The White Sox have won the MLB Draft Lottery and earned the first pick. They had the best odds to land the top spot at 27.73%. Chicago will be followed by the Rays and Twins.
Here’s the first round order:
- White Sox
- Rays
- Twins
- Giants
- Pirates
- Royals
- Orioles
- Athletics
- Braves
- Rockies
- Nationals
- Angels
- Cardinals
- Marlins
- Diamondbacks
- Rangers
- Astros
- Reds
- Guardians
- Red Sox
- Padres
- Tigers
- Cubs
- Mariners
- Brewers
This is the fourth edition of the draft lottery. The system was introduced through the most recent collective bargaining agreement to deemphasize tanking. The top six overall selections are determined by the lottery. There are limitations on picking in the lottery in multiple years. Clubs that aren’t revenue sharing recipients are barred from getting lottery picks in consecutive years, and no team can pick in the lottery three years in a row. Those parameters knocked out the Rockies, Nationals, and Angels this year.
Record still has weight when it comes to the draft order, which propelled the 60-win White Sox to the top of the odds board for the No. 1 selection. The Twins had the second-highest odds to earn the first pick at 22.18%, followed by the Pirates at 16.81%. No other team had better than a 10% chance to win the lottery.
This is the second time the team with the best odds received the top pick. The Pirates, along with two other teams, had the top odds when they won the 2022 lottery and earned the right to select Paul Skenes. The Guardians were a long shot to win in 2023, and the Nationals had the fourth-best odds in 2024.
The Giants and Royals came out as big winners, finding themselves with lottery picks after winning 80+ games last season. San Francisco went .500 and finished just two games out of a Wild Card spot. Kansas City ended up above .500 for the second straight year.
The Cardinals had a significant drop, falling from the eighth-best odds down to the 13th pick. The Marlins also fell five spots, going from the ninth-best odds to the 14th pick.
UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky is widely regarded as the top prospect in the 2026 draft. High school shortstop Grady Emerson and Alabama infielder Justin Lebron are candidates to be selected with early picks.
The Sox win.
Not something you hear very often!
It’s been a while since I could say that.
you can put it on the boarrrrrrrddddddddddddd…… YES!
Working like it should.
To an extent yes, but teams like the Braves drop from 6 to 9, the Marlins and Cardinals also took bigger falls.
Braves would have drafted 9th if there were no lottery. Only disappointing because they didn’t improve their position. Saying “it could have been worse for them” sounds like what I said after a lot of Braves games in 2025 though.
Do your homework pal the Braves woulda drafted sixth but they fell to ninth.
No because of the lottery the Angels, Rockies and Nationals got their picks pushed back. You do the homework.
@Gobraves88: You and the two who liked your comment should do some homework yourself “pal.” If there were no lottery, the Braves would have drafted 9th because they had the 9th worst record in 2025. The Braves only had the 6th best lottery odds because the Angels, Rockies, and Nationals got their picks pushed back—-as King of Cards mentioned below. The lottery odds only meant that due to their 9th worst record (and after lowering the Angels, Rockies, and Nats percentage) the Braves had the 6th best chance BY PERCENTAGE in the lottery drawing to improve their draft position. They didn’t, but were “lucky” in that they’ll draft exactly where they would have w/out the lottery—-9th.
@NJeff. You’re correct I forgot about those teams and sorry that I wrote that post aggressively. My dog ate my homework.
@Gobraves88: Apology accepted. Thanks Go. Throw that dogs dinner away, lol. It does blow that the Braves couldn’t draft higher.
Feel better there, Jeff?
Feel just fine. Troll on ron.
NJ is a southern gentleman. Some others here would have given it to you worse.
I am anxious to see the money part. With the added pick from Baldwin the braves should have a very nice draft pool allotment.
Lottery has no effect on tanking. If anything it would increase odds. Would be hard to tanking to catch some of these teams but with Lottery you don’t have to. The tanking is just a result of rebuilding. When you trade away all your expiring players you aren’t going to win many games. And until you have a foundation in place it doesn’t make sense to spend $ on big free agents. Draft pick is just a added bonus.
