A's Land #4 Pick in MLB Draft Lottery
For the second year in a row, the Oakland A's have fallen in the Draft from where their record said they should be selecting thanks to the lottery system. After the 2022 season, the A's had the second-worst record in baseball and ended up with the sixth overall pick. On Tuesday, the A's landed the number four overall selection in the 2024 Draft after finishing with the worst record in baseball. This will be the first time that Oakland has a top-5 pick since they took Mark Mulder second overall in 1998.
As we talked about earlier this week, there are a number of players that will be available to the A's within the top five that will be intriguing picks, but no one single player really stood out. Oakland may have been leaning towards the fifth-ranked prospect Mike Sirota anyway, given that he plays the outfield and has a nice blend of tools. The top four prospects in the Draft consist of two first basemen and two second basemen.
It's also worth noting that with the A's landing a lottery pick for the second year in a row, they will be ineligible for a lottery pick next season and the highest they'd be able to pick would be tenth. Oakland doesn't figure to be a much improved team in 2024, and they will likely see themselves falling in the draft order due to the club receiving revenue sharing.
Yesterday David Forst talked about the team struggling to sign players to multi-year deals this off-season. If the A's end up finding a temporary home for the franchise while the proposed ballpark in Las Vegas is being built and that location isn't amenable to big-league talent, then the team is going to have a difficult time fielding a competitive product on the field when they are ready to move into their new home in Nevada.
If the A's can't rebuild through the Draft and they can't sign free agents, it's going to be pretty hard for them to hit the ground running if and when they land in Las Vegas, which could sink the entire relocation effort before it begins.