The conclusion of the 2023 season didn’t just bring the start of the offseason. It also finalized the lottery odds for the top picks in next summer’s amateur draft (h/t to Carlos Collazo of Baseball America).
As part of the Players Association’s efforts to reduce the incentive for non-competitive teams to lose games, the latest collective bargaining agreement introduced a lottery to determine the top six overall selections. A team’s odds of landing a higher pick are still weighted in favor of the clubs with the worst records, although the three worst teams all have identical chances of landing the #1 selection. If two teams have the same record, the club with the worse record in the preceding season gets the better odds.
The odds aren’t simply the inverse of the previous year’s standings, however. One of the CBA’s anti-tanking measures is to limit how often a team can pick within the lottery. A teams that does not receive revenue sharing payments and landed a lottery pick in one draft is prohibited from picking higher than 10th the following season. Revenue sharing recipients cannot select above 10th if they had a lottery selection in the preceding two drafts.
That rules the Nationals out from selecting any higher than 10th next year. Washington is not a revenue sharing recipient and had the #2 pick (which it used on Dylan Crews) in 2023. Last summer’s other lottery teams were the Pirates, Tigers, Rangers, Twins and A’s. Texas and Minnesota are ineligible for a lottery selection after making the playoffs.
The lottery only comes into play for the first round of the draft. From the second round onwards, pick order is determined in inverse order of the prior season’s standings (aside from compensatory and competitive balance selections).
The odds for next year’s #1 selection are as follows:
- A’s (50-112): 18.3%
- Royals (56-106): 18.3%
- Rockies (59-103): 18.3%
- White Sox (61-101): 14.7%
- Cardinals (71-91): 8.3%
- Angels (73-89): 6.1%
- Mets (75-87): 4.3%
- Pirates (76-86, 62-100 in ’22): 3%
- Guardians (76-86, 92-70 in ’22): 2%
- Nationals (71-91): Ineligible
- Tigers (78-84, 66-96 in ’22): 1.6%
- Red Sox (78-84, 78-84 in ’22): 1.2%
- Giants (79-83): 1%
- Reds (82-80, 62-100 in ’22): 0.9%
- Padres (82-80, 89-73 in ’22): 0.7%
- Yankees (82-80, 99-63 in ’22): 0.6%
- Cubs (83-79): 0.4%
- Mariners (88-74): 0.2%
After the first six selections are drawn, the remainder of the first round will run in inverse order of the standings among the teams not awarded a lottery pick. The A’s will therefore pick no lower than 7th, the Royals no lower than 8th, and so on. A team with a record outside the bottom six would only be vaulted up if drawn into the top six, although they could move up marginally as teams in front of them fall based on their luxury tax status (as explained below).
The draft order for the remainder of the first round is determined by how far a team advances in the playoffs, its revenue sharing status, and its regular season record. These selections are fixed; a playoff team cannot move up via the lottery.
19. Marlins
20. Brewers
21. Rays
22. Blue Jays
23. Twins
24. Orioles
25. Dodgers
26. Braves
27. Phillies
28. Astros
29. Diamondbacks
30. Rangers
A final note: a team that exceeds the third tier of luxury penalization (set at $273MM in ’23) generally sees its top pick moved back by 10 spots. If that team lands a top six selection, then its second-highest selection is moved back by 10 spots. The Mets, Yankees and Padres are believed to have surpassed the $273MM mark. None of those teams made the playoffs, so they all have a chance — albeit a minimal one for the Padres and Yankees — at a lottery pick.
The drawing is held annually at the Winter Meetings. Collazo reports that this year’s iteration will take place on December 5 at 2:30 pm Central, but the results will be held back for two hours so MLB Network can televise them at 4:30. Baseball America published a Top 100 draft prospects list in July, with Wake Forest first baseman Nick Kurtz leading the class. Obviously, much can change when the amateur season plays out next spring.
If it’s rigged they’ll give the first pick to the cardinals
Or Muts.
As a “Mets”, Jets, and Knicks fan, it’s hilarious to me to hear anyone suggest that anything is rigged in their favor. Rather, that would be the first sign in decades that god is not utterly against their existence.
So you’re saying there’s an 8.3% chance it’s rigged?
50% – it’s either rigged or it’s not.
So there’s a 4.15% chance of successfully PROVING it’s rigged.
All the math in this post has been reviewed and certified by a team of accounting interns.
If it’s benevolently rigged they’ll give it to any team not named the Athletics, Royals, or Pirates… which appear to just be scams designed to reap revenue sharing funds.
The idiot lottery, to solve a problem that didn’t exist, and mainly because the large markets whined to Robby the robot and always get their way.
The players Union pushed for the lottery to help reduce incentives for blatant tanking.