Dam 10 game winning streak at the end of the season. What were they thinking? Still should have drafted higher.496 vs other teams above.500
@Citizen1: Lol, I remember being a little disgusted w/myself during that streak for thinking “Oh yeah, NOW you’re gonna win when all it can do is hurt your draft chances……”
Nope. The Angels had the sixth worse record yet dropped to #12 draft pick. They spend money and were even buyers at the deadline. So it’s not like they’re tanking, yet are being screwed by this lotto system.
To be fair though, they’re also screwed by their own incompetence
Maybe. but remember they weren’t allowed to pick in the top ten even after the catastrophic 2023 and 2024 campaigns
Heck the Rockies lost more games and only got #10 because of that same technicality
Marlins get screwed AGAIN
Lottery is a nothing burger. If players wanted it then it was great for owners to give them something they care nothing about. If anything it makes rebuilding a more attractive option.
I believe that part of the logic in implementing the lottery (besides a little bit of publicity) was to help reduce the incentive to do a total nosedive in tanking to grab the top pick.
It didn’t work as I predicted. Teams weren’t tanking because of the pick.
3 AL teams in a row. Nice.
So it’s
White Sox
Rays
Twins
Who’s next? I’ll wait and see, the Astros were never going to get the first pick and likely not a top 6. Just hope the Mets don’t get one.
Giants got 4
Then it’s:
Giants
Pirates
Royals
Orioles
Athletics
Braves
Rockies
Nationals
Angels
Cardinals
Marlins
Diamondbacks
Rangers
Astros
Reds
What’s with the random Mets hate?
I don’t hate the Mets. Being a non playoff team, they qualified and they were at spot 17 but because they exceeded the luxury tax threshold, they got bumped all the way back to pick 27
Sorry man not for you it was at astros27. Just the random Mets hate is a head scratcher
If the Mets get a lottery pick, the Astros 1st round pick would fall to 18 instead of 17.
I feel like the Giants won. #4 pick? Shut the front door!
Glad the Sox won. Having to pick 10th this year after losing 121 games must have been a gut punch.
Little bit of good news on a day the Dodgers signed yet another big FA, eh?
SFG should go for Drew Burress.
Crazy how top heavy this years draft is at SS.
Colorado got hurt! Can’t believe the Giants took 4th spot
Rigged
@balk they’re an awful franchise. No good prospects should ever go to Colorado unless they’re power hitters
Sad times for that franchise for sure.
Sfg won 81 gms, pick 4th
Rockies won 43, pick 10
Lol mlb
MLB doesn’t need a lottery. This ain’t the NBA, there’s no guaranteed superstar to take at 1.1. Most prospects end up busting.
The lottery is meant to dissuade tanking, which absolutely has occurred in baseball ever since they changed the draft format. It’s less about finding the guaranteed superstar, and more about increasing your draft allotment (which increases your odds of signing multiple top prospects).
Seems to me that most of the “usual suspect” tankers are still tanking.
I mean, some teams don’t even seem to be trying. But a few tankers were able to pull it off. The Astros were the first team to go in full-tank mode after the draft rules changed, which worked out pretty well for them.
The intent was to curtail the intentional tanking. There’s nothing MLB can do about the unintentional tanking.
Wouldn’t it then just make more sense to change the bonus system then? MLB doesn’t seem to care to fix the problem that some teams aren’t willing to spend enough to take BPA at each pick, they’re still playing money games and resultingly spoiling the spirit of the draft.
I think they did this lottery style to discourage tanking (I think that’s the word) on purpose you know losing more than 100 games to get the first pick
They did this because they didn’t like how the Astros got 3 #1 picks in their rebuild and then win a ton with Correa and bregman
However, this is in fact not the NBA and Paul skenes is not available in the mlb draft every year so it should still be based on record instead of getting punished like the Rockies
You can say the same about the Nationals being able to draft Strasburg and Harper
Or Cubs drafting Bryant/Schwarber/Happ as well. Notice that Nationals, Astros and Cubs all won the WS after tanking.
Didn’t the Nationals start that year like 20 games under it was like 31 and 50 or something they started out like and then all of a sudden they want a bunch and they went to the playoffs.?
