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Chicago won Tuesday’s MLB draft lottery after a 2025 campaign effort in which it went 60-102. The White Sox had a 27.72 percent chance of winning.
Introduced before the 2023 season, the draft lottery determines the top six picks among the 18 clubs that do not make the playoffs. The remaining picks from these teams are ranked by winning percentage.
Along with the White Sox, the Minnesota Twins (22.18 percent), Pittsburgh Pirates (16.81 percent), Baltimore Orioles (9.24 percent) and Athletics (6.55 percent) round out the five teams with the best odds.
The Orioles and A’s both dropped out of the top six after the results.
The Tampa Bay Rays jumped from seventh to second-overall pick in a slump.
Three teams were ineligible to participate in this year’s lottery.
Despite winning just 43 games, the Colorado Rockies received lottery picks in both the 2024 and ’25 drafts, and therefore were not eligible to win the top picks. The Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Angels were also ineligible to participate because they are “paying” teams—they give rather than receive revenue sharing money—and cannot receive lottery picks in back-to-back years.
This means the Rockies, Nationals and Angels are locked in at the 10th, 11th and 12th picks in the 2026 draft.
The Nationals won the lottery last year, compared to only 10.2 percent of winning the top pick. They eventually selected high school shortstop Eli Wilts No. 1.
UCLA shortstop Roach Cholowski is considered the favorite to be the first off the board next July. As a sophomore in 2025, Cholowski was named the Big Ten Player of the Year and the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year as UCLA advanced to the College World Series. He hit .353/.480/.710 with 23 home runs and 74 RBI in 66 games.
The New York Mets, the second-biggest spender this year behind the Los Angeles Dodgers, had a 0.67% chance and would finish 27th in the draft after missing the playoffs.
– With files from The Associated Press
