Stephen Strasburg won it. So did Kris Bryant and Adley Rutschman. More recently, guys like Dylan Crews and Charlie Condon took home the Golden Spikes Award before becoming top-of-the-first-round Draft picks. Last year’s winner, Wehiwa Aloy, went No. 31 overall in the Draft to the Orioles and is now a top 10 prospect in that system.
On Friday, the amateur baseball world took the first step toward finding the 2026 Golden Spikes Award winner as USA Baseball announced the award’s Preseason Watch List. It includes 55 players from across high school and college, with the GSA Advisory Board picking players based on their work in 2025. It’s a dynamic list that will change often based on this year’s performances, with players having opportunities to produce their way into consideration.
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The Golden Spikes Award winner will be announced on June 29 during a presentation on MLB Network.
Not a list only of Draft prospects, the Venn diagram of the watch list and MLB Pipeline's Draft Top 100 list that came out in December is very well populated. A total of 40 players on the latter rankings are on the preseason watch list, starting with No. 1 prospect Roch Cholowsky from UCLA, who is one of seven players who were GSA semifinalists last year to be on this year’s watch list. Four of the other six other semifinalists -- Drew Burress (Georgia Tech), Daniel Cuvet (Miami), Justin Lebron (Alabama) and Kade Lewis (Wake Forest) -- are also on the Top 100. Jack Ohman (Yale), and Dylan Volantis (Texas) are the two semifinalists who did not make the Draft rankings.
Still, you can catch Ohman and his Yale squad live as they open their season in the Andre Dawson Classic. All games from the tournament will be streamed for free on MLB.com, MLB.tv and the MLB app. You can also tune into Yale's game against Jackson State on Feb. 21 on MLB Network.
For Burress, this is the sixth straight list he has appeared on, dating back to the 2024 Midseason Watch List. He, Cuvet, Lebron, Jason DeCaro (North Carolina), Henry Ford (Tennessee), Gabe Gaeckle (Arkansas), A.J. Gracia (Virginia) and Zion Rose (Louisville) have hit the preseason list for the second year in a row. Trey Beard (Florida State), Aidan Knaak (Clemson) and Liam Peterson (Florida) are back on a list after making the 2025 midseason version.
Every player on the top 10 of the Draft rankings has been named to the watch list. That includes high school shortstops Grady Emerson and Jacob Lombard, as well as prep lefties Carson Bolemon and Gio Rojas. They are four of the six players on the list hoping to join Alex Fernandez and Bryce Harper, both from the junior college ranks, as the only players from a non-Division I school to win the coveted award. All five played on USA Baseball’s 2025 18U National Team that won a gold medal at the World Baseball Softball Confederation U-18 Baseball World Cup in Japan last September. They’re joined by fellow prepster Coleman Borthwick and Mackenzie Wainwright from Division II Lenoir-Rhyne.
Another name to keep an eye out for is Harrison Feinberg. The outfielder opens his season with Northeastern in the MLB Desert Invitational. All games from the tournament will be streamed for free on MLB.com, MLB.tv and the MLB app.
“We could not be more excited to kick off the amateur baseball season with the announcement of the Golden Spikes Award Preseason Watch List,” said Paul Seiler, Executive Director/CEO of USA Baseball. “The athletes on this year’s initial watch list represent a tremendous amount of talent and character. We are looking forward to watching their journeys unfold during what is sure to be a thrilling and competitive season of amateur baseball.”
If players on a watch list are a guarantee of success for a school, then Georgia Tech should be watched closely. The Yellow Jackets are the only program with three players to make it (Burress, Jarren Advincula and Vahn Lackey), while a dozen other schools have a pair of representatives.
The rollout of future Golden Spikes Award lists is as follows:
- Midseason Watch List -- April 2
- Semifinalists -- May 14
- Finalists -- June 10
- Winner -- June 29
Fans can once again help determine who wins the award this year. After the semifinalists are named in May, they’ll be able to vote for their favorite players on GoldenSpikesAward.com to help determine the finalists and winner.
