White Sox weigh three candidates for No. 1 MLB draft pick

The White Sox have narrowed the No. 1 pick in the 2026 MLB draft to three players, and the choice carries more weight than a typical top selection for a club still digging out from two brutal seasons. Chicago won the pick in MLB’s fourth annual draft lottery in Orlando on Dec. 9, 2025, after a 102-loss season in 2025 and an MLB-record 121-loss season in 2024.

The final decision is centered on UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky, Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey and Texas high school shortstop Grady Emerson. White Sox vice president of amateur scouting Mike Shirley said the debate between Cholowsky and Emerson is real, and that the Lackey conversation remains active “up to the minute.” The club is still weighing ceiling against certainty, but it has signaled that it wants the best player available rather than taking a shortcut to fit a current major-league need.

That choice is complicated by the economics of the top of the draft. Chicago’s bonus pool sits at $17,592,100, and the No. 1 slot carries a slotted bonus of $11,350,600. That gives the White Sox room to maneuver later in the draft, but it also makes the opening pick a centerpiece decision for a franchise trying to balance talent, timing and how quickly help might reach Chicago.

The public scouting case has shifted over the spring. Emerson, a Texas prep shortstop, closed ground on Cholowsky after a strong senior season, while Cholowsky’s bat kept him firmly in the conversation after he hit .320 with 21 home runs in his junior year at UCLA. Shirley has also called Lackey a “supreme catcher who could define the position,” giving the Georgia Tech backstop a legitimate path to the top spot if Chicago wants a different kind of certainty behind the plate.

There is no obvious consensus beyond the White Sox’s own room. Industry opinion has narrowed the race to Cholowsky and Emerson, with Lackey viewed by some evaluators more as a contingency option. Some scouts outside the top 10 have also had college pitcher Jackson Flora and high school shortstop Jacob Lombard among their own top three, underscoring how unsettled the board still is.

For Chicago, the pick also carries historical weight. The White Sox have selected first overall only twice before, taking Danny Goodwin in 1971 and Harold Baines in 1977. Baines eventually reached the Hall of Fame, and the franchise now needs this choice to fit a rebuild that is already moving toward a more competitive phase, with a big-league arrival timeline around 2027 for the player taken at No. 1. The 2026 draft begins Saturday in Philadelphia as part of All-Star Game festivities, and the White Sox enter it with the rare leverage that comes from owning the first pick outright.