Owners couldn’t care at all lottery or no lottery. They were thrilled the union was passionate about such a worthless thing. Getting a fixed spot or having odds is irrelevant. Has zero effect on decision to rebuild.
The only punishment in Colorado is the Rockies ownership punishing their fans.
They read off the past Rockies top picks….miss-miss-miss.
They need to make better picks. Hopefully DePodesta & the new F.O. knows what their doing.
sad tormented. It was not because MLB didn’t like the Astros getting 3 #1 picks, it was how they got them. The Astros intentionally tanked, going 6 straight years for a combined 208 games .below .500.
One team getting 3 top picks isn’t nearly as bad in promoting the sport than a team losing that badly for that long.
Rockies are punished by their owners. They surely must be cheaper than my White Sox. Somebody please inform me if im wrong
The Rockies don’t tend to spend much, though they threw a sizable amount of cash at Kris Bryant in 2022. But what the Rockies have is a meddlesome owner who greatly overvalues his players, and doesn’t like to see his guys traded away.
Yes but you don’t want to overreact to one example, plus these rules are such a scorched earth overreaction that I’m suspicious of the motivation from MLB. You’d think there was a Paul Skenes every draft if you judged purely off the rules they made for the lottery. It’s not that big of a problem to justify this chaos. Teams rarely agree on a no. 1 pick every year, and it’s often not clear until a few months at most before the draft anyway.
Yeah, there isn’t the equivalent of a Paul Skenes every year, but there is some years. MLB doesn’t want to reward a team, when that level talent is available, with a Skenes-type prospect for losing on purpose.
More importantly it isn’t just the 1/1 pick. It’s being able to pick first in most every round allowing a team to build up the farm system. Most prospects will not even be league average, but having a bunch of good picks gives a team a better chance at finding the ones that will be above average.
It’s not perfect, but it makes the decision whether to tank or not more difficult when a top pick isn’t guaranteed like it was before.
For the record I’m not necessarily suggesting we remove the lottery, only questioning the multiple stipulationa as overkill. And does the lottery determine the order for every round for just the first round? I may have assumed it was just the first round like with other sports. To my knowledge, MLB has the most extreme lottery rules and yet the least prominent draft prospects, it seems silly and borderline suspicious.
Good question. I don’t know if the lottery order is for the entire draft or not. But my point was more about that good draft position before the lottery was employed, and how it benefitted a tanking team.
And stupid archaic idea of not trading draft picks other than competitive balance ones
This.
I agree that some trading ought to be allowed, but with limitations, because pick hoarding and pick dumping are a potential problem for both competitive balance and fan interest
By that logic, there is then no harm in having a lottery for the same reason.
Cards take a -5, ouch
Not a great time to have a bad lottery number. At least last year’s draft looks like a success (so far).
Cards were small market team taking supplemental draft picks when wining World Series or competitive. Glad that’s over.
Since 2017 MLB has had a special formula that awards extra draft picks ( betw 1st & 2nd round) to teams based on revenue and market size. Most of these teams have very small payrolls like the A’s, rays, twins, Cleveland, marlins, White Sox, pirates. On the surface it seems like MLB is helping to balance the league between the big spenders and the teams that can’t have the money to sign the big free agents. But beyond the surface, it’s excusing the low payroll teams from making any signings.Why would a team spend $$ if they can just keep collecting extra first round picks every year?
Yes, the system is dumb.
That draft pick is nothing. Spending $ to increase attendance advertising tv deal is big $. How many late 1st round 2nd round good players your team get with those picks? Once in a while not every year or other year or 3 years.
White Sox have more payroll flexibility of all teams you listed
Alas I think the White Sox are considered a large market team by this system which is why they didn’t pick #1 overall after 2024.
the Sox have also never been awarded a competitive balance pick by the MLB, so the league definitely doesn’t consider them to be small market.
The White Sox do not get any competitive balance picks. And they still don’t make any big signings.
In the 2026 draft, 7 tms are receiving additional 1st round picks.
Guardians
Royals
D-backs
Cardinals
Orioles
Pirates
Rockies
4 of these tms will pick in the top 10 in addition to the xtra 1st rd picks. So again, what incentive do they have to pay top dollar for FAs when they get all this xtra young talent ?
