The Braves Have Some Difficult Rule 5 Decisions To Make Tomorrow

The Braves have available spots on their 40-man roster...but which prospects get one?

The Atlanta Braves shocked the baseball world by not only participating in last winter’s Rule 5 draft for the first time since Alex Anthopoulos took over the front office in late 2017, but by grabbing multiple players for the major league roster. While neither shortstop Christian Cairo nor reliever Anderson Pilar made it through spring training on the 40-man roster, never mind the regular season, Pilar was signed to a minor league deal midyear after being released by the Miami Marlins organization.

Now, they need to decide which of their prospects will be eligible to be selected this season. The Rule 5 protection deadline is tomorrow at 6PM Eastern, and the Braves have four rated prospects and several prominent names to make decisions on.

Let’s talk about it.

They protected some in September

The rules here are simple - either four or five years after you joined the organization, which is determined by whether you were 18 or younger or 19 and older when you signed, you need to be added to the 40-man roster to be protected from selection in that December’s Rule 5 draft. For those keeping score at home, that’s youngsters signed/drafted in 2021 and college players drafted or signed as undrafted free agents in 2022.

Because 2020 was a shortened, five-round draft, this is the first ‘normal’ Rule 5 draft class after two years of smaller-than-usual pools of eligible players. The Braves, for instance, had only four draft picks in 2020, and all of them were spent on college players.

There are still several names, both from the draft and international free agency, that need protection. A few were added to the 40-man roster in September to promote them to the majors, and are therefore off the table already.

Reliever Hayden Harris (2.2 IP, 3H, 1ER, 2BB/0Ks) made his debut in September, while Jhancarlos Lara was promoted but didn’t appear in a major league game. Both players are among the 37 currently on the 40-man roster and are now safe from the Rule 5 draft.

Harris was practically untouchable in the minors, allowing three earned runs in over 50 innings between Columbus and Gwinnett with 79 strikeouts in 52 innings. That…punchiness (?) didn’t carry over to the majors, though, with the lefty facing 12 batters and not only not recording a single strikeout, but not recording a single whiff on his low velo, low VAA fastball.

Lara joins Rolddy Muñoz, who was added last winter and debuted in September, as a potential high-impact bullpen arm if he can throw more strikes. Both are flamethrowers that regularly operate in the high-90s, but walk too many batters to be trusted at the major league level. Muñoz allowed 33 walks in 60 minor league innings and added five in 3.2 MLB frames, while Lara walked nearly one per inning between Columbus and Gwinnett, with 65 in 68.2 innings.

Who joins them tomorrow?

The only ‘slam dunk’ decision, to me, is righty Blake Burkhalter. A native of Dothan, AL who attended Auburn University at the start of my time covering the program for Sports Illustrated, he was drafted with the compensatory pick Atlanta received for losing Freddie Freeman in free agency. Despite being an All-SEC reliever and closer in college, the Braves announced him as a starter and other than some limited relief work late in 2025 to manage his innings, he’s worked almost exclusively out of the rotation.

Burkhalter stormed back this season with a vengeance after missing all of 2023 and half of 2024 for Tommy John surgery. Making eighteen starts, mostly in Columbus, ‘Burky’ had a 3.18 ERA and .240 batting average allowed with only two home runs. He’s throwing a true four-pitch mix, backing up a 94 mph four-seamer and 89 mph cutter with roughly equal use (15-17%) of a changeup and a curveball, both of which exceeded a 30% whiff rate in Triple-A. It’s a true four-pitch mix, albeit one that’s more vulnerable to lefties (.263 average) than righties (.218). With 103 innings on his arm in his first full season back and a combined 175 since Tommy John, he’s a dark horse for a second-half MLB call-up if he can maintain his stuff throughout the season.

The three rated prospects

After Burkhalter, there are three more prospects in MLB Pipeline’s Braves Top 30 that need to be protected (and remember, there are only three total spots, with Burkhalter getting one of the three.)

Right-hander Ian Mejia is ranked #19 and is a marginal case, at best. He had exemplary results in Columbus this year, going 12-2 with a 2.62 ERA in 127.1 innings, but striking out only 106. Despite having good size at 6-3, 205, he can’t seem to generate a lot of velocity, sitting in the low-90s with his fastball. It’s an atypical four-seamer, with poor IVB but better armside run. To mitigate that, he’s added both a cutter and sinker to his repertoire, a common player development adjustment that’s sweeping baseball. He added a curveball to his existing slider and supplements both breaking balls with a marginal changeup.

