The Rule 5 draft is one of baseball's quirky rules. A team can select an unprotected player from another club at the winter meetings for $50,000, place him on the 40 man roster but will have to keep him for the entire season at the major league level. The Cubs got one young player, Lenny Castillo, through a weak season so he remains Cub property.
It is reported that the Diamondbacks will return Rule 5 choice Marcus Mateo to the Cubs.
Mateo, who had some major league experience, missed all of 2012
and threw at Triple-A last year. In 31 innings, he posted a sparkling
1.74 ERA, with 8.7 K/9 against 3.8 BB/9. Across his previous 44 2/3 MLB
innings, Mateo notche only a 5.04 ERA but for every nine innings did
manage to strike out 10.3 while surrendering only 3.8 free passes.
As with most Rule 5 choices, Mateo would have struggled to stick on
Arizona's roster for the year. That was especially so given the number
of additions and commitments the team made to the pen. As MLBTR noted, Mateo is out of options, which means a team could not hold onto him in the minors without
passing him through waivers.
So this problem comes back to the Cubs. The Cubs current bullpen candidates have had a less than stellar spring training. This spring, Mateo, 29, threw 4 IP in 4 games for a 2.25 ERA and 1.500 WHIP. He would be a long shot to make the Cubs opening day roster, but the team might as well hold on to him to the end of camp, then send him to clear waivers, hoping every other team is set with their bullpens.
