As the calendar gets ready to turn to May, the Draft buzz is starting to grow louder. And we’re leaning into it with an updated and expanded Draft Top 150. With two-plus months left before the 2026 Draft gets underway in Philadelphia, there’s a ton of movement on every team’s boards.
Area scouts are going back for another look or checking out a newer name that’s popped up. Crosscheckers and scouting directors are running around the country trying to figure out how to line things up. Our new list reflects, as best as it can given how many disparate opinions on players are out there, where the scouting industry as a whole is as of right now. It’s a snapshot, and we’ll be back with an expansion to 200, and then to 250, while re-ordering as we get more intel from out in the field.
2026 MLB Draft presented by Nippon Express
July 11-12:
One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is who is at the very top of the list. That spot is still occupied by UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky. And No. 2 is still held by Texas prepster Grady Emerson. Our first mock draft of the spring is coming next week, but while there’s plenty of talk about the White Sox, who hold the top pick, heavily scouting players like Emerson and others, there’s no reason to think right now that anyone but Cholowsky ends up going No. 1.
The Top 10:
1. Roch Cholowsky, SS, UCLA
2. Grady Emerson, SS, Fort Worth Christian HS, Texas
3. Vahn Lackey, C, Georgia Tech
4. Jackson Flora, RHP, UC Santa Barbara
5. Justin Lebron, SS, Alabama
6. Eric Booth Jr., OF, Oak Grove HS, Miss.
7. Jacob Lombard, SS, Gulliver Prep, Fla.
8. Drew Burress, OF, Georgia Tech
9. Sawyer Strosnider, OF, Texas Christian
10. Gio Rojas, LHP, Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS, Fla.
Complete list »
“There are a few names that wouldn’t shock me to be in the top three to five picks, but after that it’s way more jumbled up,” one American League scouting director said, pointing to a general lack of separation at the top of the class.
Many evaluators see a clear top two, with Cholowsky and Emerson giving off a bit of an Adley Rutschman-Bobby Witt Jr. vibe, circa 2019. Then there might be some general agreement about who belongs in the next few slots, albeit in different orders. Talking to teams picking later on in the round and you get the sense that things are far from clear.
“It makes it difficult to separate the players after the first few premium guys,” the AL scouting director said. “It’s going to be hard to line them up in an exact order.”
“The Draft class is deep but lacks the consensus at the top,” an NL scouting director said. “It’s not like, say, the 2023 Draft with [Paul] Skenes, [Dylan] Crews, [Wyatt] Langford, [Walker] Jenkins and [Max] Clark [the clear top five].”
At first glance, it looks like the college hitter demographic -- typically seen as the safest -- is very strong, with five of the top 10 coming from this pool. But after Cholowsky at the very top, and Lackey, who has really stepped up, there aren’t as many slam dunks as evaluators would like to see.
“I think there are some talented players, but not as many warm and fuzzy types in the first round,” the AL scouting director said. “It’s a different shape to it. A lot of them at the top have averages that aren’t typical for the top college bats.”
Case in point: Lebron has tools, but he’s hitting .264; Strosnider is at .280; Chris Hacopian, at No. 12, is under .300. Even Burress, who is hitting .365, has questions about his power output, which is way down compared to last year. The AL scouting director is a bit more bullish about the prep bat crop, led by Emerson, with four in the top 10 overall and good depth beyond that.
“There are some exciting talents in the quantity of interesting prospects,” he said. “Sorting them out comes down to which strengths you’re most excited about and which weaknesses are most conducive to improvement.”
High school pitching is always considered to be the highest-risk demographic, and there are some teams who won’t go near it, at least not in the opening round. There’s not a ton at the very top -- Rojas is the only one in the top 10. But it gets stronger as you move down the list. There are nine prep pitchers in the top 50, and six of them appear from No. 24 on after the top three southpaws -- Rojas, Carson Bolemon at 17, and pop-up sensation Brody Bumila at 22 -- are ranked. The NL scouting director identified the two high school buckets as the strength of the class, and the AL director concurred, especially regarding the arms.
“I’d be surprised if the industry didn’t consider this a strength,” the AL scouting director said. “It goes well beyond the arms you would put in the top five or 10. It’s almost hard to figure out where to focus the attention in such a deep and diverse class.”
So deep, the director predicts, that there won’t be enough spots to take all of the intriguing options, especially when some teams are more risk-averse than others.
“I would project that it will be a good college pitching class in a few years because some of these pitchers will matriculate to college,” he said. “There will be some fallout with not enough money to go around and some teams not wanting to go that route.”
Of the four quadrants of the Draft class, the college arms are the ones that have not risen to the occasion. College starters always float up if they perform, but outside of Flora at No. 4, few have stepped up to even be considered first-rounders. Cameron Flukey (No. 13) has enough time to show he’s OK post-injury to potentially join Flora in the top 10, but UCLA’s Logan Reddemann, who has made the biggest leap of anyone by going from unranked on the Top 100 last winter to No. 20 overall, is the only other college pitcher in the top 30.
“We should be getting used to the attrition rate [among college pitchers],” the AL director said. “It’s harder than ever to go wire to wire, from preseason top pitching prospect to the end. Things change quickly.”
Overall, there’s still a lot to be determined for this Draft. With so few players locked in place, a lot is going to change between now and July. Scouts might prefer a little less uncertainty, but hey, at least it won’t be dull.
“The first round looks wide open at this point,” the NL director said. “The guys that were supposed to perform have just been OK, and there have been some other guys that have performed their way into the conversation. It’s been pretty volatile to be honest. Nothing is off the table or would be surprising in my mind at this point.”