Unlucky Oakland A’s miss out on top-3 selection

Things are so bad for the Oakland A’s these days that they can’t even get rewarded in the MLB Draft.

After finishing with the worst record in baseball last year (50-112), the A’s were one of three teams, along with the Kansas City Royals (56-106) and Colorado Rockies (59-103), that were given the best odds to earn the No. 1 overall pick in MLB’s draft lottery.

With an 18.3% chance to land the top pick, the A’s fell all the way to No. 4 overall when MLB announced the order on Tuesday afternoon.

A similar thing happened last year, when the A’s also had an 18.3% chance to land the top pick but fell all the way to No. 6 in the lottery. They selected college shortstop Jacob Wilson out of Grand Canyon University.

Wilson, who hit .333 with an .866 OPS over 26 games in his minor league debut this year, is now ranked as the No. 68 overall prospect in the game by Baseball America. All five players who were selected ahead of Wilson are currently in the top 20.

The A’s poor luck opened the door for some other teams to get lucky.

The Cleveland Guardians, who had the ninth-worst record and a 2% chance to land the top pick, won the lottery and will pick first next June. The Cincinnati Reds, who had a 0.9% chance, won the No. 2 pick, and the Rockies will pick at No. 3.

All three teams that had a shot at the top pick landed outside the top two, which proves that the lottery is accomplishing its goal of disincentivizing teams from tanking. Finishing with a terrible record doesn’t guarantee a top pick in the draft.

It also affects the teams’ ability to sign picks later in the draft. Each team is allocated a certain amount of pool money to use for its entire draft, with higher draft picks allowing for more total money.

Of note, former A’s star Dave Stewart was representing the club at the draft lottery event in Nashville.