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The 2024 draft lottery primer: Looking at how the Blue Jays got into the position they’re in
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Photo credit: © Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
Ryley Delaney
Dec 10, 2024, 12:30 ESTUpdated: Dec 10, 2024, 12:08 EST
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The 2024 Major League Baseball draft lottery is today.
While the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association have had the draft lottery for ages, it’s a new phenomenon for MLB as it was introduced in the 2022-23 off-season. The 2022 season saw the Washington Nationals finish with the worst record in the league and had a 16.5% chance of winning the lottery for the 2023 draft, but ended up picking second.
Thanks to the Athletics dropping to the sixth spot, a 9.7% chance of doing so, the Pittsburgh Pirates picked first overall, as the three worst teams had a 16.5% chance of landing the first overall pick.
The 2024 draft lottery saw the Cleveland Guardians move to the first overall pick with only 2% odds. Moreover, the Cincinnati Reds finished with the 13th-worst record and had a 1% chance to move up to the second overall pick, but managed to do so.
While the Toronto Blue Jays finished with the seventh-worst record in 2024, the Athletics and Chicago White Sox are ineligible to pick in the top 10 this season, giving the Blue 7.48% odds to move to the first overall pick.
But that begs the question, how did they end up in this situation?

What went wrong in the 2024 season

In reality, you can look at the butterfly effect as to why the Jays performed so poorly in 2024, such as trading Teoscar Hernández after the 2022 season and allowing Marcus Semien to walk after the 2021 season.
A more direct answer though, is that their 2023-24 off-season was terrible. The Blue Jays were all in on Shohei Ohtani, offering a similar contract to the one the Los Angeles Dodgers offered, but the two-way superstar took his talents to Chavez Ravine. That was fine, but the Blue Jays failed to pivot and ended up signing Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Justin Turner, Yariel Rodríguez, and Kevin Kiermaier. None of those players except for Kiermaier performed poorly, but it wasn’t what the Blue Jays needed. Hopefully, the Jays have learned from their mistake after missing out on Juan Soto.
The Blue Jays lacked pop in 2023 after trading Hernández, and while their options weren’t great last off-season, Hernández was one of quite a few bats who’d bring pop. Instead, the Blue Jays finished the 2024 season with 156 home runs, the fifth-fewest in the league. It’s a sad decline over the years, as they finished first in that category in 2021, seventh in 2022, 16th in 2023, and to the bottom of the barrel last season.
However, the biggest reason for the team’s regression is the bullpen. In 2023, Erik Swanson, Jordan Romano, and Tim Mayza formed a very good high-leverage group. Overall, the 2023 relief group had the eighth-best ERA (3.68), sixth-best FIP (3.91), third-highest K% (26%) and fourth-best BB% (8.4%).
It was the complete opposite in 2024. The Blue Jays finished with the second-worst ERA (4.82), the worst FIP (4.84), the second-lowest strikeout rate (20.7%), and the ninth-worst BB% (9.4%). While there were certainly other issues plaguing the Jays, the bullpen continuously blowing games was far too much to overcome.
Lastly, their stars, more specifically Bo Bichette, didn’t live up to expectations. The shortstop slashed .225/.277/.322 with four home runs in 336 plate appearances for a 71 wRC+ and a 0.3 fWAR, by far the worst of his career. In 2021, he had a 4.9 fWAR, a 4.8 fWAR in 2022, and a 3.9 fWAR in 2023 for context.
Moreover, George Springer’s decline continued, while Alejandro Kirk hasn’t had a season like his 2022 season with the bat, although his season turned around after Danny Jansen was traded.
All of that combined got us to where we are now, with the Blue Jays having a 7.48% chance of picking first overall. Landing the first overall pick, or even a top five pick, will help improve the farm system drastically. Hopefully, it goes their way at 5:30 PM ET on Tuesday.
As always, you can follow me on Bluesky @ryleydelaney.bsky.social.

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