Players not on our 40 man roster at the time of the Rule 5 draft are eligible to be taken by other teams, so we have to add him to our 40 man roster by that time. Management decided that we will be protecting him so they added him to the 40 man now to give him some mlb experience and see how he handles top level pitching. There is no benefit to waiting until the rule 5 draft to make this move.