2025 MLB Draft Lottery Preview: Minnesota Twins

When is the Lottery?
Tues., Dec. 10, at 5:30 PM ET. The 2025 MLB Draft Lottery will be broadcast live on MLB Network from the Winter Meetings, and can be streamed live on MLB.com.

What is the Purpose of the Lottery?
Introduced as part of the 2022 CBA ahead of the 2023 draft cycle, the first six picks of a given draft cycle are now determined by lottery to discourage tanking and give a passive reward to teams who made a valiant effort but missed the postseason. (We, of course, wouldn't know any of those.) 

Do Teams Actually Move Up?
Famously, yes. The Twins jumped from 13th to fifth in the inaugural draft lottery for the 2023 cycle, which allowed them to draft Walker Jenkins near the top of an exceptional class. In 2024, the Guardians jumped all the way to first overall, despite having just 2.0% odds of doing so. Their jump allowed them to select Travis Bazzana, in addition to stocking up on tons of prep talent with their bloated bonus pool.

How does it work?
Any team that didn’t make the postseason is eligible for the lottery, with odds decreasing for teams with superior win/loss records. The lottery is actually held before the broadcast, which serves as a results show for a process completed by an independent auditor earlier the same day. Picks 1-6 are awarded in that order by a draw that spits out ping-pong balls, with a four-number combination that corresponds to a given team. The worse your 2024 record, the more number combinations you have in the draw. Picks 7-18 are in accordance with pre-lottery odds for non-playoff teams. Finally, playoff teams' order are determined by their elimination from postseason play (not their regular season records). Picks awarded by the lottery are only adjusted for round one. The order for the rest of the rounds is in accordance with their regular season record.

What are the Wrinkles?
The largest is the fact that there are teams who can’t pick inside the top ten, as they are ineligible. Any payor club (read; large market) is ineligible to receive a lottery pick in two consecutive draft cycles. As such, the Chicago White Sox will pick 10th in 2025, despite a 41-121 record. Additionally, revenue sharing-receiving teams are ineligible to receive a lottery pick in three consecutive cycles. As such, the Oakland West Sacramento Athletics will pick 11th in 2025.

The Mets, Yankees, and Dodgers will likely receive a ten-pick penalty for being in the luxury tax, but since each made the playoffs, that won't affect the Twins.

What are the Twins' chances of Moving Up?
I’m not going to lie to you: it’s extremely unlikely. You can find teams' current odds of landing the top pick listed below:

• 22.45 -- Rockies (.377)
• 22.45 -- Marlins (.383)
• 17.96 -- Angels (.389)
• 10.20 -- Nationals (.438)
• 7.48 -- Blue Jays (.457)
• 5.31 -- Pirates (.469)
• 3.67 -- Reds (.475)
• 2.45 -- Rangers (.481)
• 1.90 -- Giants (.494)
• 1.50 -- Rays (.494)
• 1.22 -- Red Sox (.500)
• 1.09 -- Twins (.506)
• 0.82 -- Cardinals (.512)
• 0.68 -- Cubs (.512)
• 0.53 -- Mariners (.525)
• 0.27 -- D-backs (.549)
• 0.0 -- White Sox (.253 – ineligible for lottery pick)
• 0.0 -- A’s (.426 – ineligible for lottery pick)

Moving up has an outsized impact for payor clubs. Teams like the Cubs and Red Sox do not benefit from compensation picks in Competitive-Balance Rounds A or B, which act to bolster the farm systems of small-market teams. This limits their reach in the draft in terms of both picks and bonus pool.

However the lottery shakes out, it’s worth paying attention to. At the least, a team that moves from the middle of the first round to a lottery spot has a good chance to add a top-50 global prospect to their system. If the Twins move up, we’ll have all the details here at Twins Daily.

Check out our 2026 mock draft board, updated regularly, and with detailed player write-ups!