Another year, another look at the MLB draft lottery math - and this one comes with a fresh batch of one million simulations.
The setup here is straightforward enough: the simulations were run for every draft year since 2023, with one exception for the year when the Washington Nationals were slotted at 10 and couldn’t move up or down. For this round, the probabilities were built from the original CBA odds, then adjusted by setting the two ineligible teams to zero and redistributing the rest by dividing the remaining odds by the total. The result is a table showing both the adjusted and unadjusted probabilities.
That adjustment matters because the lottery is being treated like a ping pong ball draw, and the logic here is that integer arithmetic makes more sense than decimals. In practical terms, the simulation gave 1,650 ping pong balls to the Rockies, Angels and Athletics, while the Nationals got 1,800. The Giants and Blue Jays, meanwhile, got none.
The one million-simulation mark wasn’t chosen at random. The numbers were checked in chunks, usually 25,000 or 50,000 at a time, and once the results started settling down - especially after about 900,000 runs - there wasn’t much reason to keep pushing further. So one million it was.
The standings were handled in reverse order, so the teams with fewer wins generally carried better odds, with the Giants and Blue Jays as the exceptions. The draft lottery results were spread across the columns, and the 19+ category exists because the Mets and Giants can each fall 10 slots if they don’t land a top-six pick. That loophole, as noted here, is one the new CBA should probably eliminate.
For Washington, the most likely landing spot is 9th. The Nationals have a 41.5% chance of ending up there, which fits the structure of the board since there are eight teams that would ordinarily pick ahead of them, with the Giants not eligible.
Their chances at the very top are much slimmer, though not impossible. The cumulative results show the Nationals have nearly a 20% shot at a top-6 pick.
The Mets matter a lot in this picture, too. For the few Nationals fans hoping New York wouldn’t finish last - and they did - the Mets still carry a slightly less than 63% chance of getting a top-6 pick.
Washington’s absolute worst case, drafting 15th, never showed up in the million simulations. The closest call was 14th, which happened 29 times, or .0029%, which rounds to 0.00%.
In that scenario, only the Rockies and Mets landed top-6 picks, and that was enough to push the Nationals back to 14. If the Rockies had also missed the top 6, Washington would have slipped all the way to 15th.
There’s another wrinkle if the Mets also miss the top 6. If they land, say, 7th, they fall to 17th and everybody else with a better record than the Nationals moves up one spot.
On the other hand, if all the teams with better records than Washington do get top-6 picks, the Nationals still wind up at 15th because the Mets dropping back 10 slots offsets the movement. The example order given is: 11, 12, 13, 14 ,15, 16, 1 ,2, 3, 4 (10th), 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 (15th), 6, 17, 18.
The 2027 MLB Draft Lottery is scheduled for the Winter Meetings in December, though that could change because this is the first time the lottery has existed with a possible or likely CBA lockout hanging over it.
Once the lottery is finally set, the conversation will turn to what Washington should value most - and where the Nationals should focus their attention.
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Instead of handing out expensive bullpen deals, Washington is more likely to lean on waiver claims, short-term veteran signings and maybe a trade or two to patch the group together. The encouraging part is that several young arms flashed late in 2026, giving the front office some internal options, but the bigger question is whether that mix will be enough to satisfy a fan base that has already seen plenty of stopgap pitching plans. [Read more 🡒]