You can see a case both ways here, right? The results in Columbus were fantastic and if 90% of that translates, he profiles as a backend innings-eater in the Bryce Elder mold. You can also see how a fastball that barely breaks 90 over the course of a game has a very slim margin for error in a modern game where the average four-seamer velocity keeps rising, and getting to the Bryce Elder role requires his stuff translating across two higher levels.

I think the best thing to do here is try and find a trade partner on some small deal, but if he’s unprotected and taken by another organization in December, I’m not losing any sleep over it. What likely happens is he gets added to the 38-man Triple-A roster (which currently sits at 14) so that he’s protected from the minor league portion of the R5 draft, but is eligible (and goes unpicked) in the major league portion.

#29 prospect David McCabe is another fascinating marginal case. Originally a first baseman at UNC Charlotte, the Braves took him in 2021 as a third baseman and have largely failed at that conversion. He was a marginal defender at the hot corner with a questionable arm before missing a bulk of 2023 and 2024 for Tommy John surgery. His first fully healthy season back, however, led to some of the offensive promise that spurred the 4th-round selection in the first place. He hit .286 for Columbus in 105 games, prompting a late call-up to Gwinnett. After being almost a full-time third baseman for the Clingstones, he only got fielding reps at first for the Stripers and struggled to acclimate, hitting .235 with just over one strikeout a game.

In the best-case scenario, McCabe’s a low-power, high-on-base contact merchant with questionable defense at third. It’s an atypical profile, but that’s if it pans out, with the most likely result being a full-time first base glove, which puts even more pressure on the bat to consistently deliver. Even if he is a major leaguer, I don’t see it being with Atlanta and so the question now becomes: how to get the proper value out of a profile that some teams have been willing to use in their corner infield? I believe throwing him into a trade would have been the best utility here, but I’m not convinced that they protect him this winter and are willing to live with it if he gets taken. Similar to Mejia, being placed on the 38-man AAA roster may be the route the team takes here.

Elison Joseph, MLB Pipeline’s #30 prospect, is the final protection candidate among the ranked prospects. An atypical international free agent, he didn’t debut in pro ball until 2021 (at the age of 20) and spent three years between the Complex Level and Single-A before finally breaking into Double-A in 2024. Spending the entire season with the Clingstones last year, Joseph went 1-4 with a 4.31 ERA and 41 walks in 39.2 innings. He’s a power pitcher, firing 100mph fastballs that miss plenty of bats, but also the strike zone. He backs that up with a power slider that’s absolutely fantastic…when he knows where it’s going. He was Rule 5 eligible last season and wasn’t protected, but I imagine he could get the final spot over McCabe if the team thinks the team’s overhauled pitching development department can help him throw more strikes.

The rest of the options

There are a few notable names in the rest of the candidates, none of which are likely to be protected.

Middle infielder Ambioris Tavarez was the organization’s first splash in international free agency after the John Coppolella penalties finally ended. Signing for $1.5M in that J15 class out of the Dominican, he didn’t debut professionally until coming stateside in 2022. He’s a good enough defender, but also has a career .213 minor league batting average and 464 strikeouts in 289 games.

Righty Adam Maier was a 7th-round pick out of Oregon, but has a career 5.05 ERA in his injury-delayed professional career. Canadian righthander Cedric De Grandpre missed all of 2024 due to an injury and returned to the mound in High-A Rome this year, pitching to a 3.74 ERA in 13 starts and 53 innings. A 40-man spot is not in the cards here, not with that severe lack of proximity to the majors.

Landon Harper’s a righty reliever who spent time in the Columbus rotation this year, making 14 starts, but with an ERA almost two full runs better than his 2.37 out of the bullpen. His exceptional control - six walks in 38 relief innings - may garner him a Triple-A roster spot, but it’s unlikely he’s protected from the major league portion.

There are several late-round position players who stand to get a Triple-A spot, but not a 40-man one. Outfielder Kevin Kilpatrick, a 17th-rounder out of College of Central Florida, and infielder E.J. Exposito, a 16th-rounder out of Long Island University - Brooklyn. They both capped out in Double-A last year, but with the Gwinnett roster officially carrying just three infielders and no outfielders, they likely get added this week to give the Stripers some depth.

We’ll look at the Rule 5 draft pool as the MLB Winter Meetings draw closer to see if there’s anything that should interest the Braves.