Cubs minor leagues made eligible for selection in the Rule 5 Draft

[macarthur31]

Just saw that AZ Phil posted the 18 Cubs minor leaguers eligible for selection in the AAA Phase of the Rule 5 Draft.  

Among them:

• Burl Carraway (2020 2nd rd pick)
• Ed Howard (2021 1st rd pick)
• Jordan Ngowu (2020 3rd rd pick)

Now on first blush, it seems like a real bummer that our 2021 1st round pick didn't pan out to getting to the major league roster, or even as part of a productive trade.  However, Is this the usual hit (or miss) rate for 1st-3rd round picks with regards to being made available to the Rule 5 Draft?  

[Outshined_One]

Howard seemed to be on the verge of a breakout when he had a freak hip injury in 2022. High school SS prospects are basically lottery tickets as is, and he was drafted in a COVID year (2021) on top of everything else, so I wouldn't read too much into it beyond bad luck.

To their credit, the Cubs have actually had a really good run of 1st round picks going back to 2012, with only Ryan Jensen (2019) and Ed Howard (2021) never making the majors, and even then, Howard could still make it some day.

Additionally, once you get into the second round and beyond, the hit rate for draftees overall basically falls off a cliff. Just look at the draft positions for the Top 100 MLB prospects who were drafted; most of them were first rounders.

[Jason Ross]

2 hours ago, macarthur31 said:

Just saw that AZ Phil posted the 18 Cubs minor leaguers eligible for selection in the AAA Phase of the Rule 5 Draft.  

Among them:

• Burl Carraway (2020 2nd rd pick)
• Ed Howard (2021 1st rd pick)
• Jordan Ngowu (2020 3rd rd pick)

Now on first blush, it seems like a real bummer that our 2021 1st round pick didn't pan out to getting to the major league roster, or even as part of a productive trade.  However, Is this the usual hit (or miss) rate for 1st-3rd round picks with regards to being made available to the Rule 5 Draft?  

To be pedantic, Ed Howard was also a 2020 pick. 

Is this the normal hit-and-miss-rate? No. It's pretty rare top-3 round picks flare out this bad this quickly. While most prospects don't make it, you're usually still holding out hope for one of them just a few years later.

I would also remind everyone that the 2020 draft is a one-of-a-kind draft. Not only did teams cheap out and pay less scouts that year, teams had no spring baseball. Just go look at any MLB mock draft the year before the draft and compare it to the actual draft a year later; it's almost entirely different...a year of data changes these things massively. MLB teams didn't get that year. So yeah, it's a mess of a draft year.

[Bertz]

I think it's also fair to point out that Kantrovitz got hired in October of '19.  So it wasn't just the generally disruptive force of COVID, it was that on top of doing it in a new org.

[NorthsideAvenger]

Calloway was still in the Cubs organization? Oh. 

[allen6510w]

C/1B Jairo Diaz 5’10” 180 Lbs S/R (200407) [VZ-2021] In 2022, Jairo posted a 0.196/0.273/0.237 line in 108 DSL PA.  He began 2023 in XST where he finished with a 0.245/0.356/0.306 line in 59 PA.  In the ACL he posted a 0.263/0.371.0.386 line in 70 PA with a 14/10 K/W and 1 SB in 1 attempt as a 2^nd string catcher behind Adan Sanchez. He threw out 13 of 42 basestealers.  In 2024, Jairo returned to the ACL as a backup C and hit well before going on the 60-day DL on July 26; he finished with a 0.355/0.417/0.435 line in 72 PA with a 15/7 K/W; he threw out a solid 36% of base stealers (9 of 25).  In 2025, Jairo returned to the ACL where he posted a 0.265/0.339/0.306 line in 112 ACL PA with a 24/10 K/W before getting promoted to low-A on July 3.  In low-A he posted a 0.314/0.479/0.400 line (0.879 OPS) in 48 PA.  Overall, he threw out 26 of 87 base stealers, 29.9%.

I thought he put together a good season in 2025.  Perhaps he is a poor handler of pitchers, perhaps the Cubs feel he is developing too slowly and will be a MiFA before he can help the Cubs, ...