Wednesday BP: Giants to pick 16th in 2023 MLB Draft

Dec 7, 2022 - 1:00 PM

Happy Wednesday San Francisco Giants fans. It sure as heck sounds like today will be the day that Aaron Judge chooses between the Giants and New York Yankees, after a false start on Tuesday that featured a major reporter breaking the news that “Arson Judge” was headed to the Giants, before correcting his typo, and eventually redacting the report.

Until then, enjoy your other new hometown right-handed hitting, dinger-mashing outfielder signing, Mitch Haniger. Welcome, Mitch!

But while Judge — and the other free agents who did and did not sign deals — stole the headlines on Tuesday, another important activity was getting underway: the first ever MLB Draft lottery. MLB is finally taking a page out of the NBA’s book, and adding a draft lottery in an attempt to dissuade tanking, even though it seems highly unlikely to do so, since getting the top pick isn’t exactly the only reason to tank. Still. Doesn’t hurt.

The lottery took place during the Winter Meetings on Tuesday, and it wasn’t much of an event for Giants fans, as the Giants had a roughly 1-in-200 chance of securing the top pick in the draft. Let’s hope their odds of landing Judge are higher.

Anyway, the Giants didn’t fare well in the lottery, and will pick 16th overall in the 2023 draft.

Some notable players taken No. 16 in recent memory: Corbin Carroll, Lucas Giolito, Jeremy Jeffress, and Nick Swisher.

The last time the Giants had the No. 16 picks was in 1995, when they selected Joe Fontenot, who never played for them and, as far as I can tell, is in no way related to Mike Fontenot, who did play for them, and who, like Joe Fontenot, was born in a small town in Louisiana.

The Pittsburgh Pirates landed the top pick in the draft, with the Washington Nationals, Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers, and Minnesota Twins rounding out the top five.