The Lottery Finally Giveth
The Royals finally scratched off a winner in the draft lottery.
One of the big issues in the last labor agreement was based on tanking. Teams were purposely gutting their team to keep their salaries down for a few years and get high picks for a few years. The Astros did it with great success. Other teams didn’t have quite the success that they did, but we’ve seen the Cubs and Orioles do it and get something out of it. I don’t think the Royals ever tanked. They were just naturally bad, but they did get a short run with some high picks from their, ahem, struggles. And the solution was a draft lottery, which I will say is not a bad part of a solution.
All 18 non-playoff teams are eligible. Teams can pick in the lottery (top six) up to two years in a row if they receive revenue sharing and can’t pick in the lottery in consecutive years if they do. If you’re ineligible for the lottery, the highest you can pick is 10th. As someone who follows and writes about (and roots for) a team that seemed likely to be in the mix for a number one overall pick, I have to admit that I was a little bummed that they made it harder to pick at the top.
In the first year of the lottery, the Royals had the fifth-worst record in baseball, so they had the fifth-best odds to pick first overall. They got the eighth pick, so they weren’t even in the lottery. In some ways, it’s not the worst thing to still get a top-10 pick and not be in the lottery. I was prepared for the Royals to get three straight top-10 picks. In the second draft lottery, they were tied for the best odds to get the top overall pick. They got the sixth pick. As the team with top overall odds and a rough future outlook, I kind of hated the sixth pick more than even missing. They seemed primed to be part of the lottery conversation for a long time after 106 losses and picking sixth started that “lottery clock.” If they had just picked one spot lower, they’d only be one spot lower and would have potential for the next two years.