Pair of Rule 5 draft picks helps bolster roster depth

Players taken in Thursday’s Rule 5 draft must be kept on roster

Farhan Zaidi didn’t stick around for the final day of baseball’s winter meetings.

But that didn’t stop the Giants from remaining active.

The Giants selected a pair of players in the Rule 5 draft, adding left-handed pitcher Travis Bergen out of the Toronto Blue Jays organization and Andrew Ferguson from the Houston Astros on Thursday.

Though Zaidi flew out of Las Vegas early Thursday, assistant general manager Jeremy Shelley represented the club on the final day of the meetings and spearheaded a mission to find major league-ready contributors.

“We’re looking to improve the overall depth of the roster,” Shelley said. “Where that depth comes from, whether it’s the position player side or whether it’s on the pitching side, we’re looking to improve the roster.”

Selecting Bergen and Ferguson cost the Giants $200,000 as draft rules stipulate that teams must pay $100,000 to the organization from which they were drafted. Players chosen in the Rule 5 draft must be kept on a team’s 25-man roster for the entire season following the draft and may not be optioned to the minors.

If the Giants don’t seek to keep Bergen or Ferguson on their 25-man roster next season, they can recoup $50,000 by offering each player back to the organization they were chosen from.

Bergen is a left-handed reliever with a career 1.27 minor league ERA who had Tommy John surgery at the end of 2016 and missed the entire 2017 season. After returning last year, Bergen posted a 0.50 ERA in 27 games for the Blue Jays’ Double-A affiliate.

Ferguson is the second outfielder the Giants added this week, joining former Detroit Tigers prospect Michael Gerber. Though Ferguson hasn’t hit for power during his minor league career, he’s consid- ered a multi-positional player who has a knack for getting on base.

“He’s got the ability to get on base,” Shelley said. “A career .393 on-base guy, a career .297 hitter, he gives you flexibility to play three spots in the outfield and the versatility we like. We feel like between the center fielder and the left-handed reliever we’ve got two premium position guys.”

Ferguson and Gerber are expected to compete for a job next spring as the Giants seek to replace Gorkys Hernández who was not tendered a contract this offseason. Hernández was the only outfielder who played three positions for the club last season, but he finished the year with a .285 on-base percentage and recently signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox.

The Giants were the only franchise to add two players during the Rule 5 draft, but the club had plenty of roster flexibility after non-tendering Hernández and reliever Hunter Strickland at the end of November. Shelley has worked for the organization for the past 24 years and couldn’t recall another offseason in which the Giants made two Rule 5 additions, but the franchise has struggled with depth issues for the past two years.

San Francisco did not lose any players during the major league portion of Thursday’s Rule 5 draft, but three of the organization’s minor league prospects were selected in the Triple-A phase. The Minnesota Twins took right-handed reliever Dusten Knight, the Arizona Diamondbacks selected outfielder Jeffrey Baez and the Tampa Bay Rays chose another righthanded reliever, Ian Gardeck. San Francisco drafted third baseman Peter Maris out of the Rays organization and lefthanded pitcher Sam Moll from the Blue Jays in the Triple-A phase.

Moll made his major league debut with the Oakland A’s in 2017, appearing in 11 games while posting a 10.80 ERA.

Players chosen during the Triple-A Rule 5 draft must remain on the active TripleA roster for the duration of the following season.