The country’s top baseball league may adopt a lottery system for its annual rookie draft as early as next year, officials said Monday.

The Korea Baseball Organization is scheduled to hold its first board meeting of 2012 on Tuesday, and the key item on the agenda will be the change to the draft system.

Currently, the draft in the eight-team KBO takes place in a reverse-record order, like the NFL. That means the team with the worst record in the previous year automatically earns the first overall pick and the league champion picks eighth and last in the first round.

But the KBO teams’ general managers have proposed to owners that a lottery system should be put in place, at least for the first round of the draft.

In their proposal, the four non-playoff clubs from the previous season will enter a lottery for the right to the first overall selection. Aside from the lottery winner, the three remaining non-playoff teams will split second, third and fourth picks.

The other four teams that competed in the postseason will then draft in the reverse order of their record.

In North American sports, the NBA and NHL use lottery systems for their drafts. (Yonhap News)