MLB Announces Plans For First Draft Lottery; Where Red Sox’s Odds Stand

For years the NBA and NHL have decided who gets the No. 1 overall pick in the draft through a lottery, and Major League Baseball will do the same in 2023.

The change in the draft system was instituted in the 2022 collective-bargaining agreement. It was made to discourage clubs from tanking. In previous years, the Nationals would have been guaranteed the No. 1 pick due to having the worst record in the 2022 regular season, but that will no longer be the case.

Instead, Washington is tied with the Oakland Athletics and the Pittsburgh Pirates to obtain the top overall selection at 16.5%, per MLB press release. The league announced the draft lottery will commence on Tuesday, Dec. 6 from the Winter Meetings in San Diego. Clubs who did not make the playoffs will have their draft pick chosen via lottery.

Unfortunately for the Red Sox, they did not make the postseason, but Boston competed for an American League Wild Card spot. This means it has 0.8% odds of obtaining the No. 1 pick.

Those odds are 12th-best, but the NBA has shown teams with lesser odds can still win the No. 1 pick. The most recent case was in 2014 when the Cleveland Cavaliers won the draft lottery after only having a 1.7% chance of winning the top selection.

Here are the full odds for the 2023 MLB Draft lottery:

The draft will be important for the Red Sox to build up their developmental system, but the more pressing matter will be free agency and how Boston will retool its roster to compete for a World Series in 2023.

The Red Sox certainly have many options at their disposal as the market will feature a number of big names.