Sherman Johnson, seen here beginning a terrific double play, wasn’t selected in the Rule 5 draft.
The purpose of this post is to notify the right-thinking members of the public that, contradictory to what “sense” and “reason” would appear to dictate, that Angels infielder and future major-leaguer Sherman Johnson was not selected in baseball’s Rule 5 draft this morning.
Even though he’s exhibited a sufficiently impressive collection of skills to appear at the top of the author’s Fringe Five scoreboard each of the past two years, Sherman Johnson wasn’t selected in the Rule 5 draft this morning.
Even though he received the top WAR projection among all eligible infielders per Chris Mitchell’s KATOH system, Sherman Johnson wasn’t selected in the Rule 5 draft this morning.
Was Sherman Johnson selected in the Rule 5 draft? Signs point to “no.” Did anything of note happen this morning? Yes. Involving Sherman Johnson. He wasn’t selected in the Rule 5 draft, is what.
One of humanity’s greatest flaws is that its constituent members frequently confuse the improbable with the impossible. This morning, Sherman Johnson wasn’t selected in the Rule 5 draft. That’s an example of both.
You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.
In case you didn't read all that, here's the short version. Membership includes:
✓Ad-free browsing
✓Unlimited FanGraphs & RotoGraphs articles
✓Historical & platoon projections
✓Leaderboard & player-page stat heatmaps
✓One-click data exports
✓Customizable player-page dashboards
✓Dark & Classic site modes
✓Weekly Members-only mailbag
✓FanGraphs Walk-Off, your year in review
✓Optional homepage photo removal
✓Gift articles to non-members
Best thing I’ve read all day
Totally burying the lede here! Was Sherman Johnson selected in the rule 5 draft or wasn’t he?!
If I may, shouldn’t it be major leaguer and not major-leaguer?
Cistulli is often too clever for his own good. In this instance, the – was inserted because in Katakana that sign elongates the letter before it. So, it becomes majorrrrrrrleaguer. Obviously, Cistulli is implying that a likely career path is not MLB but NPB with this subtle nod.
{Very true. – Serb}
Actually, no. Many fancy style guides recommend (and some require!) that compound *attributive* adjectives be hyphenated, while compound predicative adjectives need not be.
Thus, “future major-leaguer Sherman Johnson,” but also “Sherman Johnson will be a future major leaguer.”
“Major-leaguer” is not an adjective in that sentence, so that rule does not apply. But you can use a hyphen in a compound noun that usually doesn’t get one, such as “major leaguer,” to prevent confusion. This is how Carson lets us know that Sherman Johnson is not, to the best of his knowledge, either a future major or one of the most important “leaguers.”
I miss the ten minutes when this was a Featured Story.
I just scanned that KATOH rule 5 piece and found this nugget from Mitchell in the section on outfielders:
This was too good a joke to have gone unnoticed.
Thank you. Glad that at least 15 people have now noticed this joke.
Needed a spoiler tag
I was under the impression they removed NotGraphs.
Shhh…
When I first read this headline, I thought it said “Joel Sherman Wasn’t Selected in the Rule 5 Draft”.
What about Robert Kral?
Perhaps the other GMs felt bad taking someone from the Angels’ farm system.
More likely nobody even bothered to look at their farm system.
Ironic considering they lost 4 players.
Is this a covert attempt to bring NotGraphs back?
I’m glad Sherman Johnson hired a publicist.
I definitely see why Mr. Johnson has been a mainstay of the Fringe 5… Exactly like former Fringe 5 mainstay Mookie Betts, and exactly unlike former Fringe 5 mainstay Robert Krall, Sherman Johnson seems like he would fit in nicely (at least as a bench player) on close to 30 MLB rosters.
The Padres apparently intend to carry 3 minor leaguers (including 2 who seem like high-A players) on their roster. Sherman Johnson might actually be the best player at every single (non-pitcher, non-catcher) position on the Padres. At the very least, he would be a strong candidate to be a super-utility Padre.