It’s that time of year. Its “Rule-5 time!” November 18th 2025 is the official “Deadline to File Reserve Lists” on the off-season calendar, which is a fancy way of saying the deadline to add certain minor leaguers to the active 40-man roster to protect them from the Rule-5 draft, which occurs in a few weeks at the December annual meetings.
We do this post every year, and it’s now perhaps our longest running post topic. Its our annual deep dive into our older prospects to see who the team may be thinking about protecting. Here’s links to past years posts on this topic: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010. I also publish a post-Rule5 compilation post with all the prior selectees and draftees after we see what the team does on the 18th.
Many people think Rule-5 is a waste of time for fringe prospects who don’t matter. For those of us who pore over minor league box scores, hoping to find a diamond in the rough of our 160+ minor leaguers who might some day be wearing red and white Nationals home jerseys, its a deep-dive into what might be for these players and an always-fun exercise looking at what may be the edges of our farm system.
As a reminder, Rule 5 eligibility is as follows for any player not on a 40-man roster:
- Signed at 18-years-old or younger, has been in the organization for five seasons post draft/signing
- Signed at 19-years-old or older, has been in the organization for four seasons post draft/signing
So, generally speaking this translates to for 2025:
- College players drafted/signed in 2022 or before
- High Schoolers drafted in 2021 or before
- IFAs signed in 2021 or before unless they were already 18 at signing, then 2022 or before.
(I say generally speaking because there are some IFAs who get signed later in the year, or who might have turned 19 by the time they sign and turn Rule-5 one year earlier than we thought. This hasn’t happened with us for a few years).
Heading into this year’s Rule-5 selection piece, the Nats have quite a bit of room on the 40-man, thanks to a slew of DFAs and a few FAs who expired off the roster. As of this writing, we’re at 34/40 on the 40-man roster. I don’t think that means we’re adding 6 guys at this deadline, but I don’t sense this front office cleared that much room for the heck of it this early in the off-season. We also have a brand new GM and front office, who brings a new approach to the Rule-5 Process. Boston has not been very active ahead of the Rule-5 deadlines; 2 protected last year, 2 the year before, none in 2022. So I’m not expecting a massive set of additions.
Important Links for Rule-5 consideration:
- Nats Draft Tracker looking at the 2022 class and older
- Nats IFA Tracker; looking at the 2021 class and older
- Nats Big Board: you can search for “22D” or “21IFA” to quickly find the players in that class
- Roster Resource: the Options/R5 column has a red “R5” for all Rule-5 candidates; I use this to cross-reference my work to make sure we’re both in sync, though they sometimes have errors.
- 2025 MLFA List from Baseball America: 34 MLFAs for us this year
- 2025 Nov 2025 Minor league Transactions, which shows the 34 MLFAs we had along with all the other 11/6/25 transactions
- 2025 AFL Rosters, since we usually send a couple R5 candidates there. This year the R5 guys were Bennett, Aldonis.
Here we go. There’s several categories of players to consider; we’ll go one by one.
Group 1: Newly Eligible 2022 draft College Players this year. Holy cow there’s a lot; we’ve still essentially have our entire 2022 draft class still playing, so there’s lots to discuss.
- Trey Lipscomb (AAA): well, the first player to cover is … a weird one. Lipscomb just got outrighted off the 40-man roster, and he immediately becomes Rule-5 eligible. Clearly the Nats won’t be protecting him, so there’s no point in analyzing him. Per my contact at Fangraphs, this is a rarity but does happen, and such a player has gotten plucked in Rule-5 before, which seems odd b/c the exact same team that picked him could have just put in a waiver claim on him a couple weeks ago and retained the flexibility of optioning him all next year instead of the Rule-5 limitations. So, odds are he doesn’t get picked in rule-5 either.
- Kyle Luckham (AAA): 5.46 ERA in 7 AAA appearances this year, and has very little prospect cred. I think he’s likely a AAA ceiling guy, and I can’t see him as a Rule-5 drafting prospect since he’s not tooled up.
- Riley Cornelio (AAA): had a great 2025, solving High-A and AA and ending the year in AAA with similar numbers there to Luckham. What makes him different is the fact that the organization has continued to promote him year after year, and the industry has taken note of his progress. However, I admit that I’m “higher” on Cornelio than others in the industry. BA has zero professional scouting reports on him, but did note he added 2-3 mph from 2024-2025 on his fastball. At the very least I think someone would risk picking him as someone who could deal out of the bullpen. I think we’d be fools not to protect him, and I’d bet he’s pushing for a MLB rotation spot by mid 2026.
