Worst-in-majors A’s fall to 4th in lottery
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — After losing a franchise-record 112 games last season, the Oakland Athletics don’t even get the first pick in June’s major-league draft. Or the second. Or the third.
Baseball’s worst team by far will pick fourth after country music star Brad Paisley drew that number in the second annual draft lottery. The A’s have not prospered either year: in the inaugural lottery, they got the sixth pick, despite finishing with MLB’s second-worst record.
To add to the kick in the stomach of getting a worse draft pick, the anti-tanking rule implemented in the CBA will prohibit Oakland from picking earlier than 10th next year, no matter the team’s record.
Also painful? Two playoff teams, the Marlins and Brewers, participated in the lottery because three teams with worse records had exceeded the luxury tax and Washington was ineligible because of its large-market status and gaining a lottery pick in 2023.
The team that will pick first next year, Cleveland, lost 26 games fewer than did the A’s. Oakland had the same odds to win the top pick, 18.3%, as the Royals and Rockies, another anti-taking measure.
“Yeah, the old system was better,” said A’s president of baseball operations David Forst.
Some years, picking fourth isn’t hugely different from picking in the top three. Some years, the first pick or two can be clear-cut choices. On Tuesday, MLB ranked the current top five potential June picks, in order, as West Virginia infielder JJ Wetherholt, Wake Forest first baseman Nick Kurtz, Oregon State second baseman Travis Bazzana, Wake Forest right-hander Chase Burns and Florida two-way player Jac Caglianone.
The San Francisco Giants will pick where they would have in the old by-the-standings system: 13th.
“This is the program they set up in the last CBA, so this is what happens,” Forst said, adding that there were 20 people waiting in the A’s executive suite Tuesday “who weren’t trying to lose last year and probably deserved a higher pick than we got. That’s kind of where my thoughts are right now.”
The fourth overall pick will be Oakland’s highest since selecting starter Mark Mulder with the second pick in the 1998 draft. In June, the A’s took shortstop Jacob Wilson with the sixth pick.
The last time the Giants picked 13th was in 2020, when they drafted catcher Patrick Bailey. Each of the past two San Francisco firstrounders was a two-way player: Bryce Eldridge in June and Reggie Crawford in 2022.