Here is the complete list of all 55 players on the 2026 USA Baseball Golden Spikes Award preseason watch list and where they fall on MLB Pipeline's Draft prospect rankings:
Jarren Advincula, INF, Georgia Tech (No. 35 Draft prospect)
Brady Ballinger, INF, Kansas (No. 59 Draft prospect)
Trey Beard, LHP, Florida State (No. 64 Draft prospect)
Eric Becker, INF, Virginia (No. 21 Draft prospect)
Tyler Bell, INF, Kentucky (No. 22 Draft prospect)
Carson Bolemon, LHP/INF, Southside Christian (HS) (No. 7 Draft prospect)
Coleman Borthwick, RHP/INF, South Walton (HS) (No. 23 Draft prospect)
Drew Burress, OF, Georgia Tech (No. 5 Draft prospect)
Roch Cholowsky, INF, UCLA (No. 1 Draft prospect)
Derek Curiel, OF, LSU (No. 6 Draft prospect)
Daniel Cuvet, INF, Miami (No. 67 Draft prospect)
Jason DeCaro, RHP, North Carolina (No. 87 Draft prospect)
Evan Dempsey, RHP/OF, FGCU
Hunter Elliott, LHP, Ole Miss
Grady Emerson, INF, Fort Worth Christian (HS) (No. 2 Draft prospect)
Casan Evans, RHP, LSU
Harrison Feinberg, OF, Northeastern
Jackson Flora, RHP, UC Santa Barbara (No. 14 Draft prospect)
Cameron Flukey, RHP, Coastal Carolina (No. 9 Draft prospect)
Henry Ford, INF/OF, Tennessee (No. 58 Draft prospect)
Gabe Gaeckle, RHP, Arkansas (No. 24 Draft prospect)
Gavin Gallaher, INF, North Carolina (No. 92 Draft prospect)
A.J. Gracia, OF, Virginia (No. 15 Draft prospect)
Chris Hacopian, INF, Texas A&M (No. 16 Draft prospect)
Jake Hanley, INF, Indiana
Ryder Helfrick, C, Arkansas (No. 29 Draft prospect)
Aidan King, RHP, Florida
Ethan Kleinschmit, LHP, Oregon State (No. 65 Draft prospect)
Aidan Knaak, RHP, Clemson (No. 71 Draft prospect)
Vahn Lackey, C/INF, Georgia Tech (No. 12 Draft prospect)
Tommy LaPour, RHP, TCU (No. 61 Draft prospect)
Justin Lebron, INF, Alabama (No. 3 Draft prospect)
Mulivai Levu, INF, UCLA (No. 94 Draft prospect)
Kade Lewis, INF, Wake Forest (No. 74 Draft prospect)
Jacob Lombard, INF, Gulliver Schools (HS) (No. 4 Draft prospect)
Maddox Molony, INF, Oregon (No. 49 Draft prospect)
Lucas Moore, OF, Louisville (No. 82 Draft prospect)
Blake Morningstar, RHP, Wake Forest (No. 86 Draft prospect)
Ethan Norby, LHP, East Carolina (No. 70 Draft prospect)
Jack Ohman, RHP, Yale
Ricky Ojeda, LHP, UC Irvine (No. 99 Draft prospect)
Liam Peterson, RHP, Florida (No. 13 Draft prospect)
Tony Pluta, RHP, Arizona
Ace Reese, INF, Mississippi State (No. 18 Draft prospect)
Chris Rembert, INF/OF, Auburn (No. 25 Draft prospect)
Gio Rojas, LHP/UTL, Stoneman Douglas (HS) (No. 8 Draft prospect)
Zion Rose, OF, Louisville (No. 27 Draft prospect)
Sawyer Solitaria, UTL, Kent State
Caden Sorrell, OF, Texas A&M (No. 20 Draft prospect)
Sawyer Strosnider, OF, TCU (No. 10 Draft prospect)
Carson Tinney, C, Texas
Dylan Volantis, LHP, Texas, SEC
Mackenzie Wainwright, OF, Lenoir-Rhyne
Dax Whitney, RHP, Oregon State
Andrew Williamson, OF, UCF (No. 89 Draft prospect)