6 big questions for the 2026 MLB Draft: Will the White Sox take Roch Cholowsky at No. 1?

We are less than two months away from this year’s MLB Draft, slated to begin Saturday, July 11, as the first official event of All-Star week in Philadelphia. As the draft approaches, I’ll release my annual ranking of the top 50 prospects in the class. But before we start putting players in order, now’s a good time to review some themes looming over the players and teams involved in the weeks leading up to draft day.

High school seasons are winding down, and the college baseball postseason is just around the corner, with conference tournaments taking place around the country this week. Memorial Day brings the Division I selection show, which will reveal the 64 teams who will chase a chance to compete in the eight-team College World Series. Once the college season concludes, the draft combine will take place in June in Phoenix, offering the top amateur prospects one final opportunity to impress major-league teams with on-field workouts and interviews with clubs.

While a lot has already been learned about this year’s class, there’s plenty of time for more clarity to be gained. For now, here’s a look at six big questions surrounding the 2026 MLB Draft.

Will the Chicago White Sox select Roch Cholowsky with the No. 1 pick?

It’s unusual for a prospect to hold the top spot in the class for the entirety of a draft cycle, but UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky is making a serious run at that feat. Cholowsky was one of the top prospects in the 2023 high school class but decided to honor his commitment to the Bruins, and his arrival on campus ushered in an era of excellence for UCLA after a brief fallow period. A monster sophomore season last year vaulted him into a tier of his own atop the 2026 draft class, raising the stakes for whichever team won the draft lottery in December. That turned out to be Chicago, immediately sparking visions among the White Sox fan base of Cholowsky eventually joining their emergent young core.

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Amplifying Cholowsky’s star power is that he has headlined a loaded Bruins team that has been ranked No. 1 from the preseason until the precipice of the postseason, going a ridiculous 28-2 in Big Ten play and 48-6 overall in the regular season. There’s still work to be done for UCLA; the competition level will increase as the tournament progresses, and some evaluators think the Bruins could be upset along the way by a tough opponent from the SEC or ACC. But so far, Cholowsky and the Bruins have done their part to keep the star shortstop squarely on track to be this year’s top pick.

Yet Cholowsky to Chicago is not set in stone. While the Bruins’ star has delivered another terrific collegiate campaign, the top prospect from the high school ranks — Grady Emerson, a shortstop from Fort Worth Christian in Texas — has maintained his status as the clear best player among his prep peers for more than a year, and he could make Chicago think hard about choosing him over Cholowsky. It’s much more difficult for prep players to dominate the discourse compared to those starring on high-profile college teams, but many evaluators believe that Emerson is the best overall player in this class and that the White Sox should consider diverting from the expected outcome. Cholowsky appears to still have the edge for now, but how he performs against elite competition in the postseason could impact his grip on the top spot.

Who are the other best players in this draft class?

If Cholowsky goes first to Chicago, it’s widely expected that the Tampa Bay Rays would happily select Emerson with the second overall pick. But should the White Sox take Emerson, there’s buzz that the Rays could broaden their scope beyond Cholowsky. Tampa Bay has historically preferred to use its earliest picks on high school players, but there’s growing consensus that the next-best players in the class after Cholowsky and Emerson are both collegians: Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey and UC-Santa Barbara right-handed pitcher Jackson Flora.

Lightly recruited out of high school, Lackey’s stock has exploded during his three years with the Yellow Jackets, and he has a case as one of the better catching prospects in recent memory. The Twins should be thrilled if Lackey is available for them at pick No. 3. Flora is considered a tick below where his Gauchos teammate Tyler Bremner was a year ago, and it seems unlikely he’ll match Bremner’s No. 2 selection, but Flora won’t be on the board for long. A strong outing or two in the tournament could solidify his case to be the first pitcher selected in this year’s draft.

Beyond that quartet, it starts to get messy, but two high school hitters have played their way into likely top-10 selections: shortstop Jacob Lombard from Florida and outfielder Eric Booth Jr. from Mississippi. Lombard is the younger brother of Yankees top prospect George Lombard Jr. and offers exceptional athleticism at a premium position, though scouts are wary of his hit tool. Booth’s speed and left-handed power combo has captivated evaluators all spring, helping separate him atop a relatively thin second tier of prep bats.

