White Sox manage to lose MLB draft lottery before it even starts

The 2024 regular season is now complete, which also means that the details of the upcoming draft lottery are now locked in. Carlos Collazo of Baseball America laid out all the details in a post Thursday morning.

In an effort to reduce tanking, the Players Association pushed for a lottery in the most recent collective bargaining agreement. Starting with the 2023 draft, the top six picks were determined by a lottery held at the winter meetings, with each club that misses the postseason having a shot at the top pick. Teams with worse records still have the best odds of getting the top picks, but nothing is guaranteed. One year ago, the Guardians won the top pick despite having just a 2% chance of doing so, eventually using that pick on second baseman Travis Bazzana. If two teams have the same record, their record in the previous season serves as a tiebreaker.

The three teams with the worst records usually have the same odds of getting the top pick but there’s a notable exception. To discourage teams from undergoing years-long rebuilds, the lottery rules limit how often a club can receive a lottery pick. Revenue-sharing recipients can’t have lottery picks more than two years in a row while other clubs can’t have lottery picks in consecutive years.

Since the White Sox aren’t a revenue-sharing recipient and had a lottery pick in 2024, the rules state that they can’t pick higher than 10th in 2025. That’s despite a dismal 121-loss season that was easily the worst in baseball. The Athletics are a revenue-sharing club but had lottery picks in both 2023 and 2024, meaning they can’t pick higher than 11th next year.

Those clubs will still have balls in the lottery but they will be ignored if they win, which actually happened last year. Per J.J. Cooper of Baseball America, the Nationals would have secured the first overall pick in 2024 but they were ineligible due to having a lottery pick in 2023. The draw was redone, which is when the Guardians got the top pick.

Here are the lottery clubs and their odds of getting the top overall pick, adjusted to account for the fact that the White Sox and A’s aren’t eligible:

1. Rockies (61-101): 22.45%
2. Marlins (62-100): 22.45%
3. Angels (63-99): 17.96%
4. Nationals (71-91): 10.2%
5. Blue Jays (74-88): 7.48%
6. Pirates (76-86): 5.31%
7. Reds (77-85): 3.67%
8. Rangers (78-84): 2.45%
9. Giants (80-82): 1.9%
10. White Sox (41-121): Ineligible
11. A’s (69-93): Ineligible
12. Rays (80-82): 1.5%
13. Red Sox (81-81): 1.22%
14. Twins (82-80): 1.09%
15. Cardinals (83-79): 0.82%
16. Cubs (83-79): 0.68%
17. Mariners (85-77): 0.54%
18. Diamondbacks (89-73): 0.27%

Playoff teams will be sorted based on their postseason results. Teams that lose in the early rounds pick ahead of those that advance further. Teams that are eliminated in the same round are separated first by revenue-sharing status (with recipients picking earlier) and then in reverse order of regular-season record. These rules only impact the first round of the draft. From the second round onward, teams pick in reverse order of standings, aside from compensatory and competitive balance selections.

Teams that surpass the third tier of the competitive balance tax ($277M in 2024) have their top pick moved back ten spots. If such a club gets a top six pick, then that penalty is applied to their second-highest pick instead. That won’t be a factor this year. Per RosterResource, the three clubs projected to be over that CBT line are the Mets, Yankees and Dodgers. Atlanta appears to be right on the line but general manager Alex Anthopoulos has said the club stayed under, per Justin Toscano of the Atlanta Journal Constitution on X. Regardless, all those clubs made the postseason and won’t be in the lottery.