Winter meetings report: Rays lose pitcher Sam McWilliams in Rule 5 draft

UPDATE: The Rays lost only RHP Sam McWilliams in the major league portion of the Rule 5 draft.

DEVELOPING: The downside of having a system stocked with promising prospects comes to a painful point today for the Rays with the annual Rule 5 draft of players of certain tenure not on 40-man rosters.

Players the Rays could lose for the $100,000 (and have to be kept in the big leagues all year), per Baseball America, include RHP Sam McWilliams and INF Kean Wong. Also mentioned were LHP Ryan Sherriff and catchers Brett Sullivan and David Rodriguez.

At last month's roster deadline, the Rays added these five players to the roster so they couldn't be taken: LHP Kyle Bird, LHP Brock Burke, RHP Ian Gibaut, OF Joe McCarthy and OF Jesus Sanchez.

Leaving Wong exposed was somewhat noteworthy given September  comments by his older brother Kolten, the Cardinals infielder, who called the Rays "a bad organization" for not rewarding deserving young players such as Kean.

Kean told milb.com later it was "really frustrating" to not get called up and that he'd "love to take that chance from another team" if the Rays don't give it to him.

With a full 40-man roster, the Rays can't make any selections in the major-league phase of the Rule 5 draft but can take minor-league players.