MLB held its third annual draft lottery Tuesday at baseball's winter meetings in Dallas, and the Washington Nationals landed the top pick in the 2025 draft despite having only the fourth-best odds to get the first overall selection at 10.2%.
It's still super early in the draft process, but let's jump into a quick five-pick mock draft to see how things could play out in July now that we know who will be making the first picks. All the members of last year's lottery night top-five mock landed in the top seven picks in July, so it's fair to think we have a reasonable idea how the top of the draft could play out.
At this time last year, the 2024 MLB draft crop looked to be a down class, but things improved greatly during the spring with a solid group of quality prospects landing in my top 100 list after signing. The 2025 crop looks a good bit weaker than the 2024 crop did at the same stage (my No. 1 prospect is comparable to a former teammate that went 12th overall in the 2024 draft), but it's smart to leave room for the 2025 spring to prove that this will also be at least an average draft class.
Here's my early prediction of the first five picks in the 2025 MLB draft, after consulting with industry sources before and after the lottery.