On the college side, Lackey’s teammate Drew Burress offers an uncommon profile as an undersized, right-handed-hitting outfielder, but his three-year track record of mashing in the ACC is unimpeachable, and his makeup is considered elite, so he’s likely to find a home in the top half of the first round. Arkansas catcher Ryder Helfrick has also surged up boards this spring, thanks to his plus power and tremendous framing skills behind the dish. He’s a nice fallback for teams targeting catching in the first round who won’t pick early enough to land Lackey.

Which teams are must-watch in the NCAA Division I tournament?

Cholowsky is the main attraction, but he’s not the only reason the Bruins have been ranked No. 1 all season. There’s Roman Martin at third base, another high-end prep prospect who has raised his stock in college and could go in the second- or third-round range. He should get a chance to play shortstop in pro ball, even with Cholowsky handling that spot for the Bruins. At first base, Mulivai Levu offers one of the more advanced left-handed bats in the college class, showing real power with impressively low strikeout totals. Will Gasparino is a 6-foot-6 center fielder with big right-handed power; his 19 home runs are second on the team behind Cholowsky. Right-hander Logan Reddemann transferred from San Diego and has become a bona fide ace for the Bruins — he struck out 18 across eight innings against Rutgers last month — but hasn’t pitched since April 17 due to right arm fatigue, so his availability is worth monitoring, for both for the Bruins’ championship hopes and his draft stock.

Georgia Tech is also loaded with draft prospects, and its dominance en route to an ACC regular-season title suggests the Yellow Jackets might have an even stronger case than UCLA to be the last team standing in Omaha. Beyond Lackey and Burress, the middle-infield combo of shortstop Carson Kerce and second baseman Jarren Advincula have each played their way into early-round consideration. Kerce ranks second in Div. I with 28 doubles (a program record), while Advincula won the ACC batting title by a massive margin, hitting a ridiculous .477 in conference play. On the mound, right-hander Tate McKee is peaking at the right time, as he struck out a career-high 14 against Boston College last weekend, putting him on the radar as a possible third- or fourth-round selection.

If you like offense, Texas A&M has no shortage of standout bats who will hear their names called in the first couple of rounds, including second baseman Chris Hacopian (a possible top-10 pick), lefty-hitting center fielder Caden Sorrell and hulking, right-handed slugger Gavin Grahovac. If pitching is more of interest, Ole Miss has a slew of intriguing arms ranging from likely first-round picks (Cade Townsend) and sleepers starting to soar up draft boards (Taylor Rabe) to wily veterans (Hunter Elliott) and nasty relievers (Hudson Calhoun).

Which player demographic is strongest in this year’s draft?

The genre of prospect that stands out as particularly plentiful is this year’s supply of southpaws. It’s most notable on the high school side, where we entered the spring with a trio of prep arms — Gio Rojas from Florida, Carson Bolemon from South Carolina and Logan Schmidt from California — in the first-round mix. Since then, Rojas has held firm in that range, while Bolemon and Schmidt’s performance has been more lukewarm.

That group has been joined atop the prep class by a pair of lefties from northern locales: Sean Duncan, the top Canadian prospect in this year’s draft, and Brody Bumila, arguably the biggest high school riser in the spring, literally and figuratively. The 6-foot-9 Massachusetts native led his school’s basketball team to a state championship before taking the mound this spring and blowing away the competition with a fastball that has touched triple digits. While the four other top prep lefties are far more advanced than Bumila in terms of depth of arsenal and command, his rare size, athleticism and velocity make him one of the most intriguing names to monitor.

