in AA, and 4 in AAA. He posted a 3.77 ERA combined, but, one of the most exciting aspects of this last season with Frasso is that he actually got better when he got moved up to AAA OKC than he was with AA Tulsa.

Frasso’s FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 3.11 and he had an xFIP of 3.67, which would suggest that, as good as he was, he likely and actually got a little unlucky with his overall ERA.

His strikeout % was 20.8% and his BB% was 15.3, so he has bigtime “swing and miss” stuff.

If you wanted to nit pick, you might say that he could lower his walk rate, which was 3.36 per 9 innings, but you’d hate to reduce any aspect of his effectiveness, because, when he’s healthy, he has the potential to dominate every time he takes the mound.

And, trust me when I say this, that won’t change when he makes it to the MLB. His stuff is that good and it will play at ALL levels.

Click the links below to watch Frasso in action and to learn everything you might want to know about him.

Who Might the Dodgers Lose?

Click to watch the our latest on the Dodgers Rule 5 Draft Candidates

The Dodgers have a ton of talented players that have been left exposed to getting picked up in the Rule 5 draft. We cover almost all of them in our Rule 5 show is linked above. Just click play and you can watch the entire show. This show is also linked at the very top of this article.

We also have features on most of the players that were left un-protected, so just go to www.dodgersdaily.net and search a name of any player that you’d like to learn more about, and it’s likely we have a feature on them.

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