Another year; another MLB Draft Lottery. Just as we did for the 2023 and 2024 lotteries, a million simulations were run to see the probabilities for all the picks and not just the first pick.
This year there were two teams who are not lottery eligible. The White Sox who would have gotten the first pick in pre-lottery days; and the Athletics who would have gotten the fifth pick. So their odds are set to zero and re-allocated proportionally to the remaining 18 teams. And all the teams that would have been subject to their pick being dropped back by 10 spots make the post-season. So that is a non-issue.
The Tankathon site is a popular tool to run simulations (one at a time). MLBTradeRumors recently published the probabilities – and they are not the same as the Tankathon site. For example, Tankathon has 18.03% for the Angels and .31% for the Diamondbacks; while MLBTR has 17.96% and .27% for those teams. for So what gives? Which is correct?
The answer is it depends. Both can be correct. Tankathon seems to have used decimal arithmetic; while MLBTR’s used integer arithmetic. Depending on how the lottery is conducted either could be correct. Since MLB uses ping pong balls, you can’t have a fractional (i.e., decimal) probabilities. Integer arithmetic is required to correctly reflect how MLB conducts the lottery. Our simulations used the MLBTR probabilities for that reason.
The table below is a summary of the 1,000,000 simulations. Click on the table and the image will open in a new browser tab full size and will be easier to read all the numbers.
My preliminary thoughts about these results
- Unlike last year when it was possible for the Nats to drop back to either the 11th or 12th pick, that can’t happen this year. Once the top 6 picks are selected, draft order is based on team’s record. Chicago had the worst record and since they can’t pick higher than 10th, there isn’t a team to knock them back to 11th.
- Likewise, the worst-case scenario for the eligible teams with the 4th worst records is all 6 top picks are awarded to teams with better records. If that happens in picks 7, 8, 9 go to the Rockies, Marlins and Angels – three teams with worse records than the Nationals. That happened just 50 times in the one million simulations.
- And, yes, that quirk negatively impacted the Nationals. Those same 50 simulations resulted in the Nats dropping to twelfth since the White Sox and Athletics had worse records than the Nationals. Those 50 simulations result in a probability of .005% which is rounded up to .01% in the table.
Will the baseball gods ever look kindly on the Nationals when it comes to the lottery? - The difference in the odds for the Angels versus the Nationals is striking. Their odds for the 1st, Top 2 or Top 3 picks are 18.1%, 35.5% and 52.1%, more than half-again higher than the Nationals at 10.2%, 21.1% and 33.1%. The Angels lost 8 more games than the Nationals. If you subscribe to the theory that Rizzo was tanking, the only conclusion is the team was bad at tanking. Alternatively (and this is my opinion), the Nationals were not tanking. They were/are rebuilding.
- Given that signing a player with a QO causes the loss of their 2nd or 3rd pick (for the second QO player signed) as well as draft and international dollars, does the slot for the Nationals pick impact willingness to sign a player with a QO? The loss of slot money might have an impact on overpaying in the early rounds for a prospect who has options.
