White Sox Select Roch Cholowsky With No. 1 Pick in 2026 MLB Draft
The Chicago White Sox selected UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky with the first overall pick in the 2026 MLB Draft, adding a potential franchise cornerstone to their young core.
Video Transcript
Sam Phelan here with the White Sox Round Table.
The pick is in, the wait is over.
Rok Cholowski is a member of the Chicago White Sox organization, selected with the number one overall pick in the twenty twenty-six MLB draft.
Cholowski, the longtime favorite to be the first player off the board, finally does go to the White Sox after two amazing seasons at UCLA.
As a sophomore at UCLA, Cholowski, twenty-three home runs, eleven ninety OPS.
He then followed it up with a ten eighty-eight OPS and twenty-one home runs as a junior.
Prior to that junior season, Cholowski was viewed to be a runaway top draft choice, the most clear-cut number one since Adley Rutschman, the best college shortstop we've seen in the draft in over twenty years.
But of course, as the draft got closer, a bit of debate started happening.
Would it be Cholowski or would it be high school shortstop, Grady Emerson?
At the end of the day, Chicago sticks to its guns, makes Cholowski the first name read by Rob Manfred during the draft in Philadelphia.
This is a player with plus tools, both offensively and defensively.
He is an advanced pure hitter with zero questions about his defensive ability or whether he can stick at shortstop long term.
He finds barrels, doesn't swing and miss, doesn't chase, can drive the ball to all fields.
And while there is this perception of Rok Cholowski being the safer pick by the White Sox, because he is, this is a college product, this is multiple years of production against good competition.
The ceiling is also immense with Cholowski.
This is, you know, a clear future big league shortstop, plus glove, plus power, more walks than strikeouts in his college career.
The ability to drive the ball to all fields.
He comes with an extensive track record, a good background as the son of a scout, and just the makeup and leadership details that the White Sox fell in love with in the pre-draft process, which now makes him their pick.
I think Cholowski also fits in really well with this White Sox core as a right-handed hitter.
That should blend well given the current construction of the lineup and the offensive core.
And while he's not a gifted runner, there's enough natural athletic ability in Cholowski so that positional versatility can be on the table if need be in the future.
I think the White Sox got it right.
This is a really good player, a really good pick.
One of the top shortstops and prospects in baseball, period, right now, even though he hasn't played a professional game yet.
And now, Chicago looks to add even more talent in their twenty twenty-six draft class and get creative with their bonus pool money.
