Today's the day the White Sox were celebrating back in December at the Marriott Bonnet Creek Resort & Spa in Orlando, when they came away from the lottery with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 MLB draft.
The context in which they're making that selection is probably something they didn't envision, both because the White Sox are in first place instead of aiming to stave off a fourth consecutive 100-loss season, and because Roch Cholowsky isn't quite the unrivaled slam-dunk pick that he appeared to be before the season.
Nevertheless, Cholowsky still appears to be the leading favorite for the White Sox, although Mike Shirley continues to reference Grady Emerson and Vahn Lackey, even on sports radio this morning. That's what Josh is hearing ...
Latest MLB Draft Intel @soxmachine.com - It's sounding like Roch Cholowsky 1.1, but not 100% for sure yet. - Targeting prep players at picks 34 and 41 to take advantage of the largest bonus pool ever. Asking around, I hear these prospects attached to the White Sox:
— Josh Nelson (@josh.soxmachine.com) 2026-07-11T15:23:08.957Z
... and a majority of the final mock drafts agree with that:
- MLB.com: Roch Cholowsky (both Jim Callis and Jonathan Mayo)
- Baseball America: Roch Cholowsky
- ESPN: Roch Cholowsky
- Keith Law: Grady Emerson
- FanGraphs: Grady Emerson
Not all the mock drafts account for the White Sox acquiring the 34th-overall pick from the Pirates for Jacob Gonzalez in a Friday night deal that also included a lefty swap (Brandon Eisert for Jaden Woods), but the first two were able to correct course in time. Callis has Landon Thome going to Chicago, while Mayo has Archer Horn and BA picks Jack Slightom. Kiley McDaniel's mock draft had the Pirates making that choice, but his second-round pick remains relevant, which is the huge Wisconsin prep corner bat Dominic Santarelli.
Josh and I will be hosting a draft show on the Sox Machine YouTube channel at noon CT to cover the White Sox's pick, which figures to happen around 12:30. We have a hard out at 1, because that's when Josh jumps over to 670 The Score to discuss what the White Sox just did.
When we are you live, you can watch us here:
And until we're live, you can watch my predraft conversation with Keith Law, if you didn't get to it in the podcast form:
If this is your first year on Sox Machine, every day of the draft comes with an open thread (DraftChats) to follow along with the picks as they come off the board and discuss your thoughts and share your findings. Today's action will run through the first four rounds and is expected to run through 6:45 p.m. CT, with the Rounds 5-20 starting at 10:30 CT Sunday.
2026 MLB Draft Resources
- MLB.com draft tracker
- 2026 MLB draft bonus pools and slot values
- Baseball America Top 500 draft prospects
- MLB Pipeline Top 250
- ESPN Top 250
- Sox Machine Top 150
- Keith Law's Top 100
