The MLB Draft Lottery Explained
How the MLB draft lottery works, why it replaced the old reverse-order system and what the first lottery, held after the 2022 season, showed. Includes the odds arithmetic and the limits of what is publicly established.
For most of the modern draft's history, the worst team in baseball got the first pick. Finish last, and the best amateur player available was yours to select. The system was simple and it had a flaw that critics pointed to for years: it rewarded clubs for losing. Starting with the draft of 2023, Major League Baseball changed it. A lottery now determines the first six picks, and no club, not even the one with the worst record, can be sure of the top spot.
The lottery came out of the 2022 collective bargaining agreement and was first held in December 2022, with the 2022 season's final standings deciding the odds. The Pittsburgh Pirates won it, the Washington Nationals, who had the worst record in baseball that year at 55-107, drew the second pick, and the Oakland Athletics, who had the second-worst record, ended up sixth. The outcome was a clear demonstration of how the lottery works: having the worst record gave a club the best odds, but only one chance in six.
This article explains the old system, the new one and the arithmetic of the odds. It also covers what the lottery is designed to do, what the evidence so far can and cannot show, and what it does not change. For the draft itself, see how the MLB draft works.
The old system: reverse order of record
Before the lottery, the first round of the draft was ordered by the previous season's winning percentage, worst to best, across all 30 clubs. The team with the worst record picked first, the team with the second-worst record picked second, and so on, with the champion picking last. Tiebreakers settled clubs with identical records. A few extra "competitive balance" picks, awarded to smaller-revenue clubs, were inserted after the first and second rounds. For the purposes of this article, only the first-round order matters.
The logic was fairness in a particular sense. The draft is the main way a club acquires young talent at low cost, and giving the best choices to the clubs with the poorest records was meant to help them recover. The draft itself, which began in 1965, was created in part to curb bidding wars for amateurs, and the reverse order was its built-in tilt toward the weakest clubs.
The flaw is the one mentioned above. If the worst record guarantees the best pick, then a club that is already bad can improve its position by getting worse. A club planning to rebuild around prospects has an incentive to lose games on purpose, by trading veterans and playing replacement-level players, for as long as it takes to collect high picks. That behavior is known as tanking. The most-discussed example in recent baseball history is the Houston Astros, who went 56-106 in 2011, 55-107 in 2012 and 51-111 in 2013 and picked first overall in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Whether that was a deliberate strategy or a consequence of a poor roster is a matter of opinion, but the pattern drew attention.
What the 2022 agreement changed
The collective bargaining agreement reached in 2022 introduced the lottery. The main features, as of the 2025 season, are these:
- Which clubs take part. The 18 clubs that did not make the postseason. In 2022 the postseason field had 12 teams, so 18 of the 30 clubs were eligible.
- How many picks are drawn. The first six picks of the draft are determined by the lottery.
- What happens to everyone else. The other 12 non-playoff clubs pick seventh through eighteenth in reverse order of record, and the 12 playoff clubs follow, ordered by how far they advanced in the postseason.
- What the odds depend on. The worse a club's record, the better its chance at each of the lottery picks.
The league and the union also built in conditions that limit how often a club can benefit from the lottery in successive years. The details are set out in the agreement, which is public, and are not reproduced here because they can change when the agreement is renewed. The current agreement is scheduled to run through the 2026 season, and any changes will be announced by the league.
The odds, and the arithmetic of 16.5 percent
The key number in the lottery is the chance each club has at the first pick. For the three clubs with the worst records, the chance is 16.5 percent each. That is a little less than one in six. The three clubs together hold 49.5 percent of the chance at the first pick, which leaves 50.5 percent to be shared among the other 15 clubs in the lottery. Roughly half the time, the first pick goes to a club that did not have one of the three worst records.
Put differently, a club that finishes last has an 83.5 percent chance of not getting the first pick, which is five chances in six. In the old system it was certain to get it.
The lottery also sets a floor. Because only six picks are drawn, and the other non-playoff clubs then pick in reverse order of record, the club with the worst record cannot fall below seventh. If it wins none of the six drawn picks, it picks first among the remaining twelve, which is seventh overall. Finishing last still guarantees a top-seven pick, even if it no longer guarantees the top one.
Here is how the bottom of the 2022 standings looked, using the records in the historical record. The Reds and Pirates tied, and the rules for breaking ties are set out in the agreement.
| Rank from the bottom | Club | 2022 record |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Washington Nationals | 55-107 |
| 2 | Oakland Athletics | 60-102 |
| 3 (tie) | Cincinnati Reds | 62-100 |
| 3 (tie) | Pittsburgh Pirates | 62-100 |
| 5 | Kansas City Royals | 65-97 |
| 6 | Detroit Tigers | 66-96 |
| 7 (tie) | Colorado Rockies | 68-94 |
| 7 (tie) | Texas Rangers | 68-94 |
The clubs near the bottom had the best chance of a top pick, and clubs further up the list still had a real if smaller chance. In the first lottery, the Pirates and the Nationals took the first two picks, and the Athletics landed at sixth despite having the second-worst record, a result that would have been impossible under the old system.
What the odds mean over several years
A single lottery is a gamble, but a club that stays at the bottom for several years faces compounding odds. Take a hypothetical club that finishes with one of the three worst records three years running, and suppose, to keep the arithmetic simple, that it has a 16.5 percent chance at the first pick each time. The chance that it misses the first pick in all three drawings is 0.835 multiplied by itself three times, or about 58 percent. The chance that it wins at least once is therefore about 42 percent.
