As the season comes to a close, White Sox fans are completely fed up, as this season did not go anywhere near as planned. After replacing Tony LaRussa with Pedro Grifol and adding some key free agents like Andrew Benintendi and Mike Clevinger, things seemed like they might be looking up for the Chicago White Sox. They were supposed to compete for the AL Central Title and finally win a playoff series. That is not how the season went at all and now the future is very uncertain. But, new GM Chris Getz and the new-look front office will have a good chance at a very early pick in their first draft.
With just a few games left in the season, the White Sox cannot lose more games than the Rockies, which will secure the White Sox spot as the fourth-worst team in the majors this year. The Cardinals, who are currently slotted in as the 5th worst team, have eight fewer losses, so they cannot lose more than the Sox. For the expectations this team had, this is about the worst-case scenario, but there can be something good to come out of it.
With the fourth worst record comes a 13.25% chance at the first pick. The three worst teams all share a 16.5% chance at the first pick, so the White Sox have a good chance to get the first pick but they will need a little bit of luck on their side. Perhaps they can channel their inner Blackhawks and get the first pick when they were not the clear favorite.
Last year, the Reds finished with the fourth-worst record and they ended up picking seventh. They got very unlucky in the lottery, so hopefully, history doesn’t repeat itself with the White Sox, as a top-five pick would be nice to add to the revamped farm system.
Pittsburgh, Washington, and Oakland all shared the 16.5% chance in the last lottery and Pittsburgh ended up getting the first pick. Like clockwork, Washington secured the second pick, but Oakland fell all the way down to the sixth pick. Detroit picked third and they had the 6th best odds, Texas moved up to fourth from the seventh-best odds slot, and the Twins moved up from 13 all the way up to the 5th pick.
The lottery was very crazy last year but let’s hope that the White Sox move up rather than fall back a significant number of slots, or all this losing was for nothing. The worst that the Sox can pick would be the 10th pick, but those odds are just slightly better than 0, so it’s likely the last pick they could get would be the 9th pick.
According to Tankathon, they’ll have a 13.2% chance at the 1st pick, 13.1% for 2nd, 12.9% for 3rd, 12.4% for 4th, and it slowly goes down to the 8th pick where they’ll have a 9% chance at that pick. So regardless, they should still get a nice pick, but top-4 would be very nice for the hopefully new-look White Sox.
It’s too early to look at who will be some of the top picks as they will have to play out their season first, but if the Sox play it right, they could get the next cornerstone of their franchise.
