Baseball America posted a list of some of the top available players in the Rule 5 draft. Third baseman Eric Wood made the list of 12 players due to his solid season in Altoona during the regular season and in the Arizona Fall League, which just wrapped up on Saturday. BA will usually post a bigger list as the draft approaches, but for now, Wood is the only player from the Pirates on the list. He finished up his AFL season with a .330/.388/.489 slash line in 23 games, giving him the eighth best OPS in the league. We talked about Wood’s season, future and Rule 5 chances in our AFL recap over the weekend.
J.J. Cooper also mentioned that Wood is headed to the Dominican, where he will play winter ball. That will give teams another look at him against competition slightly better than the AFL. It will be a short look though, as the Rule 5 draft takes place on December 8th and Wood hasn’t suited up in the Dominican yet. He will play for Gigantes del Cibao and should debut this week according to the team.
The list from BA also includes two other players with ties to the Pirates. The Brewers left Wei-Chung Wang available, who was selected from the Pirates in the 2014 Rule 5 draft. He had a 10.90 ERA that season in very limited use and has been in the minors since. The other player is Zack Weiss, who was among the players the Pirates were unable to sign out of the top ten rounds during the 2010 draft.
The Pirates will have the 13th pick in the draft, so this list by BA also serves as a possibility of players they could select that day. The Pirates haven’t made a selection since taking Gustavo Nunez five years ago.