Under the old system the same club would have had the first pick three times out of three. The lottery has not made losing painless, since the club still collects a pick in the top nine every year, but it has turned a certainty into a coin flip weighted against the club. That is the sense in which it weakens the incentive to tank.
The example has limits. The agreement contains provisions on how often a club can pick in the lottery, so a real club's odds would not stay fixed, and a club that rebuilds for three years does more than lose: it also develops the players it already has. Still, the arithmetic shows why the designers chose odds that fall off with the standings instead of a flat lottery among all 18 clubs. A flat draw would give every non-playoff club the same one-in-eighteen chance at the first pick and would remove the connection between losing and picking early.
How the lottery fits the draft calendar
The lottery is one step in a yearly cycle, and the sequence explains why it comes when it does.
- The regular season ends in the fall, and the final standings fix which 18 clubs are in the lottery and what their odds are.
- The lottery is held in December, as it was in 2022, and the clubs learn the order of the first six picks.
- The draft is held the following July. Each club selects players in order, and the picks carry assigned values that count against the club's bonus pool.
- Signing follows. Drafted players negotiate bonuses and, once signed, are assigned to a minor-league team or a complex-league team in the club's system.
The long gap between the lottery and the draft gives clubs half a year to scout the top of the class with the order known. It also gives the clubs that did not win a top pick time to plan for the picks they do hold.
What the first lottery showed
One lottery is a single draw, and a single draw proves little. It showed that the system works as designed: a club near the bottom can fall back, a club with somewhat better odds can jump ahead and the order of the picks is no longer a simple copy of the standings. For the clubs and their fans it was a small drama in December, played months before the draft itself in July.
It did not show whether the lottery changes club behavior. That is a different question, and it takes years of data to answer. The incentives did change, since the reward for finishing last is now a one-in-six shot at the first pick, not a certainty. But a club's decision to rebuild is shaped by many things, including payroll, revenue, the farm system and how long its ownership is willing to wait. Some analysts expected the lottery to reduce deliberate losing; others thought it would have little effect, because even the seventh pick is valuable. The public record through the 2025 season is too short to settle the argument, and we are not aware of a definitive study.
For comparison, the NBA introduced a draft lottery in 1985 and the NHL in 1995, both in part to discourage clubs from losing for position. Neither league's experience settled the debate completely either, which is a useful reminder that a lottery changes the odds and not the incentive entirely.
What the lottery does not change
The lottery covers only the first six picks of the first round. Several things about the draft are unaffected.
- The rest of the order. Picks seven through eighteen follow the reverse order of record, and the playoff clubs pick after that. A club that finishes 20th in the standings gets a pick far from the top whatever the lottery does.
- The length of the draft. The draft has run 20 rounds since 2021 and has been held in July around the All-Star Game.
- Bonus pools and slot values. Each pick carries an assigned value, and each club has a pool of money it may spend on its picks without penalty. The lottery changes which club holds the top slot values, not the system for spending them. This is covered in our draft guide.
- International players. Players who sign from outside the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico are not part of the draft, and the lottery does not affect them.
- The value of the player. A first overall pick is not guaranteed to become a star. The draft is uncertain by nature, as our guide to the 20-80 scouting scale and the five tools explain: scouts grade young players on tools and projection, and many highly graded prospects never reach their grades.
In short, the lottery adjusts who picks, not how the picking works.
Why clubs care about a top-six pick
The first few picks carry the largest assigned slot values, and the best high-school and college players are usually selected there. A top-six pick is a chance at a player who can reach the majors quickly and contribute cheaply for years under a rookie contract. For a rebuilding club, that can be worth more than a free-agent signing, and for a small-market club it is one of the few ways to acquire a potential star without competing on price.
There is also a financial dimension for the players. Draftees begin in the minor leagues, where the pay has historically been low, a subject we cover in how minor leaguers get paid. A high pick's signing bonus is how many players are compensated for their early years, which is one reason the draft order matters to the players as well as the clubs.
The draft also connects to the structure of the minor leagues. The number of minor-league affiliates was reduced in 2021, a change explained in the 2021 minor league restructuring, which affects where drafted players are assigned and how many are signed.
Common questions
When is the lottery held? In December, months before the draft. The first one took place in December 2022 for the draft of July 2023.
Can the club with the worst record still get the first pick? Yes. It has a 16.5 percent chance, shared with the two next-worst clubs. If it does not win any of the six lottery slots, it picks seventh.
Do playoff teams take part? No. Only the 18 clubs that missed the postseason are in the lottery.
Can lottery picks be traded? As a general rule, regular draft picks in MLB cannot be traded, with the exception of the competitive balance picks. Check the current agreement and league announcements for any change.
Does the lottery end tanking? It reduces the guarantee but does not remove the incentive to be bad. The evidence is still thin, and reasonable people disagree.
How was the order decided before? Strictly by reverse order of the previous season's record, with tiebreakers, across all 30 clubs.
Where to go next
If you want to understand what happens after a club picks, read how the MLB draft works and how scouts grade prospects. For the pay and the development path of the players who are drafted, see how minor leaguers get paid, and for prospect coverage, the MLB draft and prospects topic page and the minors page. The standings that set the lottery odds are on the standings page.