Rule 5 Draft Rules

The Rule 5 Draft runs annually on 12/31 in-game, off-season sim 3. There are two things you need to do: protect your own players, and submit your draft list. Here's how to do both.

Part 1: Protecting Your Players

Before the draft, check whether any of your prospects are eligible to be taken by another team — and protect the ones you want to keep.

1. In OOTP, go to Organization → Minor Leagues.
2. Open the Filter menu and set it to: Rule 5 · Is · Eligible.
3. Review the list. Any player showing as eligible can be taken by another GM.
4. To protect a player, add them to your 40-man roster. Players on the 40-man cannot be drafted.

Note: You do not need to protect any player under the age of 23. They are automatically ineligible to be selected.

Part 2: Drafting Rule 5 Players

To participate in the draft, you need to build a ranked list of players you'd want to select from other teams' systems.

1. Go to the League tab and select Rule 5 Draft Pool.
2. Open Filter and create a Custom Filter with these three conditions:
   • Age · Is Greater Than (>) · 22
   • Organization · Is Not · Your Team Name
   • League Level · Is Not · Major League
3. Switch to the Draft List tab.
4. Browse the filtered pool and rank the players you want to target.
5. When your list is complete, click the Actions button and select Copy & Paste Current Round to All Rounds.

Don't skip step 5. If you don't copy your list to all rounds, you will only participate in Round 1 of the draft — your picks in every subsequent round will be skipped.