The Rule 5 Draft won’t take place until December 10th, but teams only have until November 18th at 4pm ET in order to add eligible minor league players to the 40-man roster to protect them from being selected by another team. Over the next few days I will be going through the players who eligible and highlight those who seem like they could have a chance of being protected or selected. Today we’re going to look at the infielders, which also includes catchers.
Who Is Eligible?
Any player who signed a professional contract in the 2021 season or earlier. Any player who signed a professional contract in 2022 who was 19-years-old or older at the time they signed. Players who meet that criteria and are not on the 40-man roster by November 18th at 4pm ET will be eligible to be taken by another team. If that happens the selected player must remain on the big league roster for the 2026 season or be offered back to their original club.
The Most Likely Addition
Among the infielders there seems like there’s one player who sticks out a little bit more than the rest when it comes to the probability of being selected and it’s Edwin Arroyo. Cincinnati acquired him in a trade at the 2022 deadline in the same deal that brought Noelvi Marte to the Reds among a group of four prospects from Seattle where the Mariners landed Luis Castillo.
Since then he’s been working his way up through the farm system, but he hit a big bump in the road in 2024 when he injured his shoulder and underwent surgery that would cost him the entirety of the regular season. Arroyo did return in time to participate in the Arizona Fall League and then spent all of 2025 in Double-A with the Chattanooga Lookouts.
He missed the first week of the 2025 season with a hamstring injury, but once he was activated he played the rest of the season without missing much time at all. The now 22-year-old played in 120 games for Chattanooga and hit for a high average – .284 (the league hit .230 overall). He struggled to hit for power, though, connecting for just three home runs to go along with 23 doubles and four triples. That led to a .371 slugging percentage. In 2023 he played in three more games than he did in 2025 but had 28 doubles, 11 triples, and 13 home runs.
At the plate in 2025 Edwin Arroyo hit for an average. And he made more contact than at any point in his career while also keeping his walk rate around where it’s been in the past. It was his power, or lack of, that stood out in 2025. Power after shoulder injuries can go a lot of different directions. For some guys it comes back. For others it doesn’t. With the players that it does return for, it usually doesn’t come back immediately and it takes some time.
If Arroyo were only a bat-first type of player then the power questions would probably mean there isn’t much of a chance he would be selected. That isn’t the case, though. Despite the fact that he has hit well since being drafted, he’s always been known as a defensive first player. As a guy who can stick at shortstop and potentially be above-average or better his floor is quite high at this point. He’s already shown that he can hit in Double-A, he’s still very young – he will be 22 until late August of 2026, and with his defensive abilities he would be very easy for someone to keep around a big league roster as a switch-hitting, likely defensive first at the moment utility player with a much higher upside than that down the road.
Those With A Chance
Two other infielders seem like there’s a chance to be selected. Eligible for the first time if left unprotected would be Leo Balcazar. He began the year in High-A Dayton and didn’t turn 21 until late June. Still, the shortstop found success with the Dragons as he hit .262/.333/.413 as one of the younger players in the league in the first half of the season. He moved up to Double-A for the second half and raised his average and on-base percentage, but did hit for less power as he had just three doubles and three home runs in 51 games with the Lookouts. Overall he hit .263/.339/.381 between the two stops.
He’s also been playing in the Arizona Fall League and through 20 games he’s hit .329/.391/.405. Not only has he racked up a league best 26 hits, but he’s been hitting the ball hard, too. He’s put 60 balls in play out in Arizona and 34 of them have topped 90 MPH and 17 of them have topped 100 MPH. His EV50 is 101 MPH out in the AFL. The sample size is small, but that’s just above MLB average. While he’s not facing big league pitching, he’s also still 21-years-old.
With Balcazar’s bat you can see some potential there with a guy who is hitting the ball hard already and made big strides in how much contact he’s making in 2025 as he struck out just 13.4% of the time. In Double-A his power went away as he saw his ground ball rate jump up to 50%, but the foundation as a hitter seems solid if not better.
Defensively he did move to second base much of the time in Chattanooga as he ceded shortstop playing time to Edwin Arroyo. With that said, Balcazar can play shortstop just fine and he’s now got experience at second base over a half-season, too. In Arizona he’s also mixed in 11 games over at third base. Some teams may feel it’s a stretch to select him, but a potential shortstop who made a ton of contact in Double-A and is capable of hitting the ball hard at 21-years-old isn’t the worst risk a team could take.
On the other end of the spectrum is an older player in Francisco Urbaez. He doesn’t exactly profile as the type of player teams are usually interested in during the Rule 5 Draft. He’s older – he will be 28-years-old all of next season. And while he can play some infield and some outfield, he’s probably not an every day kind of guy because he’s limited defensively up the middle and he doesn’t have the power to start in the corners.
What Urbaez does represent is a guy who hit well in Triple-A, can play a bunch of spots if you need him to do that, and makes tons of contact. In 2025 with Louisville he hit .314/.381/.464 with 43 extra-base hits, 38 walks, and just 40 strikeouts in 411 plate appearances. The profile is there for a solid utility player and while it’s not the sexiest of picks, it’s one that could be useful for a team looking to round out a bench for the league minimum salary.
The Rest of the Group
Within the group here you’ve got some really strong defensive catchers who have struggled to hit, some utility type players, and Ruben Ibarra. It’s Ibarra among this group that’s shown a little bit of something in the batters box. He his 21 home runs in Double-A in just 336 at-bats this season. The power is real for Ibarra, but he’s he’s had some struggles hitting for average and at 26-years-old he’s a career .237 hitter in the minors. It would be a real long shot for anyone from this group to be selected and stick around on a big league roster in 2026.