White Sox land the 5th overall pick in the MLB Draft Lottery

Chicago did about as well as expected in the draft lottery on Tuesday which is more than several teams can say.

Eric Cole

Sep 1, 2023; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago White Sox Vice President/General Manager Chris Getz / Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

While all of the rumors are swirling at the Winter Meetings (including a fair bit fo chatter involving the Chicago White Sox), one piece of important business that also had to be done was the MLB Draft Lottery which took place on Tuesday evening. The draft lottery was put in place during the most recent CBA negotiations in an attempt to prevent teams from tanking to gain better draft position. It hasn't really helped because most of the same teams that have been bad have remained bad, but it was a decent step in the right direction.

The lottery went off the rails pretty quickly as all three teams with the best odds to get the first overall pick (Oakland, Kansas City, and Rockies) ended up with slots outside the top two picks. The Reds, who had just a 0.9% chance at the top pick, ended up at #2 while the Guardians, with a slim 2% chance, ended up with the 1st overall pick in the 2024 draft.

As for the White Sox, they had the fourth best odds in the draft lottery and ended up with the 5th overall pick.

The top of the 2024 Draft

1. Guardians (first No. 1 pick in franchise history)
2. Reds
3. Rockies
4. Athletics
5. White Sox
6. Royals
7. Cardinals
8. Angels
9. Pirates
10. Nationals
11. Tigers
12. Red Sox
13. Giants
14. Cubs
15. Mariners
16. Marlins
17. Brewers
18. Rays
— Sam Dykstra (@SamDykstraMiLB) December 5, 2023

The White Sox land the 5th overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft

Given the odds going into the evening, Chicago only did slightly worse than expected and are still picking in the top 5 for the third time since 2018. The White Sox picked Nick Madrigal with the fourth overall pick back in 2018 and landed Andrew Vaughn third overall in the 2019 draft.

It was a pretty big night for the AL Central as a whole as the Guardians snuck in and grabbed the top draft pick against all odds and the Royals slid a bit, but will still pick in the top 6 picks. It is still way too early to tell if the 2024 draft class is particularly good or deep, but this is where all of the draft speculation starts so strap in and enjoy the ride.

More White Sox News from Southside Showdown

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.