8 more tms are receiving xtra 2nd rd picks, which means half the lg gets xtra picks for free
Braves also receiving an extra 1st round pick due to the PPI gained when Drake Baldwin won the NL ROY.
Just because large market teams have driven salaries out of sight and they get ten times the local TV money two thirds of other major league teams do, you can’t see why two thirds of major league teams need to build through the draft?
Blinders, indeed…just like the bought and paid for commish in NYC.
A team still needs a free agents to get over the hump of good players to a competitive team. Pirates prove that on pitching, brewers prove that vs dodgers
Figures. There really isn’t a consensus #1 pick so give it to the White Sox.
Wrong
Huh? There’s very surely a top pick….arguably one of the best position players in a while.
Sweet, White Sox fans deserve it. Let’s hope Chris drafts a superstar!!
Roch C come to the southside!!
Why is that, Jack?
I sure wish someone will explain why any prospect should be drafted 1st. Nobody & i mean nobody knows which player in any draft should be Number 1 except for Paul Skenes. Draft is mostly luck
I totally forgot to watch it do they have the results on the MLB app so I can see where the royals placed?
3rd
Royals placed 6th.
Thanks after I posted I looked it up but I’m glad they updated the post here
“Southside” Pope Leo XIV clearly prayed for this to happen.
Bless the Pope and his prayers! Chicago picked up a win lol
I doubt he really follows the team that much now… He’s really quite busy in Rome
I dunno, I can see him sitting in the Vatican at 1am watching White Sox games wearing a Ron Karkovice jersey when everyone is sleeping.
Yeah he been diddling
White Sox fan here: we earned this, more than any #1 drafting team ever has.
Welcome to Chicago, Roch Cholowsky! A great name for the next Chicago superstar, be it as a White Sox shortstop or a Bears linebacker. 🙂
Or a wrestler
Fantastic
The Cardinals have only had sixteen notable mlb players which were chosen in the first round over the last 58 years. Definitely a crap shoot.
I love the lottery! I think the entire draft order should be lottery based with equal odds. Life isn’t fair. Let’s roll the dice and see what happens.
Welcome to Chicago Roch Cholowsky!!!
Now, can we please spend some money and sign a few guys. Bump the payroll up to 150M and the team will not be half bad with the current kids.
I hate teams drafting high school kids
“Major League Baseball teams are not allowed to trade draft picks due to a rule established in 1965.”
This rule was established before free agency and needs to be reversed. Rebuilding teams could improve much more quickly if they would be allowed to trade their draft picks for established major league talent.
The White Sox have Colson Montgomery at SS right now and Billy Carlson coming up in a couple of years (probably causing Montgomery to move to 3B or 1B). The best players in this year’s draft are all short stops. It’s too bad the Sox aren’t allowed to trade this draft pick for an MLB ready outfielder who could start this season.
they also have caleb bonemer as a top 100 prospect who’s been playing short but profiles at 3rd long term. my guess is he’ll start getting some reps in the outfield this season unless drew burress or derek curiel play themselves into #1 consideration
Draft the shortstop and move him to the outfield if it becomes necessary. You draft the best player available and figure it out when the time comes.
Or draft him and trade him later
Always take the best player in the draft regardless of position.
Who do you think you’re arguing with? Even if the Sox draft Cholowsky, they will be trading somebody for an outfielder. Moving quality defensive short stops to the outfield is a waste of talent.
Not really, the Padres did this with Jackson Merrill and has paid off big time. Jazz Chisholm started his career as a SS then the Marlins shifted him to CF with some reps at 2B before he was a Yankee.
Defensively, shortstops have more value than outfielders. Robin Yount made the move from SS to CF and won MVPs at both positions, but the Brewers only moved him from SS because he hurt his shoulder.
I do think it’s important that trading picks doesn’t turn into pick hoarding/off-loading chaos.
They should make da pope announce the 1st overall pick WWE style
I like that! And he probably would, too!
Finally they win something
Happy for the White Sox. They were due.
They’ll screw it up. Or trade him after 2 years because they don’t want to pay him.
