2025 MLB Draft Lottery Preview: Chicago Cubs

[Jamie Cameron]

The 2025 MLB Draft Lottery is coming up at next week's Winter Meetings, on Dec. 10. Let’s dig into how the lottery works, the wrinkles for 2025, and the Cubs' chances of moving up.

Image courtesy of © Kyle Schwab-Imagn Images

When is the Lottery?
Tues., Dec. 10 at 5:30 PM ET. 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 and create some chance of a reward for a team who fought valiantly but missed the playoffs in a given season. 

Do Teams Actually Move Up?
Famously, yes. The Twins jumped from an expected 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 2.0% odds of doing so. Their jump allowed them to select Travis Bazzana, 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, with odds decreasing for teams with superior win/loss records. 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. Picks 1-6 are awarded in that 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. Picks 7-18 are in accordance with pre-lottery odds for non-playoff teams. Finally, playoff teams' order are 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 their regular-season record.

What are the Wrinkles?
The largest is the fact that there are teams who can’t pick inside the top 10 next year, 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 10th in 2025, despite a 41-121 record. Additionally, revenue sharing-receiving teams are ineligible to receive a lottery pick in three consecutive cycles. As such, the Oakland West Sacramento Athletics will pick 11th in 2025.

The Mets, Yankees, and Dodgers will likely receive a 10-pick penalty, too, for being so deep into the luxury tax. Since all three made the postseason, though, none will have any impact on the outcome of the lottery.

What are the Cubs' chances of Moving Up?
I’m not going to lie to you: it’s extremely unlikely the Cubs move up in the draft order. You can find teams' current odds of landing the top pick listed below:

• 22.45 -- Rockies (.377)
• 22.45 -- Marlins (.383)
• 17.96 -- Angels (.389)
• 10.20 -- Nationals (.438)
• 7.48 -- Blue Jays (.457)
• 5.31 -- Pirates (.469)
• 3.67 -- Reds (.475)
• 2.45 -- Rangers (.481)
• 1.90 -- Giants (.494)
• 1.50 -- Rays (.494)
• 1.22 -- Red Sox (.500)
• 1.09 -- Twins (.506)
• 0.82 -- Cardinals (.512)
• 0.68 -- Cubs (.512)
• 0.53 -- Mariners (.525)
• 0.27 -- D-backs (.549)
• 0.0 -- White Sox (.253 – ineligible for lottery pick)
• 0.0 -- A’s (.426 – ineligible for lottery pick)

Moving up has an outsized impact for payor clubs. Teams like the Cubs do not benefit from compensation picks in Compeititve-Balance Rounds A or B, which act as a cushion to ensure the financial flexibility of small-market teams. This limits their reach in the draft in terms of both picks and bonus pool. While the Cubs have only vanishing chances of getting the top pick, though, the ineligibility of two teams does slightly boost their hopes of getting one of the top six selections, instead of the 16th.

However the lottery shakes out, it’s worth paying attention to. At the 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 Cubs move up, we’ll have all the details here at North Side Baseball.

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