Theo Epstein thought the Cardinals didn’t really need to be in the competitive balance lottery.

“They do extremely well from a baseball standpoint and from a revenue standpoint,” the Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations said Wednesday. “It’s probably the last organization in baseball that needs that kind of annual gift that they receive.”

St. Louis is considered a small market. Having finished high in the standings last season, they also had a very low probability of getting one of the picks.

Someone once said something like, “Good teams get the lucky breaks.” I don’t think this is what they had in mind.