NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In baseball terms, MLB’s new draft lottery format is 2-for-2 in upsetting the Oakland A’s.
Last winter, they drew the No. 6 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, despite having the league’s second-worst record at 60-102.
On Tuesday night, they drew the No. 4 overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft, despite posting a league-worst 50-112 record.
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“It kind of stinks,” A’s general manager David Forst said at the MLB Winter Meetings. “You don’t go into the season hoping to get the No. 1 pick out of it. But when you do have a year like we did, you hope the consolation is picking at the top of the draft. That’s not going to happen.”
Nobody’s claiming shenanigans, just two consecutive years of bad luck. For example, the Cleveland Guardians chased a playoff spot last season yet wound up with the No. 1 pick.
“I’m not a conspiracy guy,” Forst said. “I’m not going deeper into it.”
It also will be the A’s last year of draft lottery eligibility. The newest MLB collective bargaining agreement states that revenue-sharing recipients such as Oakland can’t be lottery-pick teams in three consecutive years.
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“I think the highest we can pick is 10 [in 2025], regardless of what our record is next year,” Forst said. “It makes it harder to do what we’re trying to do. Obviously a big part of rebuilding is rebuilding through the draft. A high pick, picking that player is flexibility with a larger pool size. We just have to adjust.”
As for what the A’s might seek in the 2024 MLB Draft?
“There are always good players out there,” Forst said. “It’s a college, position-player heavy draft — I think we all know Wake Forest has an outstanding draft class specifically. Outside of that, things will change over the course of this spring.”
Watch Brodie Brazil's full David Forst interview from the MLB Winter Meetings