I’m guessing you bought a bridge in Brooklyn too.
Which is a perverse incentive since now more teams will tank. This year, it was a race between KC and Oakland for the #1. But since the Cards have almost the same chance as KC of getting the #1, why not tank?
case6 hours ago
If it’s benevolently rigged they’ll give it to any team not named the Athletics, Royals, or Pirates…
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By this logic, then Cohen and the Mets should be getting the #1 pick.
It’ll be rigged if any of the bottom 8 win.
The Cardinals could get the first pick and still mess up
You made a mistake on line three,
I agree, it should be if you exceed the luxury threshold you lose 2 first round picks, and lose half of your international budget. If you can’t do math you should pay dearly!
Well the Mariners are actually likely to pick #15 unless the Mets, Padres or Yankees win a lotto pick. Since those three teams’ top pick is likely pushed back 10 spots, that’d vault the M’s ahead of them. So it actually a lock the M’s pick between 7-17 😉
Also, with Teo likely rejecting a QO and signing for more than $50M would give us a pick after the 1st round which will be nice. Another year of good draft capital for a team winning around 54% of their games.
Oh yeah, of course. Thanks for catching that!
That little factoid might push the Nets ahead of the Padres in my “most interesting teams” contest. The Mets not only have $57M devoted towards players playing for another team in 2024, and are stuck with a tax bill of $22M, they won’t even get the #7 pick.
That’s got to hurt.
Actually their second round pick goes down 10 slots. Not the first round.
I hear they just go to the tankathon website, run 20 simulations, and choose the one they want
I see the Dodgers moving up two spots to 23rd
My god, what a convoluted mess. I’m going to root for chaos—give the Yankees the #1 pick!
Sure hope the Halos get a top 5 pick…we sure need all the help we can get!
Would they go for a true top 5 talent or just someone who could be called up in August?
If the Mets do not gain a lottery slot they drop down 10 spots due to luxury tax penalty
Padres: So you’re saying there is a chance?
Completely forget they do this now
they should have the lottery weighted by team record the prior season, with only teams at or under .500 getting odds
This will affect a team’s approach about as much as banning the shift did for batting averages.
Pirates get it lol! If it’s rigged, Cards get it like Nationals got it last year.
When do QOs go out and when does free agency start? The lottery could affect a team’s strategy for going after a player under a QO.
I think they are both 5 days after end of world series
So let me get this straight: the cheap teams can just suck and keep getting good talent, but a team that actually spends money can’t be bad for two years without getting punished? More horrible rules made by cheap owners to discourage them from actually ever spending.
I actually don’t mind this rule. Teams with loads of money have so many more resources
Don’t be mad Philly is trash at drafting and developing
Oh I hardly care. We got another steal last year.
Why not simplify it even more, and get rid of the small market teams altogether? Have a few teams in NY, LA, Chicago, and they can play each other every week.
That would ruin the game and several fanbases.
There are no “small markets”. Only cheap teams.
There are no “small markets”.
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Of course. The Cleveland market is the same as the NY market, right? And KC’s cash flow is identical to the Yankees, right?
“There are no ‘small markets'” = “I failed economics miserably.”
Within the NYC Metro Area, there are 20.1 million people who can attend games, buy streaming services or merchandise. This is called a “market”.
Kansas City’s Metro Area is comparable to NYC’s in terms of land area surrounding the city; they have 2.2 million people.
The Yankees or Mets only need 10% of the metro area to invest in the team (go to games, buy jersey, subscribe to YES), while KC would need every single person within the 20,000+ square miles surrounding the city to come to a game, buy a jersey, etc to be equal in terms of revenue coming from their “market”.
While you’re researching “market”, also look up “reciprocal agreement” and how it applies to MLB owners. Even guys like John Fisher are not allowed to simply pull out their checkbooks and start dumping their own money into a team – the minority owners are generally required to meet a cash call based on their ownership stake if a team operates in the red and needs more money OR they have to sell their stakes in the team to a deeper-pocketed owner. Exactly what happened to the Expos.
Team budgets are built based off revenue potential in their market – there is simply no way that Cleveland could ever hope to have the same potential in their market as Chicago, therefore the owners of said markets can only spend within those confines without risking insolvency.
Or maybe “DarkSide830” is Scott Boras’ handle on this site.
This is the downside of a Cinderella run through the playoffs by a Wild Card team. The Dbacks only won 84 games during the regular season, so maybe slotted 18th based on that, but 29th by going all the way into the World Series. And 0% chance of getting into the top 7 spots as well, instead of a 0.2% chance.
Yeah. Poor Dbacks fans. Sucks to be in the World Series because it’s ruins your chances of winning the lottery.
Sucks to win with a negative run differential
All it takes is one blowout game to skew a teams run differential. I don’t get why so many people put a lot of stock in that particular statistic.