Their infield could be dominant when J Ishbia takes over. The other SS’s behind the Roch are looking solid.
Brewers should be rewarded with doing more with less 25 come on😂😂
Okay prospect sites pls make a mock draft
If the Sox use the pick on the consensus #1 pick in SS Roch Cholowski from UCLA, they will have a great opportunity to solidify the middle infield for the next 5-10 years. They already have Colin Montgomery at SS for the foreseeable future, after a very promising start to his career in 2025. They also have last seasons draft pick (#10) SS Billy Carlson, who now ranks #71 on the MLB top prospects list.
Possible 2027 core:
C Teel
1B Colson Montgomery
2B Meidroth / Bonemer
3B Cholowsky
SS Carlson
LF Vargas
CF ?
RF Braden Montgomery
No way Carlson is up by 2027
Defensively, he could play in 2026, but you are right, he will need to prove himself offensively first.
Agreed
My son-in-law (lifelong Sox fan) says the 30’s are the South Siders decade! I asked if he meant 2130…
1930
Once
as a giants fan I am jazzed. the giants have picked in the top 5 once since posey was drafted
Not only that, this pick is tied for 4th best in the history of the franchise. Going back to 1965, they’ve never had a #1 overall, they’ve had two #2s, one #3, with this being tied with one other 4th overall.
The Mets didn’t make the playoffs, are they 26th?
Yes they are
Mets are 27th aren’t they? I think the Braves are 26th due to the PPI pick gained from Drake Baldwin winning the NL ROY.
Oh yeah thanks for pointing out my mistake.
Mets are drafting in PPI round
mlb.com/draft/2026/order
It hasn’t updated the Dodgers forfeiting 2nd and 5th picks from when I checked it, but each team is drafting 1 pick higher after the end of the 2nd round. And rounds 5 or later also goes up by one. Rockies 6th round pick is 165 as of now. That could raise if teams forfeit the picks.
lol @ Rockies
The Giants did pretty well. There were 13 teams under .500 and they finished at .500 and still managed to pick forth.
I still can’t believe who the Angels drafted second last year.
Passed on KG year before
A teams’ job is to win, however they can.
A league’s job is ensure that the overall sport is competitive.
This is why you need lotteries to disincentivize tanking (as much as possible).
It’s ALSO why you need to have a salary cap so teams don’t buy World Series titles year after year and stuff.
Lottery doesn’t effect tanking whatsoever. If anything it would increase it.
Why would it cost increase it? It’s especially disadvantageous to clubs that pay into revenue sharing. They’re not allowed to have a top 9 pick 2 years in a row. That’s why the Rockies are picking 10th this year despite having the worst record in the league.
It’s hard to have the worst record but now you don’t have to. If you are bad enough to not contend but not bad enough to be truly awful #1 pick bad you can rebuild another year. Small markets can get lottery 2 years in row. May or may not get a lottery pick even if they get 10th they can get lottery again next year and 10 ain’t bad. Teams making so much $ don’t need to tank so if they do penalizing them is more what it’s attended for. But it has zero effect. Being bad is because you need to rebuild and cut salary. The draft pick position is such a minor part it’s irrelevant. As seen by the number of teams who instead of spending $ were just perfectly fine drafting 10 11 12.
*why would it cause it to increase (speech to text kind of mangled that one on my earlier comment).
It’s not. But if anything it would. If you would actually tank to finish worst or bottom 3 you would tank for the draft odds. Only a few teams are bad enough to finish worst. Many more are bad enough to get good draft odds. Then teams who would have better draft odds than you are kicked out eliminated from getting a lottery pick so even better odds.
@AI GM There is a decent difference in value among early first round picks and later ones.
Top Heavy Value: Picks 1-10 average around 9.8 WAR per player (1st overall around 20.46 WAR), while picks 11-30 average about 4.7 WAR, highlighting the diminishing returns as the round progresses.
Steep Decline: There’s a dramatic drop in average WAR after the first few selections, with some analyses showing median WAR near zero by pick #5.
Late Round Value: Even later picks (like 51-100) still contribute, averaging around 1.7 WAR per player, but the top picks are significantly more valuable.
