Don't know the exact rules, but that's not correct. You are able to protect a number of players not on the 40 man I'm almost certain. You're eligible if next season is your fifth pro season and you signed at 18 or younger or next season is your fourth season and you signed professionally at 19 or older. The Cub Reporter has this list currently (updated 7/21/13 apparently). I don't know how accurate it is, but it's probably close: CUBS ELIGIBLE FOR MLB RULE 5 DRAFT POST-2013 (last updated 7-21-2013): Arismendy Alcantara, INF Gioskar Amaya, INF Frank Batista, RHP Xavier Batista, OF Dallas Beeler, RHP Justin Bour, 1B Marcelo Carreno, RHP Lendy Castillo, RHP Javier Castro, RHP Zach Cates, RHP Hunter Cervenka, LHP Pin-Chieh Chen, OF Casey Coleman, RHP Gerardo Concepcion, LHP Willson Contreras, C Wes Darvill, INF Antonio Encarnacion, RHP Luis Flores, C Anthony Giansanti, OF Enyel Gonzalez, RHP Carlos Gutierrez, RHP Jae-Hoon Ha, OF Marco Hernandez, INF Eric Jokisch, LHP Austin Kirk, LHP Matt Loosen, RHP Jeff Lorick, LHP Eric Martinez, RHP A. J. Morris, RHP Chad Noble, C Juan Carlos Paniagua, RHP (see NOTE) Loiger Padron, RHP Amaury Paulino, RHP Felix Pena, RHP Starling Peralta, RHP Dae-Eun Rhee, RHP Kevin Rhoderick, RHP Greg Rohan, INF Jose Rosario, RHP Zac Rosscup, LHP Victor Salazar, RHP Brian Schlitter, RHP Ryan Searle, RHP Elliot Soto, INF, Nick Struck, RHP Luis Villalba, LHP Yao-Lin Wang, RHP Oliver Zapata, OF Alcantara is a definite.