The Rule 5 Draft can be summarized as, “Teams try to find a diamond in the rough.”
If you’re unfamiliar with the process, it goes like this: if you’ve been playing in the minor leagues for four years (or five, depending on your age when you were drafted), and you aren’t on your parent club’s 40-man roster, you can be drafted by any other team at the Winter Meetings in December, or under current circumstances, whenever a new CBA is agreed upon.
The catch is that the team that drafts you has to keep you on their major-league roster the entire next season, or they have to give you back to your previous club.