Nationals win draft lottery, will select No. 1 overall in 2025 MLB Draft
The Washington Nationals have won the 2025 MLB Draft Lottery, and will select No. 1 overall in the 2025 MLB Draft, as revealed on MLB Network Tuesday afternoon.
And how is this for serendipity: Matt Adams, a member of the 2019 Nats championship team, represented the team at the lottery reveal, by absolute happenstance: he is at the Winter Meetings networking, saw GM Mike Rizzo and went to say hi, and Rizzo asked him to be the rep.
“No doubt a good find in the lobby,” Rizzo joked on MLB Network shortly after the announcement. “He was a member of the ’19 World Champ team, and we’re glad he pulled the number.”
This will be the third time in franchise history the Nats will pick 1-1, following Stephen Strasburg in 2009 and Bryce Harper in 2010, and the third time in four years they have selected in the Top 5 (the last being Dylan Crews at No. 2 overall in 2023).
“Obviously skills and tools are important, but you have to delve deeper – there’s a lot of pressure at 1-1,” Rizzo said. “This is the fourth time I’ve had 1-1 in my career (also with Justin Upton when he was with Arizona in 2005), and you’re looking for character guys that can play the game and fit seamlessly into the organization culture-wise and development-wise. You’re going for the best, most impactful player you can find.”
The Nats had the fourth-best odds of winning the lottery with a 10.2 percent chance, and now will have the largest bonus pool overall of any team
“It’s about asset allocation and getting the best bang for your buck in each round, and there’s a lot of strategy that goes into it,” Rizzo said. “You’re doing things you have to, and we’ll figure out a strategy, but we’re in capable hands with our guys, so we feel good about where we’re at. You have to make sure you don’t get too focused on one player – with the draft pools being so large, you can really impact your draft throughout the entire thing.”
The Angels will pick second after having the third-best odds to get No. 1 at 18 percent and Seattle, who had a 0.5 percent chance at the top pick, was the biggest winner other than Washington, moving all the way up to third. Colorado and Miami both had a 22.5 percent chance of the pick, but the Rockies dropped to fifth and the Marlins seventh, the first pick allocated after the Top 6 are selected by the lottery.
The White Sox, who set an MLB record for losses last season, and Athletics were ineligible to win the lottery due to MLB Draft rules, and they will pick 10th and 11th, respectively, the highest slots they could attain.
