DALLAS — The Washington Nationals will have the No. 1 pick in the amateur draft next summer after winning the lottery in a drawing of ping-pong balls at the MLB winter meetings Tuesday.
The Chicago White Sox will have the No. 10 draft pick, and the Cubs will pick at No. 17.
The White Sox have twice had pick No. 10, selecting Robin Ventura in 1988 and Zack Collins in 2016. It will be the club’s 22nd top-10 draft pick.
Unlike last year, when the Nationals were ineligible after initially coming out with the top spot, they will get to make the first pick in July in Atlanta, the site of the All-Star Game.
Washington was ineligible for a top-six pick last year because the collective bargaining agreement states a team that pays into the revenue-sharing plan cannot have a lottery selection in back-to-back years. The Nationals chose outfielder Dylan Crews with the No. 2 pick in 2023.
The Los Angeles Angels have the second pick for the 2025 draft. The Seattle Mariners, Colorado Rockies, St. Louis Cardinals and Pittsburgh Pirates round out the top six.
A weighted lottery among the 18 teams that failed to make the playoffs this season determined the order of picks for the third year in a row.
The Nationals went in with a 10.2% chance, the fourth-best odds, for getting the No. 1 pick. The Rockies and Miami Marlins, both 100-loss teams, had the best odds at 22.45%, ahead of the Angels at 17.96%.
The Marlins instead ended up with the seventh pick.
The Mariners got the No. 3 overall pick after having a 0.53% chance to get the No. 1 pick, the second-worst odds among 16 eligible teams.
The 121-loss White Sox, who had the most losses of any major league club since 1900, were not eligible for the draft lottery since they had one of the top six picks last year (No. 5) and is a team that pays into the revenue-sharing plan.
The CBA also doesn’t allow teams that receive money in revenue sharing to have lottery picks three years in a row. That made the Athletics (69-93) ineligible for the lottery — they picked fourth last year after having the No. 6 selection in 2023.
The White Sox instead got the 10th pick, one spot ahead of the Athletics — the highest possible positions for those two teams because of their recent lottery picks.
The Cubs have had pick No. 17 twice, selecting Tony Woods in 1982 and Todd Noel in 1996. Neither player reached the major leagues.
The first round of the 2025 Draft will unfold as follows, per MLB.com, with numbers in parentheses denoting where the teams ranked in the lottery odds and their odds of winning the top overall pick:
1. Nationals (4, 10.20%)
2. Angels (3, 17.96%)
3. Mariners (15, 0.53%)
4. Rockies (T-1, 22.45%)
5. Cardinals (13, 0.82%)
6. Pirates (6, 5.31%)
7. Marlins (T-1, 22.45%)
8. Toronto Blue Jays (5, 7.48%)
9. Cincinnati Reds (7, 3.67%)
10. White Sox (ineligible for top pick)
11. Athletics (ineligible for top pick)
12. Texas Rangers (8, 2.45%)
13. San Francisco Giants (9, 1.90%)
14. Tampa Bay Rays (10, 1.50%)
15. Boston Red Sox (11, 1.22%)
16. Minnesota Twins (12, 1.09%)
17. Cubs (14, 0.68%)
18. Arizona Diamondbacks (16, 0.27%)
Not eligible for the draft lottery due to making the playoffs:
19. Baltimore Orioles
20. Milwaukee Brewers
21. Houston Astros
22. Atlanta Braves
23. Kansas City Royals
24. Detroit Tigers
25. San Diego Padres
26. Philadelphia Phillies
27. Cleveland Guardians
Not eligible for a first-round pick due to exceeding the luxury tax:
38. New York Mets
39. New York Yankees
40. Los Angeles Dodgers