- Marquis Grissom (AAA) briefly was looking like a solid RP prospect, but then proved to be pretty hittable in AAA this season. Might still be someone who can grow into a middle reliever in the bigs, but he didn’t show enough this year for a team to think about carrying him all 2026.
- Jake Bennett (AA): one of our top 3-4 prospects right now, was unhittable for the entirety of 2025 after missing a year with TJ, and he’s a big part of the future. He’s going to be the #1 protection name submitted.
- Tyler Stuart (AA): solid prospect, out for all of 2026 with TJ, thus no chance he’s picked. If he had an injury-free 2026, he probably would have made it to AAA and we’d be protecting him.
- Chance Huff (AA); bonus-limited 8th rounder who was workable in AA this year, but who has no chance of getting picked because he’s not a prospect arm.
- Cayden Wallace (AA): he was the marquee prospect who we got for Hunter Harvey and was immediately in our system top 10, getting a NRI to spring training and having some talking about him possibly being better than House. An up-and-down AA season in 2025 pinched a lot of that talk, but this is still a 2nd rounder who can play on the dirt and can hit. He could be a backup infielder for a bad team’s MLB roster today. I think he is protection material.
- Johnathon Thomas (AA): a backup undersized 19th round outfielder in AA who’s behind nearly a dozen other outfielders on the depth chart isn’t a threat to get protected. I don’t think he’s getting picked either.
- Max Romero (AA): even in a catcher-thin system, you can’t protect a guy unless he can at least hit .200 right?
- Murphy Stehly (AA): the 10th rounder in 2022 is actually now 27 yrs old and he hit the crap out of the ball this year in AA. Great story, but not likely to get plucked just based on his drafting pedigree and age.
- Luke Young (AA) a middle relief RHP in AA with mediocre numbers; that just screams “org arm.”
- Courtland Lawson (High-A), Jared McKenzie (High-A): bench bats in High-A aren’t candidates. Somewhat surprised they’re still in the system.
Summary: Bennett a lock. Cornelio a strong candidate. Wallace a maybe.
Group 1-A: 2022 NDFAs
- Matt Suggs (AA): the sole 22 NDFA we have remaining of nine we signed. He was the 3rd backup in AA this year and seems like he’s hanging around until he hits 6yr MLFA.
Summary: no candidates in this section.
Group 2: Newly Eligible 2021 High School-age drafted players under consideration for protection
- TJ White (High-A): just finished his 3rd straight year in High A and still doesn’t have an OPS above .650. Not a candidate.
Summary: no candidates in this section
Group 3: Newly Eligible 2021 signed IFAs under consideration for protection
- Armando Cruz (High-A): you can’t possibly think of protecting a guy who just hit .177 in High-A because he had a $3.9M bonus investment, could you? Well, we’ve done it in the past; Yasel Antuna was almost in the identical situation here. Luckily we have a new GM who could probably care less about these kinds of prior investments.
- Guys still in Low-A or Rookie Ball: Emmanuel Ramirez, Gabriel Agostini, Brayan Romero, Brian Polanco (who might have actually been eligible last year b/c he signed at 19), and Angel Roman: not candidates.
Summary: Cruz, if they’re fools.
Group 4: Rule-5 Eligible Drafted/Domestic hold-overs of note from prior years
- Christian Franklin (AAA): solid 800+ OPS for us after being acquired in trade for Soroka. Most shops have him ranked in the 11-15 range of prospects for the system, and he’s a good OF depth piece. I think he’s a lock to get protected b/c he could be a backup OF for a slew of teams right now, and at the very least he’s someone the team could be looking to use in trade given our logjam of outfielders.
- Brad Lindsly (AAA): He got 58 ABs in 2025 as the 2nd or 3rd C on the AAA roster and probably made half a dozen trips to the “Developmental List.” He’s basically a bullpen catcher with a playing contract.
- Holden Powell (AAA): made it to AAA and then walked a guy an inning.
- Seth Shuman (AAA): got shelled in AAA, lost his rotation spot. He was a 2019 draftee but somehow didn’t get MLFA declared.
- Brandon Boissiere (AA): had a nice year in AA at age 25; probably not enough to be protected.
- Erik Tolman (AA): developmentally behind after missing a year with injury, mostly succeeded in High-A this year. Not a candidate, despite being lefty. Perhaps if he was closer to the majors.
- Jack Sinclair (AA): 5+ era as a 26yr old in AA: he may have hit his ceiling.
- Dustin Saenz (AA): lost his rotation spot, might be converted to lefty reliever, but not terribly impressive this year.
