PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates have seven months until the 2026 MLB Draft, but learned some valuable information heading into it.
Draft Lottery and Chances at No. 1 Overall Pick
The MLB Draft Lottery takes place on Dec. 9 during the Winter Meetings and the Pirates have a good shot at the first overall pick.
Pittsburgh has the third best chance of landing the first overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft at 16.81%. Only the Chicago White Sox at 27.73% and the Minnesota Twins at 22.18% have a better shot than them.
The MLB Draft Lottery is set by the teams with the worst record, with the White Sox and Twins having worse records than the Pirates.
Two teams that should be ahead of the Pirates didn’t qualify, including the Colorado Rockies, who had the worst record at 43-119, and the Washington Nationals, who had the third worst record at 66-96.
Colorado received lottery picks in the 2024 and 2025 drafts and can’t get a lottery pick for a third consecutive season, since they are a large market team.
Washington and also the Los Angeles Angels, who had a better record than the Pirates are both “payor clubs”, which are ball clubs that pay into revenue sharing, rather than receive money from it, which makes them ineligble from a lottery pick in consecutive drafts.
The rest of the teams below the Pirates in the draft lottery include the Baltimore Orioles (9.24%), the Athletics (6.55%), the Atlanta Braves (4.54%), the Tampa Bay Rays (3.03%), the St. Louis Cardinals (2.35%), the Miami Marlins (1.85%), Arizona Diamondbacks (1.51%), Texas Rangers (1.31%), San Francisco Giants (1.01%), Kansas City Royals (0.84%), New York Mets (0.67%) and the Houston Astros (0.34%).
Pirates History in the Draft Lottery
The MLB Draft didn’t have a draft lottery until the 2023 MLB Draft, which saw the Pirates win the first ever inaugural draft lottery.
Pittsburgh used that pick and took right-handed pitcher Paul Skenes out of LSU, signing him to a record $9.2 million bonus. That pick worked out well, as Skenes won National League Rookie of the Year in 2024 and then the NL Cy Young Award in 2025.