The 2026 MLB Draft class is shaping up as one of the strongest in recent memory. With the college baseball season now underway and high school showcases generating buzz, it is time to break down the top prospects through a purely analytical lens. What do the numbers tell us about this class? Where does the real value live? And which teams are best positioned to capitalize?
The Chicago White Sox won the draft lottery in December at the Winter Meetings, earning the first overall pick with a 27.73% probability. It is their first number-one selection since 1977 and only the third in franchise history. The Tampa Bay Rays hold the second pick. With a consensus top prospect sitting atop every big board, the White Sox have a clear decision to make, but the depth of this class creates fascinating possibilities throughout the first round.
Career line at UCLA: .333/.446/.618 with 31 HR and 31 2B across two seasons. Led all Division I players in WAR (6.49) as a sophomore.
Cholowsky is not just the best prospect in this class. He is being called one of the best draft prospects in several years. The numbers tell an obvious story: a .353/.480/.710 slash line with 23 home runs over 66 games as a sophomore earned him first-team All-American honors and College Player of the Year recognition from Baseball America. But the statistical profile goes deeper than the raw numbers suggest.
What makes Cholowsky special from an analytics standpoint is the rate profile. A 9.3% strikeout rate paired with a 13.9% walk rate gives him a 1.49 BB/K ratio, a number that screams elite plate discipline at any level. His .357 ISO puts him in the same isolated power tier as the best college sluggers in recent draft history, but he is doing it while making contact at an absurd rate. That combination, elite contact rate plus elite power, is the rarest profile in amateur baseball. At shortstop, it is almost nonexistent.
Through the first four games of the 2026 season, Cholowsky was slashing .438/.500/1.188 with three home runs, six of his seven hits going for extra bases. On February 20, he launched two more home runs in UCLA's 10-2 demolition of No. 7 TCU. The tools are backed by production, and the production is backed by process. That is the holy grail for draft evaluators.
Emerson leads the high school class and sits at number two on every major board. The 6-foot-2 lefty-hitting shortstop out of Texas checks every box scouts look for at the top of a draft: above-average tools across the board, the soft skills, the performance track record, and the age profile that teams prize. Being young for his class gives him a longer development runway and a higher theoretical ceiling.
From a projection standpoint, lefty-hitting shortstops with Emerson's blend of size, athleticism, and barrel control have historically been among the most valuable draft picks in baseball. The analytical models love his profile because he combines premium defensive positioning with offensive upside from the left side. Left-handed hitters who can stick at short are unicorns, and teams at the top of the draft are going to have a real debate about whether Emerson's projection rivals Cholowsky's production.
| Rank | Name | Pos | School | Key Traits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Justin Lebron | SS | Alabama | Power bat, SEC production |
| 4 | Jackson Flora | RHP | UC Santa Barbara | Triple-digit velo, elite slider |
| 5 | Drew Burress | CF | Georgia Tech | Speed-power combo, ACC star |
Justin Lebron at number three gives this class three of the top five prospects playing shortstop. That kind of up-the-middle talent concentration is unusual. The SEC production will provide a large sample against elite college pitching, which gives analytics models more confidence in his projections compared to high school prospects evaluated primarily off showcase events.
Jackson Flora at UC Santa Barbara represents the best arm in the class and the type of pitching profile that has historically outperformed draft slot. Last season, Flora posted a 3.60 ERA with an 86-to-17 strikeout-to-walk ratio across 75 innings, translating to a 10.32 K/9, a 2.04 BB/9, and a 1.00 WHIP. Those are not just good college numbers. A K/BB ratio of 5.06 ranked 32nd nationally, and the WHIP ranked 27th. He has already touched triple digits with his fastball this spring, averaging approximately 97 mph while regularly hitting 100-plus and holding velocity deep into outings. His devastating sweeper generated swings and misses a third of the time in 2025.
