The winter meetings come to an end every December with the Rule 5 draft. Some years that goes better than others. Today the Cincinnati Reds would make three picks and lose one player in the draft. In the Major League Baseball phase of the draft the club selected infielder/outfielder Cooper Bowman from the Oakland/Sacramento Athletics organization. They lost no one in the big league phase. In the minor league phase of the draft the Reds selected pitchers Joel Valdez and Brandon Komar. They would also lost shortstop Jose Torres to the Colorado Rockies in the minor league phase.
Let’s start by talking about Cooper Bowman. As a selection in the big league version of the Rule 5 draft he must stick to the 26-man roster all season or be offered back to the Athletics. Bowman was the 4th round pick of the New York Yankees out of the University of Louisville in 2021. At the trade deadline in 2022 he was part of the 6-player deal between the Yankees and Athletics that sent former Red Frankie Montas to New York.
Bowman has played mostly second base in his professional career, but in 2024 he started seeing time in the outfield after getting to Triple-A, where he played there in 33 of his 38 games.
During the 2024 season he spent the first four months in Double-A with Midland and he performed well there. In 80 games he hit .281/.378/.467 with 35 stolen bases. On the last day of July he was promoted to Triple-A where he joined Las Vegas. Once there his walk rate dipped, his strikeout rate rose, and he hit just .218/.284/.308 in 38 games and didn’t hit a single home run in 152 plate appearances after hitting 12 earlier in the season while with Midland.
As noted, he moved to center field for the most part after getting to Triple-A, so perhaps some of his hitting struggles came as a result of his focus on learning a new position while also making the jump to the next level. Still, it’s tough to find much good in what he did at the plate in the Pacific Coast League. On the bases he did steal eight bases in nine tries, giving him 43 on the season between his two stops.
There are some things to like with Bowman. He’s got elite speed. In Triple-A they have Hawkeye, which is what provides all of the Statcast numbers we see for big leaguers. Bowman routinely posted spring speeds over 30 ft/second and he was right in line with Blake Dunn and among the fastest 25 players between both Triple-A and MLB. His versatility to play second base and some outfield could be useful.
Going back to some Statcast stuff, in his limited time in Triple-A, the hardest hit ball he had was 109.0 MPH. Despite the zero home runs with Las Vegas, he’s not a slap-hitter. At the same time, his exit velocity in Triple-A was at the bottom of the barrel – he had an average exit velo of 82.7 MPH. Among the 517 players in Triple-A with 100 at-bats, that ranked 495th. So while he can hit the ball hard, he just was not able to do it with any sort of regularity.
In a sort of perfect world, Cooper Bowman is more like the hitter that he showed himself to be in Double-A and not at all close to the one that he was in the final two months in Triple-A. If that’s the case then he could be a very useful bench/utility player who can play a few spots in the field and also be a quality baserunner if and when you need him.
You can see the career stats for Cooper Bowman here.
The Minor League Rule 5 Draft
While the big league phase of the Rule 5 Draft is what most people pay attention to, there’s also a minor league phase. The rules aren’t quite the same. If a player is selected in this version of the draft they have no “restrictions” and they do not have to meet any criteria or be returned. This is basically a buying of the players contracts scenario.
Cincinnati made two selections in this portion of the draft and both players happened to be pitchers. With their first pick they selected left-handed pitcher Joel Valdez. The next round they used their pick to select right-handed pitcher Brandon Komar. The Reds also lost a player in this version of the draft as the Colorado Rockies used one of their selections to take shortstop Jose Torres.
Joel Valdez originally signed with the Philadelphia Phillies back in September of 2018. Three years later he was traded to the New York Yankees in November as a part of a 4-player deal. In both the 2023 and 2024 seasons he was with Hudson Valley in High-A. During the 2023 season he struggled, posting a 6.06 ERA while walking 55 and hitting 18 batters in 78.2 innings. Things went better in 2024 as he repeated the level. The lefty posted a 3.41 ERA in a relief-only role (he split time starting and relieving in 2023), throwing 58.0 innings with 29 walks, eight hit batters, and 72 strikeouts.
At every stop in his career, Joel Valdez has had a groundball rate over 50%. This year it was 51.8%, which was the lowest he’s had anywhere (for context, the league average rate in MLB is 42%). The number of grounders he induces has helped him keep the ball in the park throughout his career. His strikeout rate has been good in two of the last three seasons, too.
Where he’s struggled is the control department. His walk rate has been high throughout his career and he’s added to that with a lot of hidden free passes thanks to 42 hit batters in just 266.0 innings pitched. He’s also thrown 55 wild pitches during that span. His walk rate and hit batter rate both dropped off some in 2024, but both were still higher than you would prefer to see.
Valdez’s scouting report says that he’s got a fastball that works in the 90-94 MPH range that will touch slightly higher every so often. He also throws a change up in the mid-to-upper 80’s as well as a slider in the low 80’s.
You can see the career stats for Joel Valdez here.
Brandon Komar was drafted by the San Diego Padres in the 13th round back in 2019 out of Madison Area Technical College. He played in the Padres farm system from 2019 through 2022, making his way to Double-A with them. St. Louis picked him up in December of 2022 and he’s been with them ever since.
In 2024 Komar spent time in Double-A Springfield and Triple-A Memphis. While in Springfield he split time between the rotation (eight starts) and the bullpen (11 appearances) while posting a 2.50 ERA in 79.1 innings where he allowed just one home run, walked 19, and struck out 64. In Triple-A things did not go as well. He only pitched in relief, throwing 22.1 innings for Memphis in his 10 games and allowed two home runs, walked nine, and struck out just 19 of the 101 hitters that he faced.
In his career he’s been a big groundball pitcher, but that has not translated to Triple-A. In his limited action at the level where he’s thrown just 26.0 innings his groundball rate is just over 40%, while it’s 54% at every other level he’s pitched at.
The 25-year-old throws a 2-seam fastball in the upper 80’s to low 90’s and averaged 88.4 MPH while in Triple-A this past season. He also throws a change up – a pitch he throws more than any other offering – as well as a slider in the upper 70’s and a cutter in the low-to-mid 80’s.
You can see the career stats for Brandon Komar here.
Cincinnati lost infielder Jose Torres in the minor league phase of the draft. The Reds 2021 3rd round pick had spent the previous two seasons in Double-A with the Chattanooga Lookouts. He had a strong pro debut in 2021, hitting .333/.387/.568 in 28 games after the draft – mostly with Single-A Daytona (three games were in the complex league). After a strong month of April in 2022 with High-A Dayton, he put up a .635 OPS in the final five months of the season. Then in the two years that followed – both spent entirely in Chattanooga – he hit .201/.280/.305 in 168 games. A quality defender up the middle, the bat never seemed to come around against more advanced pitching.
Never forget the 500-ish foot home run that Jose Torres hit for the Dayton Dragons on May 20, 2022.
You can see the career stats for Jose Torres here.