Notes on the Rule 5 draft, Chance Sisco and one interesting tweet

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. - Baseball America's J.J. Cooper studies and reports on the Rule 5 draft as well as any reporter out there. Yesterday I sought out some of his thoughts on the draft.

Last year, the Orioles added outfielder Joey Rickard from the Rays and lost first baseman Ji-man Choi to the Angels in the major league phase of the draft.

While the Orioles are almost always active in this draft, Cooper said other teams have joined them in recent years.

"Two years ago was kind of an historic Rule 5 draft in recent memory," he said. "You saw 11 guys stick - most we've seen this century. Last year was a little more normal. We have seen guys make some sort of an impact lately. Delino DeShields and Odubel Herrera and more guys sticking.

"One thing that makes this really hard to predict - as the velocity in the game just keeps ticking up, you have so many more good arms out there. You can't protect all the good arms you have. Of these (roughly) 10 guys that throw 96 to 100, maybe one of them turns out. But if you pick the right one, you've got an impact arm. There are a lot more of those guys now than there used to be."

With the Orioles looking for outfielders and catchers, Cooper threw out some names that the club could possibly be looking at for an outfield position.

"I'll throw one out: (Yankees outfielder) Jack Cave, who was taken second overall in the Rule 5 last year," Cooper said. "Everything teams could like about Jack Cave last year, he does the same things this year and he had a better year. He can play all three outfield spots and there is athleticism there. This year he showed more power at Double-A and Triple-A.

"Another corner guy is Andrew Pullin an outfielder for the Phillies. He had a really good year. He started the year poorly. When I say poorly, he started the year on the voluntarily retired list. But he came back in May. Really hit well in high-A Clearwater. Moved up to Double-A. Reading is a great place to hit, but he also hit well on the road. Lefty bat, corner outfielder with a sweet swing and the stats to go with it."

Will the Orioles lose anyone in the Rule 5?

"I would say it's unlikely," Cooper said. "Yermin Mercedes had a great year this year. This is a guy that was already released once in his career. He tore up low-A and moved to high-A. He was old for those leagues. He catches, but defensively he has a lot of work to do.

"(Mike) Yastrzemski, there were a lot of injuries involved and he is coming off a pretty poor year. If you are making a push to draft Yastrzemski, the analytics side of a front office is probably going to say we can do better than this.

"Branden Kline is a guy with interesting stuff but he is recovering from injuries (Tommy John surgery). There is significant injury risk there. Sometimes that is a selling point to a team if you know he is going to be on the disabled list for half the year. You only have to be on the active roster for 90 days. I do think the Orioles are a low-risk team to lose someone."

The Sisco kid: The Orioles' No. 1 prospect, catcher Chance Sisco, is getting mentioned here a lot. With talk about the Orioles looking to add a catcher, vice president Dan Duquette has been asked often about Sisco and his potentially very bright future.

I asked manager Buck Showalter yesterday how he will know when Sisco is ready for the major leagues.

"I'm going to lean on a lot of people," he said. "He is going to come into the (January) minicamp. Last year, I took him over to Ft. Myers (for a spring training game) and had him sit with me the first three or four innings. He was real quiet early on. It was kind of entertaining for me and then he kind of opened up.

"That is where you kind of get to know a guy. What would you throw here? What did you think about that? What did you think about this? He's got a lot of want-to. I think he understands it is going to be a lot more than just about his bat. Because that will be a huge jump for him and the pitching he is going to be facing at some point.

"That is going to be an evaluation that we are going to have to be on top of, of when? I'll lean on (director of player development) Brian Graham and Donnie Werner (coordinator of minor league catching) and the people that are experts on that. (Orioles bench coach) John Russell will get his arms around him. He is probably one of the best catching instructors and is so instrumental in our catching game."

The big spenders: Will the new collective bargaining agreement and tax implications of the luxury tax slow the big spenders in baseball? Will team payrolls at the top of the sport just continue to escalate? I asked MLB Network's Harold Reynolds for his take.

"It is going to slow everybody down in a sense," Reynolds said. "Baseball is in a little transitional period of time right now. The money has gotten to be so big with the star players and the bottom has been dragged up. It's hard to be sustainable. We don't have a cap, but there is a budget. The budgets are playing like a cap. That is why the game is so young. We continue to have younger players come up."

No way, Jose!: The Orioles have not been linked to Jose Bautista this offseason and based on one tweet, they won't be. This from Jon Heyman, baseball writer at Today's Knuckleball and FanRag Sports. Did the O's really tell Bautista and his reps that they can't pursue him because Orioles fans don't like him? Interesting. And the part about the fans is, of course, rather true.

Orioles prefer to keep draft, too, but to explain why Bautista doesn't fit, they told JB camp: O's fans just don't like him

-- Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 7, 2016

O's explanation to Bautista was refreshingly honest. Other factors are draft choice, probably $, etc.

-- Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) December 7, 2016