- Brendan Collins (High-A): kind of like Tolman in that he basically missed a whole year. Side-arming middle reliever seems like AA may be his limit.
Fun fact; Jake Irvin (2018 4th rounder) is now our oldest remaining originally drafted player. He’s the sole player remaining from the 2018 draft active for the Nats; nobody older. For almost the entire life of this team, the answer to this question was either Ryan Zimmerman or Stephen Strasburg.
Summary: Franklin a lock.
Group 4A: 2021 and older NDFAs,
- Tyler Schoff (AAA): spent most of the season on the 60-day DL, seems like he’ll get another year with us.
- Peyton Glavine (High-A): missed all of 2024, decent in 2025 but a year behind developmentally.
Summary: no candidates here
Group 5: IFAs: 2019 and older (we didn’t really have a 2020 IFA class)
- Kevin Made (AA): lots of promise, little delivery. We’ve talked about him ad nauseum in the comments. If he was a more consistent bat, he’d be a top 10 prospect, in AAA and probably pushing the likes of Tena and Nunez off the 40-man roster to be our go-to backup middle infielder. But he’s not, so he’s not.
- Pablo Aldonis (High-A): stellar numbers in High-A as a lefty reliever, after missing all of 2024 due to injury. This is an interesting one; great numbers and clearly good stuff, but hasn’t ever gotten out of A-ball. I’d think he is safe from being drafted in the major league phase for sure, but the Nats sending him to the AFL also put a big shiny target on his back. His AFL numbers werne’t too bad: 11ip, 6 games 2 “starts,” 14/5 K/BB and a 1.33 whip. It seems nonsensical for a team to pick him and think he’s gonna stick in their bullpen for an entire year, especially since we’re not talking about a well known MLBpipeline top30 guy.
- guys in Low-A or Rookie ball: Victor Farias, Andy Luis, Juan Abreu
Summary: Aldonis a maybe.
So, where does that leave us? Summarizing the Groups:
- Group 1 Protection Candidates: Bennett a lock. Cornelio a strong maybe, Wallace a maybe.
- Group 1A Protection Candidates: none
- Group 2 Protection Candidates: none
- Group 3 Protection Candidates: Cruz, if they’re fools
- Group 4 Protection Candidates: Franklin a lock
- Group 4a Protection Candidates: none
- Group 5 Protection Candidates: Aldonis a maybe
My Prediction: Team protects Bennet, Franklin.
If it was Todd Boss the GM, i’d go four: Bennett Franklin, Cornelio, and Wallace.
Two things I’ll update to this post when they happen:
- Nats Actual Rule-5 protection results: on 11/18/25, the Nats added three: Bennett, Franklin, and Cornelio. So, they added Cornelio in a surprise to this observer, but didn’t add Wallace, which was always going to be a stretch.
- Actual Rule-5 draft results in Dec: will be added later, likely in a new post.
Really thorough analysis, Todd, and I agree 100% with your qualitative comments and the rank ordering of potential protectees.
I do draw the cutoff line a little differently than you do, though, and as GM would only likely protect Bennett and Franklin. Maybe I could be talked into it for Cornelio. Though I have him right around where I had Alvarez last year, and he was left exposed and not picked, and I do think that’s the most likely outcome here as well.
I’m very doubtful Wallace is at risk at all. He was healthy last year and put up a league average line as more “age-appropriate” than “young” for AA. And it’s not like he’s a plus shortstop – he’s an adequate third baseman. I mean, I have him as a very fringy prospect and definitely not someone for whom you’re happy to tie up a 40 man spot.
SMS
16 Nov 25 at 2:59 pm
@SMS Fair enough; I’m guessing the team only protects the same two you mention.
Here’s more about my thought process: We have 6 open slots on the 40-man right now, AND we probably could cut a few more of the guys who we have there: Fernandez, Pilkington are 4-A arms that are a dime a dozen, Adams and Tena have no options left had might have better replacements internally, Ribalta was awful in 2025, Chapparo hit .182 as a 1B/DH, and Lara has yet to prove he can even pitch in AAA let alone the majors. So, its not like putting all four of these guys on the roster is really costing us anything. i’d rather keep these four guys than risk any of them.
Todd Boss
16 Nov 25 at 4:58 pm
Great analysis.
I think what they do with Cornelio will be a really interesting litmus test for the Nats offseason, and future more generally with Toboni.
