This top Draft prospect ranks every fried chicken sandwich he eats -- and his own is No. 3

Jackson Flora has every reason to be confident. The UC Santa Barbara right-hander is all but a lock to be the first pitcher selected in this year's Draft.

But the thing he's most confident about doesn't have much to do with baseball.

"I know more about fried chicken sandwiches than any player here," Flora declared at last week's MLB Draft Combine at Chase Field.

It's not the kind of statement a person makes without being able to back it up, and Flora does seem to have the goods. The guy has never met a fried chicken sandwich he didn't carefully evaluate.

"I have a big list on my phone of every fried chicken sandwich I've ever had ranked in order, best to worst," he said.

MLB's No. 5 prospect in the 2026 Draft class, Flora posted a 1.06 ERA and a 0.85 WHIP over 16 starts for the Gauchos this spring, piling up 133 strikeouts while walking 32 over 102 innings. His fastball with arm-side ride regularly gets north of 100 mph, and he has two different sliders -- a harder one, and a softer, sweeper-ish one -- as well as a good changeup that's still improving.

Of course, he also slings a mean sando.

"I spent about a year perfecting my own fried chicken sandwich. I like to cook a lot, so I did some trial and error, figured it out. It's pretty good. It ranks, like, third on my list. There might be some bias, but, yeah, I'm an expert."

Third place is darned impressive for a homemade fried chicken sandwich on rankings that include every professionally crafted fried chicken sandwich Flora has ever had. So, who has the recipes for the two he just can't beat?

No. 1 is Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que, a chain with locations in California, Arizona and Nevada. And a place called Egg N Bird -- with locations in Plano, Texas and Cypress, Calif. -- claimed the No. 2 spot when Flora visited the latter establishment during a team trip to nearby Long Beach.

Even beyond fried chicken sandwiches, the 6-foot-5, 205-pound native of the Bay Area has developed a culinary aptitude. His journey as an amateur chef began at a stage of life when many people start resorting to just-add-water ramen packages or dining-hall waffles for most of their meals.

"When I moved to school ... I had a roommate who was really into cooking," Flora explained. "He kind of got me swooped into it. It's very rewarding when you cook yourself a good meal and you eat it, so I just kind of got more and more into it and started looking up stuff I could cook, and just fell in love with it."