Article: 2025 MLB Draft Lottery Preview: Boston Red Sox

[Jamie Cameron]

The 2025 MLB Draft Lottery is coming up on December 10. Let’s dig into how the lottery works, the new wrinkles for 2025, and the Red Sox' chances of moving up.

When Is the Lottery?
Tuesday, December 10 at 5:30 PM Eastern. The 2025 MLB Draft Lottery will be broadcast live on MLB Network and can be streamed live on MLB.com. 

What Is the Purpose of the Lottery?
Introduced as part of the 2022 CBA, ahead of the 2023 draft cycle, the first six picks of a given draft cycle are now determined by lottery to discourage tanking. 

Do Teams Actually Move Up?
Actually, yes. The Twins jumped from 13th to fifth in the inaugural draft lottery for the 2023 cycle, a move that allowed them to draft Walker Jenkins near the top of an exceptional class. In 2024, the Guardians jumped all the way to first overall, despite having just a 2% chance of doing so. Their jump allowed them to select Travis Bazzana at number one in addition to stocking up on tons of prep talent with their bloated bonus pool.

How Does It Work?
Any team that didn’t make the postseason is eligible for the lottery. Teams with better records have progressively lower chances at landing a high pick. The lottery is actually held in advance of the broadcast, which serves as a results show for a process completed by an independent auditor earlier the same day. The first six picks are awarded in order by a draw that spits out ping pong balls with a four-number combination that corresponds to a given team. The worse your 2024 record, the more number combinations you have in the draw. The next 12 picks are awarded based on the pre-lottery odds of each remaining team. For example, should the Rockies somehow go 0-for-6 in the ping pong ball draw, they would end up with the seventh pick because they started out with the highest. odds Finally, playoff teams have their order determined by their elimination from postseason play (not their regular season records). Picks awarded by the lottery are only adjusted for round one. The order for the rest of the rounds is in accordance with regular-season won-loss records.

What are the Wrinkles?
The largest is the fact that there are teams who can’t pick inside the top ten as they are ineligible. Any payor club (read; large market) is ineligible to receive a lottery pick in two consecutive draft cycles. As such, the Chicago White Sox will pick tenth in 2025, despite a 41-121 record. Additionally, revenue-receiving teams are ineligible to receive a lottery pick in three consecutive cycles. As such, the Oakland Athletics will pick eleventh in 2025.

The Mets, Yankees, and Dodgers will likely receive a 10-pick penalty for exceeding the luxury tax.

What Are the Red Sox' Chances of Moving Up?
I’m not going to lie to you, it’s extremely unlikely the Red Sox move up in the draft. The current odds of landing the top pick are listed below, and as you can see, the Red Sox currently find themselves in 10th position.

Rockies: 22.45% (.377)
Marlins: 22.45% (.383)
Angels: 17.96% (.389)
Nationals: 10.20% (.438)
Blue Jays: 7.48% (.457)
Pirates: 5.31% (.469)
Reds: 3.67% (.475)
Rangers: 2.45% (.481)
Giants: 1.90% (.494)
Rays: 1.50% (.494)
Red Sox: 1.22% (.500)
Twins: 1.09% (.506)
Cardinals: 0.82% (.512)
Cubs: 0.68% (.512)
Mariners: 0.53% (.525)
D-Backs: 0.27% (.549)
White Sox: Ineligible for Lottery Pick (.253)
Athletics: Ineligible for Lottery Pick (.426)

Moving up has an outsized impact for payor clubs. Teams like the Red Sox do not benefit from compensation picks in round A or B, which act as a cushion to buoy the financial flexibility of small market teams. This limits their reach in the draft in terms of both picks and bonus pool.

However the lottery shakes out, it’s worth paying attention to. At the very least, a team that moves from the middle of the first round to a lottery spot has a good chance to add a top-50 global prospect to their system. If the Red Sox move up, we’ll have all the details here at Talk Sox.

 

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