Royals deserve to finally have lottery luck for 2026 MLB Draft

The MLB Winter Meetings aren’t just team executives sitting in a room talking trades, right? Sure, a deal can get pushed over the finish line or the foundation laid for a new one when all 30 MLB teams descend upon Orlando, Florida, for this year’s Winter Meetings.

But there will still be business to attend to, and one such event is the draft lottery that will set the top of the 2026 MLB Draft. The Kansas City Royals are on the fringes of the lottery odds, but they’re due for some luck to finally go their way.

The lottery is still fairly new, determining the order for the first six picks since the 2023 MLB Draft. Only non-playoff teams are entered into the lottery for picks 1-6, but when Kansas City missed the playoffs in 2022 and 2023, they came up short in each drawing.

Will luck finally break the Royals way this week?

For the 2023 MLB Draft, Kansas City had the fifth-best odds of landing the first overall pick but dropped to eighth when the lottery was said and done. This happened because two teams ahead of them (the Athletics and Cincinnati Reds) weren’t selected in the lottery and fell to picks six and seven, respectively.

All three were pushed down after lower-ranked teams had the luck of the draw, such as the Minnesota Twins. The Twins entered that draft with just a 0.9% chance at the top pick, ranking 13th in the field, but their ball came out fifth and they ended up with that pick.

A similar situation unfolded the following year. Kansas City was tied with three other teams for the best odds of landing the top pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. But it was the Cleveland Guardians, who had only a 0.02% chance, who won the first pick.

Kansas City still landed a lottery pick at sixth overall, but they were also jumped by the Cincinnati Reds, who secured the second pick despite entering with the 13th-best odds.

So where does Kansas City sit today? They find themselves in a very similar position heading into this week’s lottery. The Royals have a minuscule 0.84% chance of having their logo drawn first, ranking 13th in the field.

Their divisional rivals, the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins, rank first and second, respectively, in the odds for the top pick. Royals fans shouldn’t bet on their team leapfrogging either in the final order for the first six picks, but baseball has shown that anything can happen in the draft lottery.

It remains to be seen how much the lottery impacts team operations and how aggressive clubs will be in trying to avoid the lottery altogether. Teams that pick in the lottery for two consecutive years become ineligible, which is why the Colorado Rockies, despite having by far the worst win-loss record in 2025, will not be a factor this time. Thankfully, Kansas City has not faced that situation, though it wasn’t for lack of trying in 2022 and 2023.

There’s no way for fans to reach into the bingo ball roller and pluck their team’s logo from the field. All Kansas City supporters can do is hope the roll falls their way this week and gives the Royals the same luck their peers have enjoyed in recent years.