How Rule 5 picks Tom, Jiménez fit needs
The Oakland A’s made one of the most successful Rule 5 Draft picks of the past decade when they chose San Jose native Mark Canha in 2014. They may have stumbled into another unvarnished gem in the 2020 draft.
In the major-league portion of Thursday’s draft, the A’s selected left-handed outfielder Ka’ai Tom from the Cleveland Indians and right-handed pitcher Dany Jiménez from the Toronto Blue Jays. The A’s took two more righthanded pitchers in the draft’s minor league portion, including Brett Graves — who they lost to the Miami Marlins in the 2017 Rule 5 draft — and Zach Jackson from Toronto.
Tom and Jiménez appear likely to nestle into key roles on the A’s active roster.
At 5-foot-9, Tom is characterized as an undersized outfield prospect perhaps spurned in 2020 by the short season. The clear upsides could outweigh the negatives — for a smaller player, Tom packs a punch at the plate. The 26-year-old left-handed hitter wasn’t placed on the Indians’ 60-man roster in 2020, but batted .290 with a .912 OPS in 2019 with the Triple-A Columbus Clippers and Double-A Akron RubberDucks.
With switch- hitting corner outfielder Robbie Grossman potentially departing in free agency, the A’s are in the market for more depth in the outfield — particularly from the left side. In Tom, Oakland gets a compact lefthanded hitter with defensive versatility. He’s played 164 games in left field, 149 in center field and 118 in right field throughout his five- season minor-league career.
“He’s a patient hitter who makes a lot of hard contact and hits line drives,”
A’s assistant general manager Dan Feinstein said on a video call with reporters. “He has enough pull power to occasionally hit a home run, but we expect him to hit the ball hard to all fields.”
Patience at the plate — a keen, selective eye — is a common thread that runs through Oakland’s most highly touted hitting prospects. That may give Tom an edge for a role on the 2021 team over some lefthanded corner outfield prospects already in the A’s system. He may be competing with someone like Seth Brown, who’s shown some ability to perform at a bigleague level but hasn’t gotten much opportunity.
He also may cut in front of Luis Barrera, a left-handed outfield prospect known for his exceptional defense. But Barrera has struggled with his patience at the plate. And the A’s may find that Tom’s strengths at the plate are favorable to Barrera’s.
“Tom has propensity to hit the ball hard in the air, where Luis uses his legs more, hits the ball on the ground,” Feinstein said. “Probably similar defensive versatility but the batted ball profile is a little different.”
After the Tom selection, Oakland dove head first into the right-handed pitching pool. Dany Jiménez will vie for a spot in the bullpen toting a power 98 mph fastball and a “slider with depth and finish,” Feinstein said.
“We think there are a couple things we can tweak mechanically that will help take advantage of the stuff he has.”
Jiménez, 26, comes to the A’s via Toronto, but is no stranger to the Bay Area. He made his big league debut with the San Francisco Giants last season — who selected him in the 2019 Rule 5 draft — but stumbled to just one out, walking three batters and giving up an earned run. The Giants designated him for assignment, and he returned to the Jays organization.