Our pitching depth is atrocious. Our major league rotation looks like Gore, Cavalli, Lord, Irvin and Gray, and as depth, we have Parker, Alvarez and then a whole lot of… how do I put this nicely… uninteresting pieces. Ogasawara and his 7 ERA, Lara and his 9 ERA, and Jake Eder with a 8 ERA in AAA. That’s bleak. Alvarez is the only in the bunch to have not had a historically bad 2025.
This brings us to Cornelio. He had a good season, but not a break out season. His numbers in AAA were merely okay. However, viewed in conjunction with the above alternatives, Cornelio has a very clear and easy path to contributing to the Nats’ 2026 rotation. So his addition would make a lot of sense, because it’s inevitable. Tomorrow or by mid-March/April when someone inevitably pulls something.
However, we could suddenly have much better depth if Irvin and Gray, for example, become our AAA/long relief depth, and we sign 2+ SP FAs to our rotation. If this happens, then Cornelio becomes a lot more expendable, and easier to expose.
If they don’t add Cornelio, I’m going to somewhat irrationally and naively get my hopes up about the Nats increasing spending. If they do add him, I’ll prepare myself for more years of austerity.
Will
17 Nov 25 at 6:32 am
@Will – I find your pessimistic reading of Cornelio being added quite a bit more persuasive than your optimistic reading of him being left exposed, but that might just be my pretty strong prior that this team isn’t going to spend. I think at this point that I’ll need to see some actual spending to believe it will happen; I’m past getting excited from some faintly encouraging tea leaves.
@Todd – That’s fair enough. I agree that there’s a ton of room on the 40, and as you mention there are a few more spots that could be opened up without too much trouble. And I agree that you normally wouldn’t cut borderline guys with nonzero options (like Brzykcy) unless you had relatively near term plans for that roster spot. So maybe they see something they like in more players than I thought. Maybe they’re planning on being pretty aggressive adding players from R5, or on the waiver wire. Maybe the plan is actually to sign a bunch of FAs. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.
But my current inertia is – they cut Brzykcy and the rest for the simple reason that they were evaluated as sub-replacement players. Having flexibility on the 40 isn’t a bad thing, but there’s no specific plan to use that flexibility. I don’t expect anything more significant than a few bargain bin FAs being signed in February and a couple NRIs making the team.
SMS
17 Nov 25 at 12:03 pm
MLB Pipeline put an article out listing the “toughest” rule-5 decisions each team faced … and for the Nats they picked Tyler Stuart. Yes, Tyler Stuart, the same guy who had TJ in August and literally won’t pitch all of next year. If a team picked Stuart, they’d have to put him on their DL immediately … and then start a day-for-day delay on when they actually have to play him … which means that even if he came back and began pitching next year, once he finishes a rehab assignment (30 days in the minors) he’d have to go straight to the majors … and then start his 162-day clock to get a full season, which obviously would take them deep into 2027. I just can’t believe they seriously thought this was our “toughest” pick.
https://www.mlb.com/news/toughest-rule-5-draft-decisions-2025#nleast
Todd Boss
17 Nov 25 at 12:09 pm
They cut Brzycky and Loutus … and they both got claimed. That’s not a good sign; you want to DFA/outright guys who you think will slip through. If they’re waiving guys that other teams jump on (especially Seattle, who won their division last year), that tells me maybe this new GM does’t have the best handle on his own team just yet.
Todd Boss
17 Nov 25 at 12:12 pm
I mean, sure having two cuts get claimed tells us maybe this new GM doesn’t have the best handle on his own team yet. Or maybe it tells us that the other teams didn’t have as good information on the players as the Nats do. Or maybe it tells us that the players have different priority levels to teams with different rosters and timeframes. Or maybe something else.
One of these raises the specter of “the Nats are incompetent,” so let’s roll with that one
John C.
17 Nov 25 at 2:50 pm
It’s hard to take Pipeline seriously sometimes.
I think they just rolled down their top 30 lists and looked for the top name who’s eligible and not a lock to be rostered. Their current list doesn’t include Wallace or Cornelio or Grisham, so Stuart was the pick. Ranking Stuart as a higher prospect than those 3 guys right now isn’t crazy – he’s definitely more valuable than Wallace and I think you can go either way on him vs Cornelio, but his timeline makes him a much less valuable R5 pick. Because it forces you to burn service time for his whole injury recovery and then complicates his recovery with the 30-day IL limit that Todd mentions AND with having to hide him in the ML bullpen for at least half of 2027. Best case scenario, you option him to AAA in 2028, and he’s back on track for the major league rotation in 2029 as 29 year old with just one more season left before arbitration.
If he’s protected, it’ll burning an option year for absolutely no reason.
