What are the Nationals' chances of landing the top pick in the 2025 MLB Draft?

The dog days of summer are coming to an end and so is the 2024 MLB regular season, which means we will soon know each team's odds to land the first overall pick in the 2025 MLB Draft lottery. As it stands on September 10th, 2024, the Nationals, who have a record of 64-79, currently have the fourth-best odds to get the first pick in the lottery at 10.20%. But if you take a look at the standings, they have only the sixth-worst record in MLB. This is due to a rule added to the MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) prior to the 2022 season, a rule that has hurt the Nationals very much in the past, but might just help them in the future.

To end the MLB lockout prior to the 2022 season, the MLBPA and the owners had to come up with and sign a new CBA. In it were many changes, including expanded playoffs, a universal designated hitter, and having each team play the other 29 teams every season (began in 2023). But perhaps the most consequential change was the introduction of a draft lottery. However, unlike the lotteries in the NBA and NHL, there are limitations to how many years in a row a team can have a lottery selection. In the MLB, there is a revenue-sharing system into which each team pays 48% of their yearly revenue and the total of which is split evenly among all 30 teams (3.3% each). The teams that pay more than they receive are classified as big-market teams and the teams that receive more than they pay are classified as small-market teams. Under the new CBA, big-market teams are ineligible to receive lottery picks in consecutive years and small-market teams are ineligible to receive lottery picks in three consecutive years. Teams that are ineligible for a lottery pick cannot pick any higher than 10th overall in that year's draft.

In the first MLB Draft lottery, which was for the 2023 draft, the Nationals were tied for the best odds for the first overall pick along with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Oakland Athletics. The Nationals, who had the worst record in baseball in 2022 by a decent margin, received the second overall pick in the 2023 draft and subsequently selected OF Dylan Crews. Since the Nationals are a big-market team, this meant that by receiving a lottery pick in the 2023 draft, they would be ineligible to receive one in 2024 and that they could pick no higher than 10th overall. In a cruel twist of fate, the Nationals not only won the lottery for the first overall pick in the 2024 draft, but also the second overall pick. Instead, the Nationals received the tenth overall pick and inexplicably selected SS Seaver King.

Even though the Nationals have had abysmal luck when it comes to the lottery, they may end up getting a big break from the same rules that cost them last year. The historically awful Chicago White Sox and the Oakland Athletics are both ineligible for lottery picks this year after having lottery selections the previous two years. Both teams currently have worse records than the Nationals and in past years would have selected ahead of them, but due to the new CBA, they won't be able to pick higher than tenth (poor White Sox). As a result, the Nationals will have much better odds at landing the first overall pick in the 2025 draft, and hopefully luck will be on their side this time.