Inside The 2025 MLB Draft Lottery: Here’s How It Unfolded
Image credit: (Photo by Eddie Kelly)
Whether it’s comforting or not, White Sox fans can know that having a lottery pick last year did not cost the team the No. 1 pick in the 2025 MLB draft.
It cost them the sixth pick, which is the final pick in the lottery. Instead, Chicago will pick 10th.
The other ineligible lottery team (the A’s) lost even less. They wouldn’t have won a lottery pick even if they had been eligible.
The third MLB draft lottery did not have the same jaw-dropping moment of last year, when the Guardians and Reds shockingly landed the No. 1 and 2 picks. But it still was anything but predictable.
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The lottery has settled into being a very normal part of the Winter Meetings. The first year, most teams who had a chance to win sent a representative to monitor the draw. Last year, fewer teams did, but Ethan Purser was there for the Guardians to see the team shockingly land the No. 1 pick.
This year, no teams sent representatives. By this point, they all know how it works, trust that it will go smoothly and don’t have the desire to have anyone spend two and a half hours sequestered until the picks are announced on MLB Network.
But MLB does make sure to still go through the same strict rules to ensure transparency and a fair selection. The 14 ping pong balls are certified as identical by SmartPlay. The case in which they reside is sealed with wire and security tape until the time for the selection.
Before the draw began, MLB’s Bill Francis held up a copy of today’s newspaper to show that this was being done on the day of the selection announcement. For each pick, a timer called out when to press the button to allow the next selection.
MLB’s Jack Clark (no, not the ex-Cardinal) pressed the button. A ball would rise to the exit port, he would call it out, and then the process would repeat. After 30 seconds the timer would call-out for the next selection. The button would be pressed. Another number. And again 30 seconds after that, and 30 seconds after that.
Nationals Land No. 1 Overall Pick
The Nationals, the team with the fourth-best odds, landed the No. 1 pick, and they did so in a relatively drama-less manner.
The draft lottery uses 14 ping pong balls, numbered from 1 to 14. The air machine blows the balls around, and every 30 seconds, a button is pushed to allow one ping pong ball to rise to the exit port.
In draft lottery terms, high-numbered ping pong balls equal chaos. Low numbers equate to the teams with the highest odds winning the lottery.
While four balls are picked, the four-number combination is always arranged in numerical order. So if the number 1 ball is picked with any of the four selections, only the White Sox and Rockies had a chance at winning that selection. Since the White Sox were ineligible to win, any time their combination came up, it would result in a null selection and the draw would be restarted from scratch.
The first ping pong ball for pick 1 was No. 12. That left everyone with a hope, even the D-backs, who had just two of 1,001 number combinations. All the D-backs needed was for the other four balls to be 10, 13 and 14.
The second ping pong ball was No. 8. That eliminated the D-backs, but it did give hope to the Red Sox, Twins and Cardinals. They just needed the remaining ping pong balls to be high numbers.
And with the third ping pong ball, those chances disappeared. The No. 4 ball rose to the top of the machine. At that point, the Nationals were more likely to win the No. 1 pick than lose it. As long as the next ping pong ball wasn’t No. 1 (which would be a null selection as a White Sox combo), No. 2 (Marlins), No. 3 (Angels) or No. 5 (A’s and a null selection), the Nationals would win.
It was No. 10. The Nationals pick No. 1.
This is the third time the Nationals landed the No. 1 overall pick in the MLB Draft. The previous two? Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg. And it comes in an exciting time for the franchise, which saw James Wood and Dylan Crews each reach the majors last year. Now, Washington can replenish a farm system that ranked No. 4 midway through last season before Wood’s graduation.
Mariners Beat The Odds
The second draw was also relatively drama free. When the #3 ball came up first, it meant that only the White Sox, Rockies, Marlins, A’s or Angels could win.
The second ball was No. 4. At that point, only a No. 1 or No. 2 could derail the Angels from winning. The third ball was #5. Same situation. The fourth ball was the No. 6, which confirmed the Angels had won the second pick.
Yes, the combination was No. 3, No. 4, No. 5, No. 6. As the pool reporter, I can attest that the balls came out in sequential order like that. It may seem weird, but it has the same odds as any other of the 1,001 combinations.
The third draw was exciting from the first moment.
First ball: No. 13. Remember high numbers allow teams with miniscule odds a chance.
Second ball: No. 12. Chaos is brewing.
Third ball: No. 14. A 12-13-14 combination meant that as the last ball was being drawn, teams who just barely missed the playoffs had the same odds of winning the pick as the worst teams in baseball in 2024.
The fourth ball was No. 9. The Mariners would get to celebrate two hours after the ball was drawn (when the lottery was announced publicly). Seattle only had four of 1,001 number combinations. But this was one of the four. They went from picking 15th to picking third.
If that last ball had been No. 10 the D-backs would have won despite only having two combos. An No. 11 would have resulted in a re-draw, as it’s the only combination not assigned to any team.
The other teams who had a chance until the final ball were the Cardinals (No. 8), Rays (No. 7), Rangers (No. 6), Pirates (No. 5), Nationals (No. 4, but they had already won the 1-1 pick), As (No. 3 and a null pick), Angels (No. 2) and Rockies (No. 1).
The Angels won again with the fourth draw (3-9-5-14) so it was declared null and void. The Rockies won the fourth pick on the fifth draw, but again there was drama. The Rockies would win on 121 different combos if a #1 was drawn, and finally for the first time the #1 did rise to the top, but only on the final ball of the four (11-6-13-1). With one ball to go, the Pirates, Reds and Rangers all had excellent odds of winning.
Pick five on the sixth draw went to the Cardinals (8-14-11-12). The seventh draw was the second null draw as the White Sox finally “won” (9-1-13-2). And the Pirates nabbed the sixth pick on the eighth draw (6-11-12-7).
The White Sox and the As were the two teams who were eliminated from draft lottery consideration because of rules that prevent teams from being in the lottery year after year. In the A’s case, it was because they had lottery picks in each of the past two seasons. As a revenue sharing recipient, the A’s lottery picks in 2023 (the sixth pick) and 2024 (the fourth pick) made them ineligible. The White Sox as a team that pays into revenue sharing is ineligible the following year after any year they have a lottery pick. Chicago picked fifth in 2024.
So there is some consolation for the White Sox. By not being eligible, they will likely once again be among the teams with the best odds to win the draft lottery for the 2026 MLB Draft. If they had been eligible, they would have lost that chance by landing the sixth pick. Next year they can hope for 1-1 again.