Flora opened the 2026 season on February 14 against No. 20 Southern Miss, throwing six shutout innings with five strikeouts and zero walks on three hits, handing the Golden Eagles their first opening-day loss since 2014. He followed that with five innings of one-run ball against Portland on February 20, striking out five. For 2026, Flora has added a changeup and curveball to his repertoire alongside the existing sweeper, addressing the third-pitch question that was the primary variable in his projection. If one of those offerings develops into an average or better pitch, the ceiling is a legitimate front-of-rotation arm.
Drew Burress rounds out the top five as the best center field prospect in the class. The Georgia Tech product brings the speed-power combination that analytics departments covet. Center fielders who can hit for power are premium assets in modern roster construction, and Burress's ACC production provides a strong statistical baseline for projection models.
Before projecting Cholowsky's career, it is worth understanding how unusual his draft position is. Since 2005, only one college shortstop has been taken in the top five picks: Dansby Swanson, who went first overall to Arizona out of Vanderbilt in 2015. Swanson has accumulated 28.4 career WAR through his age-31 season, including a pivotal role on the 2021 World Series champion Braves. Most top-five shortstops in that span have been prep players: Tim Beckham (2008, #1, career 3.9 WAR), Carlos Correa (2012, #1, 45.7 WAR), and Marcelo Mayer (2021, #4, still in the minors).
The scarcity of college shortstops at the top of the draft makes Cholowsky's profile even more striking. If the White Sox take him first overall, he would be only the second college shortstop to go number one since Bill Almon in 1974. The historical track record favors him: Swanson's 28.4 WAR from the last comparable selection represents a strong baseline, and Cholowsky's rate metrics in college are significantly better than Swanson's were at Vanderbilt.
At MLB Prediction, we weight college hitter projections heavily on plate discipline metrics because those skills translate most reliably from the NCAA to professional baseball. Cholowsky's 9.3% strikeout rate and 13.9% walk rate suggest a hitter whose approach will translate immediately. For context, a sub-10% K rate in Division I, where pitchers are throwing harder than ever, indicates advanced bat-to-ball ability that typically holds up in the minor leagues and beyond. His .357 ISO provides confidence that the power is not a product of aluminum bats alone.
Our models are less certain about prep shortstops like Emerson, where the projection relies more on tool grades and physical projection than proven statistical production. That does not mean Emerson cannot be the better player in the long run. It means the variance around his outcome is wider. For a White Sox franchise that needs impact talent as soon as possible, the lower variance option with an elite floor is the smarter pick from a pure modeling perspective.
Chicago holds the first pick for the first time since 1977, and the analytics strongly favor Cholowsky. College position players with his statistical profile, specifically the combination of a sub-10% K rate, elite ISO, and defensive value at shortstop, have historically carried the lowest bust rate of any draft archetype. The production is real. The tools are verified. The floor is high and the ceiling is higher.
Could the White Sox go in a different direction? Sure. Emerson and Lebron both have legitimate cases. But the data suggests that when you have a consensus number-one talent with both the tools and the production, you take him. College shortstops with .446 career on-base percentages and 30-plus home runs do not come around often. The last one to go first overall accumulated nearly 30 WAR and won a World Series. The model says take him. The scouts say take him. The White Sox should listen.
The 2026 draft class looks like one of the best in years, with no shortage of up-the-middle position players with real tools in both the prep and college demographics. The high school pitching crop is also bursting at the seams with talent and upside. College pitching could have three players go in the first 10 picks with Flora, Cameron Flukey, and Liam Peterson all projecting as early selections.
For teams picking in the middle and back of the first round, this depth is a gift. The talent pool is deep enough that teams selecting in the 15-to-25 range could still land legitimate impact prospects. Draft classes this loaded create value at every pick, and the analytical models suggest that the expected WAR output of this top-10 group is significantly above the historical average.
The college baseball season is just getting started, which means these rankings will evolve. Statistical samples will grow. New data will emerge. But the core of this class, Cholowsky at the top, followed by a deep group of elite position players and arm talent, looks as strong as any class we have seen in the last decade. The White Sox are in an enviable position. The question is not whether they will get a good player. The question is how good.