Major League Baseball’s Rule 5 draft takes place Wednesday, and as they have in recent years, the Boston Red Sox may look to the annual process to address needs in the middle of their bullpen. In 2020, the Red Sox selected right-hander Garrett Whitlock from the New York Yankees, who has since become a key member of the Boston relief corps.
In 2023, the Red Sox engineered a deal with the New York Mets, in which the Mets took another righty reliever, Justin Slaten, from the Texas Rangers. Slaten was quickly traded to Boston.
Teams are not obligated to make selections in the Rule 5 draft. Last year, only 15 players were selected, and only 10, including Slaten, the year before that. The Rule 5 draft allows teams to select players who are not on a major league 40-man roster, and who have been in the minor leagues for at least five seasons. Players who were first signed at age 19 or older, however, need only four years in the minors without a major league call-up to be eligible for the Rule 5 draft.
Under Rule 5 draft restrictions, a player selected must remain on the major league, 26-man roster of the club that selected him for one full season, or be forfeited back to the player’s original team.
If the Red Sox make a pick this year, they would be likely to once again target pitching, looking for arms with high strikeout potential, but whose flaws should be minimized by keeping them in a middle-innings role as they continue to develop. That could lead them in the direction of the Detroit Tigers’ No. 30-ranked prospect, per MLB Pipeline, a pitcher who strikes a uniquely imposing, even intimidating figure on the mound.
That pitcher is 6-foot-8 RJ Petit, a right-hander whose fastball reaches 98 mph, according to an MLB Pipeline scouting report, but generally sits in the 94 to 95 mph range. His slider, about 10 mph slower, gets most of his swing-and-miss results, per the Pipeline report.
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Petit also is listed at 300 pounds, which if he were taken in the Rule 5 draft after being left unprotected by the Tigers and immediately placed on a major league roster by the Red Sox, or any team — Petit has also been rumored to be a Miami Marlins target — he would rank among the four heaviest major league players ever, according to data assembled by Jokermag from Retrosheet and other historical baseball resources.
Walter Young, a first baseman who appeared in 14 games for the Baltimore Orioles in 2005, tipped the scales at 320 pounds, making him the heaviest player in recorded MLB history. But Young at 6-foot-5 carried his bulk on a frame three inches shorter than Petit’s.
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New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia was listed at 300 pounds during his career, meaning that when he was inducted this year, the left-hander who won 251 games over his 19-year career became the heaviest member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Petit, however, would be more than simply a curiosity with an outlier physique. Dividing his season this year between the Double-A Erie SeaWolves and Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens, Petit compiled a 10-2 record with a solid 2.78 ERA and 79 strikeouts in 66 1/3 innings, working almost entirely out of the bullpen.
Petit’s advanced metrics also show that he is a prime candidate to be taken in the Rule 5 draft. Of 670 pitchers with at least 20 innings at the Triple-A level this year, he ranked in the 93rd percentile in strikeout rate (35.3 percent), the 90th percentile in xwOBA (expected weighted on-base average) at .244, and 91st percentile in expected batting average (.170).
There are a couple factors that could prevent the Red Sox from taking Petit in the Rule 5 draft, however. First, the Boston 40-man roster already has 40 men on it, meaning the team would need to drop at least one player before making a Rule 5 selection.
Also, the Red Sox have the 22nd selection in Wednesday’s Rule 5 Draft — determined by reverse order of the regular season standings — making it possible or even likely that Petit will be taken by another team before Boston gets its pick.
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