On Tuesday night during the MLB Winter Meetings, the league conducted a draft lottery for the first time ever. This is their new way of preventing tanking which is nice because the teams at the bottom all now have a chance to get the number one overall pick.
In a really unlucky year, the worst team in the league could be selecting as low as seventh so don't tank on purpose. The final non-lottery spots in the first round are just the reverse order of the standings like in previous years. Rounds 2-20 are also just the standings reversed.
The Chicago White Sox were unfortunately not a playoff team in 2022 which means that they were participants in this event. They had very small odds of winning one of the top six spots but you never know with stuff like this.
It is tough to know that they did not win a top-six spot and will be making the 15th overall pick in the 2023 Major League Baseball Draft. They are literally a .500 team drafting right in the middle. As the kids would say, this team is just "mid" at everything.
The Chicago White Sox will be making the 15th overall pick in 2023.
One problem is that the Minnesota Twins also had extremely low odds of winning a spot but they are coming away with one. They jumped all the way up into the 5th spot ahead of the Oakland A's who dropped all the way to 6th after being in a three-way tie for the best odds.
Ahead of the Twins are Texas Rangers, Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals, and Pittsburgh Pirates who won the first overall pick. The division rival Kansas City Royals dropped a few spots which is nice but the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins have top-five picks.
Honestly, after the way that 2022 has gone for the White Sox, none of this is at all surprising. We can hope for better luck all around in 2023 but it would be nice to see them make their own luck for once.
At some point, we will start seeing and readying about players that they might take with that pick but it is so hard to project that right now. There are going to be great players available but it is up to the scouts/front office to find them.