It’s true that there’s a chance to draft better than the position you would have gotten previously, but there’s also a chance that you’ll pick worse than the position you would have gotten previously.
Yeah no it. Same thing though. But better now. For a obvious awful for sure worst team in baseball the lottery isn’t as good. But for the other dozen or 15 teams or whatever the lottery is better. And the worst teams won’t always be the worst teams so they can benefit from the lottery.
How many teams because of their fan base or payroll etc would never or once every 20 30 50 years be the worst team in baseball get the number 1 pick? Now you can just miss the playoffs and get a top 5 pick or even #1.
I don’t think it’s better or worse but if I had to pick I would say lottery makes it even easier decision to tank if draft pick was a reason. I believe the need to rebuild, trade players to reload the farm and cut back on payroll is the reason and being awful is a result of that.
But tanking was a viable strategy to build a winning team. The lottery encourages mediocrity just like the expanded playoff format.
Still is viable and for many teams necessary strategy. Why they still do it and lottery has done nothing to stop it.
By mediocrity, do you mean parity?
And whether it was or was not a viable strategy for the individual club, it’s bad for the sport and, thus, the league’s job to curtail.
At least draft lottery makes it interesting. Way more unlikely a awful team gets #1 2 3 years in row. And people love gambling.
Having a huge payroll makes winners not draft. Signing free agents to uheard of numbers makes winners
Pirates fans wanted to finish out season strong and beat their “rival” the reds. Well now you got 5th pick instead of 3rd.
@ AI No way of knowing where your going to end up in the lottery and the differenceof landing 3rd or 5th is not that big
Could be nothing or could be huge.
The A’s have zero luck…in fact they might have negative luck.
I mean, they should. Absolute trash owner and club.
KC Royals get #6. Now draft OF Drew Burgess Georgia Tech.
Crazy the White Sox got their first No 1 in 50 years considering last years team was maybe the worst ever and they didn’t win a No 1 then
WSox could only pick 10th at best for ’25 since they were in the lottery year prior (as a non-revenue sharing recipient). Part of the anti-tanking effort.
As an A’s fan I should be annoyed but I’ll keep my lip zipped on the annoyance barometer this year. Having been favored to grab first overall two years in a row we dropped to 4th and 6th respectively yet we ended up with rookie of the year and runner up rookie of the year with both picks. Projected top 5 pick this year we go 8th. Having a won the last two drafts overall and having the knowledge Mike Trout was drafted 25rh. I’m ok today 💚🍀💚
It’s all a BS scam. Manipulating the draft.
So tanking really does work. Nice!
I hate change! I hate change! I hate change!
Good thing for you that the Treasury isn’t going to mint pennies anymore.
The Rays have a history of not doing that well with a #1/2 pick …we shall see.
Junior Caminero is at the end of the Beckham tree, however.
A tree that took 16 years to bear fruit
Congrats to the White Sox 👍
I never thought tanking was a problem. What I do see as a problem is that teams that dont make the playoffs or have the 10th or 12th worst record can somehow wind up in the top 5.
Pray for the league, the White Sox are back on top!
Maybe I’m just a bitter Angels fan (although I’m very willing to admit that the Angels would’ve just blown a high pick anyway like they did in this past one) but why all the lottery stipulations when teams don’t even really seem to value top picks enough to lose on purpose for them? It seems so often teams will not take best talent available, or will have a very different idea of who the best is from others anyway. I believe they’re more likely to tank for a higher bonus cap than anything else. It seems like an overaggressive solution to a non-existent, or perhaps insignificant, problem. The NBA draft has far more impact on the future of the league and tanking and competitive balance than the MLB, and their lottery stipulations aren’t nearly as harsh, surprisingly.
I’m sincerely uninformed on the matter and would be curious why it’s really like this. I always assumed the league always tried to come up with solutions via the draft because the union didn’t seem to care much about that issue and therefore the league could implement it easier. Am I off base there?
They say teams tank, but do they really tank for the high rated amateur players, or do they tank for profit sharing and bigger draft bonus pools? Does the lottery really fix that? Sounds like just bad copycatting of other sports.