ORLANDO — When 5 p.m. approached on Tuesday and Derek Falvey’s phone still hadn’t rung, the Twins’ president of baseball and business operations came to the natural conclusion: the team had not landed the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft.
“You’re waiting and you’re like, ‘It’s 5. They would have called by now. This isn’t great,’” Falvey said.
No, the luck of the ping pong balls was not on the Twins’ side on Tuesday afternoon — they had the second-highest odds of landing the first pick — but the team still walked away from the draft lottery with the No. 3 overall selection, a good result all things considered.
The draft lottery took place behind closed doors at the Winter Meetings in Orlando with the results announced in a televised show on MLB Network.
Reporters and executives, including assistant general manager Sean Johnson, who is in charge of amateur scouting, watched the reveal in a crowded ballroom. On stage, two-time Cy Young Award winner Johan Santana represented the Twins. Falvey and general manager Zoll were upstairs in a nearby hotel room, watching on television, waiting as team by team was revealed until finally a card with the Twins’ logo was turned over. The Chicago White Sox, who had the highest odds to win the lottery, landed the first overall pick and the Tampa Bay Rays jumped the Twins to end up at No. 2.
“I was going to live with four. I was going to be OK,” Falvey said. “(Zoll) was going to slam something at four and be OK with three and above, so I was like, ‘Alright, we’re on the same page.’”
At four, Zoll corrected, he would have disappointed. If they had fallen to fifth, he might’ve slammed something. The Twins could have finished anywhere from 1-8.
“Once we had an indication that it wasn’t going to be the top pick, I know Sean and the scouting group were really hopeful to be in the top three so to land that feels really good,” Zoll said.
The Twins had a 22.18 percent chance to land the first pick after their 92-loss season, though three teams actually finished with a worse record than them. Both the Colorado Rockies and Washington Nationals finished with worse records but were ineligible for a lottery pick as part of a measure to prevent tanking. The Rockies are a revenue payee and have picked in the lottery in each of the past two drafts while the Nationals are a revenue payor and they selected in the lottery last year.
Their ineligibility boosted the Twins’ lottery odds.
Though there’s still plenty of time before the draft, UCA shortstop Roch Cholowsky is the favorite to go first overall. Behind him, MLB.com ranks Grady Emerson and Justin Lebron as the second and third prospects respectively. Both are shortstops — Emerson at Fort Worth Christian School in Texas and Lebron at Alabama.
The No. 3 pick is the Twins’ highest draft pick since 2017 when they picked current third baseman Royce Lewis with the first overall selection.
“You hope you don’t fall too far. … There’s a good outcome,” Falvey said. “Ultimately to pick in the top three is a really exciting opportunity for the organization and I think we’re going to get someone there that we know our scouting group is going to like.”
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