Rule 5 draft

The Rule 5 draft is a Major League Baseball (MLB) player draft that occurs each year in December, at the annual Winter Meeting of general managers. The Rule 5 draft aims to prevent teams from stockpiling too many young players on their minor league affiliate teams when other organizations would be willing to have them play in the major leagues.^[1] The Rule 5 draft is named for its place in The Official Professional Baseball Rules Book. The Rule 4 draft—more widely known as the "first-year player draft", "amateur draft", or simply the "MLB draft"—is a distinctly different process by which teams select high school and college players, and takes place annually in July.

The Rule 5 draft has happened every year since 1920. The 2021 MLB lockout led to the postponement of the major league phase of the Rule 5 draft, but the minor league phase proceeded as scheduled.^[2]