Lol Astrosfan, you see the irony in your comment, right?
He’s not whining, he’s simply saying that non-lottery teams should draft in reverse order of their 23 record. I think that would set a bad precedent, though. Though it would benefit my Twins this year…
Is there a reason a reason why the Rays get better draft pick than the Jays? Despite both teams losing in their respective wild card games but the Rays having a better regular season record?
Probably payroll?
Sure, its simple math, MLB used a process that everybody knows:
( (k+2) (1 – [wz + h + j – q]^2 – [(gk + 2g + k + 1)(h + j) + h – z]^2 – [16(k + 1)^3(k + 2)(n + 1)^2 + 1 – f^2]^2 -[2n + p + q + z – e]^2 -[e^3(e + 2)(a + 1)^2 + 1 – o^2]^2 -[(a^2 – 1)y^2 + 1 – x^2]^2 -[16r^2y^4(a^2 – 1) + 1 – u^2]^2 -[n + l + v – y]^2 -[(a^2 – 1)l^2 + 1 – m^2]^2 -[ai + k + 1 – l – i]^2 -[((a + u^2(u^2 – a))^2 – 1)(n + 4dy)^2 + 1 – (x + cu)^2]^2 -[p + l(a – n – 1) + b(2an + 2a – n^2 – 2n – 2) – m]^2 -[q + y(a – p – 1) + s(2ap + 2a – p^2 – 2p – 2) – x]^2 -[z + pl(a – p) + t(2ap – p^2 – 1) – pm]^2) – 1) – | (k+2) (1 – [wz + h + j – q]^2 – [(gk + 2g + k + 1)(h + j) + h – z]^2 – [16(k + 1)^3(k + 2)(n + 1)^2.
Cleon, I’m impressed you typed all of that out.
Locked in steel trap memory.
or he had a stroke and collapsed on his keyboard?
Obviously
The answer is 42
octane51,
The answer is easy, it’s the question that’s difficult.
What’s 6 x 7? Too simple.
How many roads must a man walk? Maybe…
Leave it to MLB to create an incomprehensible lottery.
This was a negotiation, and it was the players union that helped put it together. If only one side was planning it, it would be much simpler. For convoluted, just add lawyers.
My rudimentary maths say the Mets have a 42.3% chance to pick higher than 17
Maybe out of pity they’ll give to the angels for losing Ohtani
Why are the Brewers and Rays above the Blue Jays when both were eliminated at the wildcard and they both had a better record than the Jays?
Because their from Canada.
NICK KIRTZ IS COMING HOME TO CLEVELAND
Angels will find a way to pick 18th – somehow, someway.
Whether its 1st or 30th, does it really matter with the Angels? Since the Trout miracle these guys cant pick their own nose let alone a MLB ready roster.
Why are the Nats ineligible? They picked second last year.
They should take away draft picks completely for going into the lux tax bracket. tier 1 – lose a 3rd round, tier 2 – lose 2nd and 3rd, tier 3 lose rounds 1-3.
need to be stricter penalties for breaking the luxuary taxes.
Then that gives teams which perennially suck even more incentive to tank and they’ll inevitably trade players with 4 to 5 years of service time bc they know they’ll have a steady stream of low cost players. The disparity between rich and “poor” teams will grow even greater.
Why do you want owners to pocket more money? How about making a rule of what your payroll need to be by your revenue from the previous year?
That would never happen forcing individual teams to open their books for a MLB audit to determine their total revenues. There’s a reason why the same usual suspects or luxury tax recipients didn’t agree to a payroll floor during the last CBA. If these wild proposals/ideas from “poor” team fans were ever enacted, that will certainly ensure more of these orgs. continue to operate like the A’s.
This would change almost nothing – the disparity between what Yankees made and what the Yankees spent is still more than the combined revenues of any two of the following: KC, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Miami and Oakland (the “cheap” teams). If the Pirates somehow managed to spend $120 million on payroll next year, the Yankees would have to spend $400 million to spend the same percent of revenue on ML payroll as the Pirates.
If you wanted to make it fairer, give every team the same shot at the top pick, then shrink their draft pool allotment based on payroll/record. The Rangers could win the top pick, but almost their entire pool would be the slot for 1-1. The only time you’d really get dinged is if you were a big-spending playoff team who was “unlucky” enough to win the lottery – and the penalty is essentially that you probably only get to sign the top guy and 4 to 5 late round college seniors out of your 20-ish picks.
Let this be a lesson as to why signing free agents too early after a rebuild is like shooting yourself in the foot. Looking at you, Detroit. 6 more losses would have moved them 5 spots up.
Although…. I have to admit…. All the wins made possible through the signing of E-Rod were negated by Javy Baez.