In the college ranks, the top of the Division I strikeout leaderboard is littered with draft-eligible left-handers. That includes Southern California’s Mason Edwards, who has enjoyed a smooth transition from the bullpen to the Trojans’ rotation, leaning heavily on his terrific secondaries (curveball, slider, changeup) from a funky, over-the-top delivery to rack up a whopping 154 strikeouts across 84 ⅓ innings, the most in Div. I by a wide margin. Arizona State’s Cole Carlon and Arkansas’ Hunter Dietz haven’t been quite as dominant statistically (though they have faced superior competition in the Big 12 and SEC), but they feature more velocity and, in turn, stellar fastball-slider combos, which could put them in play in Round 1.

Did any top prospects reclassify this year?

This is a trend we’ve seen in recent years, as high school players seek to take advantage of teams prioritizing age in the draft by reclassifying to be either more in line with their peers’ ages or especially young for their class. For example, Pirates phenom Konnor Griffin was initially slated to be one of the older players in the class of 2025, but he skipped 10th grade in order to graduate a year early, thus making him eligible for the draft when he was closer to 18 years old than 19. Last year, we saw Oklahoma high school shortstop Eli Willits reclassify, making him one of the youngest draft prospects ever. He didn’t turn 18 until the December after the draft, a key element of his excellent all-around profile that led to him being selected No. 1 by the Nationals.

This year’s prep class features four notable reclassifications, though not all of them have trended favorably this spring. The first to do so last summer were the aforementioned Schmidt and Rocco Maniscalco, a switch-hitting shortstop from Alabama. Over the winter, they were joined in the class of 2026 by Aiden McCarthy, a right-handed pitcher from Vermont, and Jared Grindlinger, an outfielder and left-handed pitcher from California whom scouts largely prefer as a hitter.

All four of these prospects will be 17 on draft day, with Grindlinger and Maniscalco especially young, as their 18th birthdays won’t arrive until next spring. Of this group, Grindlinger is the best bet to be selected in the first round, while the others have more questions to answer. Schmidt’s velocity has fluctuated this spring after he starred on the showcase circuit last summer. McCarthy is shorter than most prototypical top pitching prospects, but he has a lightning-quick arm and could benefit from the relative dearth of prep right-handers in the class ahead of him. Maniscalco is an advanced defender but has struggled offensively this spring; he could end up at Mississippi State.

What will the Braves and Giants do in the first round?

The perennially contending Braves have picked 20th or later in the past six drafts, but a rare down year in 2025 means Atlanta is near the top of the board at No. 9 this July. It’s the Braves’ earliest selection since they took Shea Langeliers ninth in 2019 (with a compensation pick for not signing eighth overall pick Carter Stewart in 2018), and it comes during a season in which Atlanta is back on track atop the NL East with one of baseball’s best records. That creates a rare chance for a contender to make a pick near the top of the draft.

Better yet, the ninth pick isn’t the only early selection at the Braves’ disposal, as Drake Baldwin being named NL Rookie of the Year last season earned Atlanta a Prospect Promotion Incentive pick — at No. 26 overall — and afforded the team another roughly $3.5 million of bonus pool to work with. All together, the Braves’ $15,870,800 bonus pool is the eighth-highest of any club.

That makes this draft a golden opportunity for Atlanta to add premium talent to a notably thin farm system, albeit one that has enjoyed some promising breakouts to start this season from the likes of 2025 first-round pick Tate Southisene, 20-year-old Dominican shortstop John Gil and 19-year-old Canadian outfielder Eric Hartman. Their steps forward have been especially encouraging considering how few position-player prospects the Braves appeared to have entering the year, and it’ll be interesting to see how Atlanta chooses to flex its sizable draft capital to further bolster its organizational depth.

Another club to watch with a large bonus pool is San Francisco. The Giants finished 81-81 last season but got lucky in the draft lottery and leapt up to land the No. 4 pick, their earliest selection since the second overall pick in 2018, used to take catcher Joey Bart. Earlier this month, the Giants made a surprising trade that sent catcher Patrick Bailey to the Guardians in exchange for pitching prospect Matt Wilkinson and Cleveland’s competitive-balance-round pick, the 29th overall selection. These two valuable picks contribute heavily to San Francisco having the fourth-largest bonus pool ($17,350,600) in 2026. How president of baseball operations Buster Posey tackles this draft will be fascinating to watch.