Brewers add three prospects to the 40-man, protecting them from Rule 5 draft

The Milwaukee Brewers have added C Mario Feliciano, RHP Alec Bettinger and RHP Dylan File to their 40-man roster, protecting the three prospects from the upcoming Rule 5 draft.

The Rule 5 draft allows MLB teams to draft a Minor League player from another organization that has been in a team’s farm system for a certain amount of years. If teams want to keep their players from getting taken in the Rule 5 draft, those players must be added to the 40-man roster.

It seemed that Mario Feliciano was all but a given for the Brewers to protect. He’s a consensus top-10 prospect in the organization. With rosters expanded to 26, it’s not difficult to hide a third catcher on the depth chart. This year in Appleton, Feliciano received rave reports for his performance, showing improved defense and power. In 2019, he hit .273/.324/.477 in 116 games at A+ before playing just three games at AA Biloxi. He’s also still just 22.

RHP Alec Bettinger is a more recent development in the farm. The 25-year-old was drafted in the 10th round of the 2017 draft. He had a standout performance in 2019 with the Biloxi Shuckers, carrying a 3.44 ERA over 146.1 innings pitched with a 9.66 K/9 and 2.15 BB/9. He projects as a back end rotation arm, a position that’s going to be valued a lot this offseason, especially when it comes cheap. His best asset is his excellent control, which he pairs with a mid-90s fastball and good curveball.

RHP Dylan File is in the same boat as Bettinger. He always had good tools, plus control, a good fastball and decent slider, but it never came together quite as well as it did in 2019. In 80.2 IP, File struck out 8.14 batters per 9 innings and walked just 1.67. Those statistics led him to a 2.79 ERA.

The Brewers are leaving a few other top-30 prospects exposed, Zack Brown, Payton Henry, Lucas Erceg and Pablo Abreu exposed. Other players can be found on this article.

Statistics courtesy of FanGraphs