Look, there do exist pitching prospects who would get poached via R5 even with Stuart’s injury timeline, but those guys have front-of-rotation upside and would be on top 100 lists if healthy. Cade Cavalli, for example. I could see him being protected ahead of a missed year, and you just take the service time hit and make the best of it. Tyler Stuart has never been that kind of prospect.
SMS
17 Nov 25 at 6:39 pm
Wow, what a Nats’ blast to see Gio, Howie, and Murph on the Hall of Fame ballot. Time passes . . .
I remind folks that the Rule 5 draft, the 40-man limit, and the waiver-claim system exist for a positive reason: to give guys who are on the margins of one organization an opportunity in another one. If a guy gets claimed, I wish him luck, not claim that our organization made a mistake. Odds are very good that it didn’t. (Sterling Sharp says hello.)
I get more upset over obsessive adding of guys who are far from ready: Antuna, Adon, de la Rosa, et al.
Cutting to the chase, Bennett is the only one here who isn’t marginal. He’s an easy save. The rest? Meh. I would be more concerned about losing Lipscomb than Wallace, but as Todd notes, every team just passed on Lipscomb on the waiver wire.
Franklin is interesting, but they have five OFs on the 40-man, plus Pinckney and Glasser at AAA not in need of protection, Petersen coming off a strong AFL, and Petry apparently ticketed to play OF for now. I’ll be glad if Franklin doesn’t get picked, but there’s also not much need to have him on the 40-man right now.
I wouldn’t be upset if they add Cornelio either, but neither would I advocate for it. Rule 5 drafts usually have a bunch of guys who have pitched well at AA but are aging. (Thad Ward says hello.)
The Nat 40-man needs, and will have, a lot of turnover this offseason. I wouldn’t go cluttering it up at this point. Just Bennett for me.
KW
17 Nov 25 at 6:59 pm
WaPo reporting the Nats signed P Eddy Yean to a minor league deal. he was dealt with Wil Crowe for Josh Bell back in 2020
FredMD
17 Nov 25 at 7:04 pm
One caveat I would add is that I would be more inclined to add Franklin to the 40-man if they have thoughts of trading Young or Hassell. I fear that after his 2025 season, Young has lost a fair amount of his trade value and probably has more worth to the Nats as a 4th/5th OF than he would bring back in trade, unless he’s a fourth guy added to a deal.
With Hassell, I don’t know what his value might be. I would think that most would see him as a rapidly dimming former prospect, but there are some out there who love to pick up former prospects in the hope that something might rekindle. A few of them used to work in the Nat front office.
KW
17 Nov 25 at 8:16 pm
@JohnC: we just finished the year 66-96. Our bullpen, per Fangraphs RP split, was dead last in fWAR, ERA, xERA, and XFIP (it was 29th in FIP).
So yeah, i’m going to freely accuse the new GM group of incompetence that they managed to release two of the 12 idiots remaining on our roster who may possibly have had value instead of literally any one of the other 12 idiots who they could have released and had a better chance of getting an outright so they could hope on our lucky stars that they figure something out in AAA next year and return to the majors with some semblance of value.
Absolutely that’s the narrative i’m going with.
https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2025&season1=2025&ind=0&team=0%2Cts&stats=rel&postseason=
Todd Boss
17 Nov 25 at 9:06 pm
Roger that. Good to know. Thanks, Todd.
John C.
18 Nov 25 at 12:23 pm
And so we have it: Bennett, Franklin AND Cornelio.
Will
18 Nov 25 at 4:01 pm
Happy to stand corrected. Cornelio was the most borderline case to me, anyway. I would have been upset to lose him.
Todd, once all the teams are in, would you be interested in doing a post on the most enticing guys other teams left unprotected? I have a feeling that’s the intent for at least some of our extra roster space.
(I’ll also say that I wish I felt that the QO news of the day would affect the Nationals at all.)
SMS
18 Nov 25 at 4:34 pm
@JohnC: sorry, I think i was a little worked up about something when i wrote that comment for some reason.
Todd Boss
19 Nov 25 at 8:50 am
Updating the post with the 3 players added.
@SMS: great idea for a post on who’s been left unprotected, but i’m not nearly qualified enough to make that judgement for the entirety of the minors. MLB pipeline guys will do a post where they highlight any top 30 prospects left unprotected probably today or tomorrow, and that’s far better than anything i’d be able to write.
Todd Boss
19 Nov 25 at 8:51 am
@Todd – No worries. We all have bad days. I, for example, have been known to be thoroughly unreasonable at times!
John C.
19 Nov 25 at 3:51 pm